Velti » mobilegroove

A quick roundup of M-Days insights and highlights. Companies mentioned include: Ahead of Time, Rubberduck Media Labs, Service2Media, Out There Media, Fishlab Entertainment, Southend United Football Club, Fjord, Farm Town, Exbiblio, Gedda-Headz, Lufthansa and Velti.

I'm back and settled from M-Days in

In brief: An analysis of what Blyk's partnership with Vodafone Netherlands really means, an exclusive Q&A with Blyk co-founder and CEO, Pekka Ala-Pietilä, and some big questions mobile operators can't ignore: Why is advertising the major revenue source for every mass media except mobile? And how do operators plan to compete with media and Internet companies to capture the most value in mobile media? It's been a bit quiet at MSG as I finalize the plans and partnerships that will transform MSG into a media company and lay the groundwork for an ambitious mobile marketing publishing project that has already earned the endorsement of several major industry organizations. (More in a press release soon via RealWire, a global news release distribution service and MSG partner that, like the online media industry that is its focus, is always-on, always-connected and always professional, which is why I can recommend them so highly.) But I couldn't end the week without posting an analysis of the exciting (but not unexpected) news from Blyk, combination mobile engagement media company, mobile advertising startup and MVNO, that it had signed an deal with to roll out its branded service in partnership with Vodafone Netherlands and to share revenues with the operator. Connect the dots, and Blyk has executed on the game-changing strategy that Antti Öhling, Blyk co-founder and CEO U.K., outlined in May in this exclusive Q&A. In it he provides solid logic for "making the switch" from MVNO (a model he called a "proof of concept") to youth engagement media. The reasons range from scale and speed (both accelerated through partnership with operators) to the ones that matter most to advertisers: reach and engagement.

Fresh from Mobile World Congress (MWC), and energized with ideas, insights, and a slew of exclusive interviews. I'm also inspired by the positive response to the Netsize Guide 2009, a comprehensive mobile almanac I wrote that has already been downloaded a whopping 2,000+ times since it formally launched last Tuesday during MWC. Some of you twittered that you had difficulty downloading the 360-page tome, but those issues have since been resolved. It seems that no one expected so many people to access the guide over such a short period of time. Another surprise, numerous requests during the launch party for me to autograph copies. We captured it all on film as the MSG team - coordinated by our own Stuart Willett - was on-location conducting interviews with a who's who of attendees including Blinck, Irdeto, T-Mobile Hungary, Universal McCann, Velti, YouTube, and Zed. A special treat for me: Connecting with Thomas Husson, Forrester Senior Analyst, and a colleague whom I highly respect.