Summer is slow? Think again! I’ve attended a string of speaking engagements and industry conferences – a tour that will wrap up (at least for a little while) at Mobile Europe 2.0 next week in Barcelona. I have made many valuable contacts over the last weeks – and you can count on a series of exclusive interviews and podcasts on MSG and our partner site AltSearchEngines once the dust has settled. A highlight was the Visiongain Mobile Content Awards (MCA) last week in London. Today, the organizers contacted me for comment and issued a press release with my observations and a complete list of the winners. BTW: This was the first conference where I was required to be a one-man show, serving as chairwoman during the day and MC in the evening- so it was an event to remember indeed! Above all it was great fun – and my thanks to everyone who attended. Check out the Flickr photos here.

A special thanks to George Yaryura, Strategic Marketing Manager, Netsize, who helped me present the awards and brought enough copies of the Netsize Guide for everyone. It’s an invaluable resource and mobile industry almanac packed with the data and events that made 2007. (You can download it on MSG by clicking the top left-hand flash ad.) I collaborated with Netsize on the 290+ page tome, but even if I hadn’t I would still urge you to download it.

I was fortunate to sit at a great table with Bango, which also received the award for the Best Contribution for Mobile Content, and Tony Keaveny, Head of Sales UK at SnapNow, a cool camera search service I very much look forward to showcasing on MSG in the coming weeks. Ditto for Cellent, one of the few companies that “gets” the power of recommendations. Thanks to James Hales, Cellent VP, Business Development, I’ll have a great case study involving Sony BMG.

Happy coincidence: I already recorded a great podcast with NewBay CEO Paddy Holahan – and owe a lot to Amanda Campbell, NewBay Marketing Executive, who helped make it happen. (NewBay won silver for the category Best Handset App.) BuzzCity won gold for the category Best Progress in Emerging Markets. I’m proud to report BuzzCity CEO, KF Lai, has also consented to a podcast for MSG, only closer to a big announcement – so watch this space…

The Winners’ Circle:

Best Entertainment / Information Service

Twistbox – Gold

Omnifone- Silver

ShoZu- Bronze

Best Handset Application

Garmin- Gold

NewBay Software- Silver

XS 2TheWorld- Bronze

Best Progress in Emerging Markets

Buzz City – Gold

TaTa Communications- Silver

Thomson Reuters- Bronze

Award for Best Technology Innovation

InfoGin- Gold

Cellent Technologies- Silver

dotMobi – Bronze

Best Start-Up Company

CanvasM Technologies – Gold

DeviceAnywhere – Silver

cVidya Networks – Bronze

Best Advertising or Marketing Campaign

Buongiorno – Gold

M Factory – Silver

Rhythm Media – Bronze

Award for Enriching Search & Discovery

Bytemobile- Gold

Medio System- Silver

SnapNow- Bronze

Most Innovative Business Model

Camsense – Gold

Spin3 – Silver

Picsel Technologies Ltd – Bronze

Overall winner: Best Contribution for Mobile Content

Bango – Gold

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS:

The MCA conference was also chock-full of worthwhile presentations and revealing stats, and I will summarize these and more when I return from Brussels later this week. In fact, I’m currently working on a detailed post/analysis of what was by far the high point of the sessions: A controversial presentation from Andrew Bud, mBlox CEO, arguing sender-pays data can reinvigorate the mobile industry.

In his view, the mobile content industry has become old and stale. (Ringtones and wallpapers? Been there, done that…) The next big (and profitable) thing is rich media in the form of video shorts.

The reasoning: Content, advertising and everything in between can only capture eyeballs, imaginations and wallets if it is presented as rich media. So, don’t bet the farm on the appeal of banner ads and text. Retail 101 dictates that effective advertising must grab our attention, excite our emotions, and inspire an impulse buy. Mobile advertising – alone, in search results or tucked in our ad-funded content offers — does none of the above on mobile, which is why the major brands are not rushing to embrace it…

If video covers the bases – then why can’t content companies give it away? The costs are prohibitive. Flat-rate data rates offer some relief, but even they indirectly require consumers to pay for a supply of ad-funded rich media content. It’s a raw deal that is unacceptable.

Andrew’s novel solution: Sender-pays data. In this scenario, the brand buys delivery data from the operator and, hence, no consumer pays transport charges. Mobile operators also benefit from a sender-pays model because they receive revenue on all ads – including off-portal.

I’ll have more on this model – as well as a surprising new study that proves operators can make billions by providing value-added and enabling services (translated: sender-pays data) to off-portal publishers – later this week. Sender-pays…You can bet it will pay dividends.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 9:42 pm and is filed under Content Discovery, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Content, Mobile Research, Mobile Search, Mobile Social Networking, Multimodal Search, On-Device Portals, Personalization, Recommendation, Usability, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.