MSearchGroove

In addition to clearing out my land-fill inbox and catching up on posts at the Carnival of Mobilists (insightful writing has a long shelf-life), I have put aside some time this week to prepare for the social media panel which I’ve been asked to moderate at Mobile 2.0, a sold-out event sure to bring together the best and brightest in the mobile space. (Well, there are a few tickets left, and you can buy them here.)

Of all the conferences I’ve attended - or had the honor to sponsor as a media partner - this one has my adrenalin flowing. The calibre of the some 150 companies attending - several just coming out of stealth mode - plus the mix of investors, developers, operators, and technologists, makes this a must-attend event. Kudos to Rudy De Waele, Co-founder dotopen / mTrends, and the Mobile 2.0 Organizing Committee for a job well done, and thanks again for inviting me.

My panel brings together Tommy Ahlers, CEO ZYB; Charlie Schick, Editor-in-Chief for Nokia Conversations; Doug Richards, CEO Trutap; Antonio Vince Staybl, CEO Itsmy.com (GoFresh); and Alex Romero, Director Partnerships, Yahoo! Connected Life Europe. To make sure we cover all the hot topics I’ve reached out to each participant for their no holds barred pick of trends and rants. These have been some lively and surprising conversations indeed!

Vince is convinced advertising in its present form - a retrofit of the banners and text links we know from the Internet - is doomed to fail. Mobile communities need new approaches - but first they need a compelling reason to access the Web on their mobile devices. Capture and share is close, but no cigar…

Doug at Trutap honed in on another pet peeve: the devices, the mobile operators, and the ecosystem (or lack there of). Monetization won’t /can’t happen until the industry has a platform. This is one reason why Trutap has a client. “We can’t do what we want to in the mobile Web.” The irony: We may need more control to get to the open Web. Apple is a control-freak, but the experience delivers. Likewise, DoCoMo demanded a center spot in the value web it created. However, i-mode grew into a platform that could sustain a healthy ecosystem of content owners, software developers, and service providers.

In Doug’s view, peace will break out and the ecosystem will flourish once mobile operators wake up to their pivotal importance as a service provider for application companies. “They have a billing system tied to a Web services environment that they can offer at a profit to independent software developers.” Clever operators could make even more money if they productized their capabilities to offer value-add in the form of location data, additional promotion and marketing muscle and “added discoverability.” Hmmm… Shop owners “sell” product placement on their shelves, so it makes sense for operators (who are content retailers) to market top notch spot on idle screens or in portal menus.

Charlie at Nokia Conversations, a strong voice in the social media space, spoke out on the pseudo-topics that dominate the discussion - and shouldn’t. Is mobile or the PC the proper medium for social media? We don’t even need to ask.

As he put it: “The mobile is the ultimate social networking tool. You have an address book built-in, which is a social network in its most basic form.”

Charlie also gave me a high-level view of the social media space and the inside track on the trends he thinks matter. If we look back in the social media continuum, 2006 was the year of content aggregation (as we explored and enjoyed all the content, streams, feeds available); 2007 was the year of distribution via the likes of Twitter; and this year is marked by a growing interest in lifestreaming.

Look for 2009 to be the year we get to grips with all the streams and the relationships we have created with our content. “It will be about how we leverage all these streams, how to deal with all these streams, because a lot more of us are liferecording. We have created our stuff and now we will want to know what other people are doing as well - and combine the two.”

This sets the stage for a new interest in “how we can tag, organize and visualize these streams.” We’ll also likely see more interest in contributing back to the conversation.

However, services, such as Friendfeed, that some argue effectively fragment the conversation, may be more a barrier than a boon to the next wave of social media. Charlie’s position: My philosophy is let the things [content/streams] be where they are and let the people interact with what they have agreed to interact with where they have agreed [to interact with it]. If the focus is contributing back to the conversation then we need to contribute back to where the things are happening; not fragmenting the conversation to pop it on my pages [blog].”

This was my first exchange with Charlie - but it certainly won’t be the last. We are discussing posting, pointing and linking between our blogs. I’ll keep you posted and look forward to keeping the MSG community abreast of developments and discussions at Conversations Nokia. You can check out the blog here.

I have the two final briefings scheduled for tomorrow and then it’s off to Barcelona until Saturday. If you want to meet-up, catch-up or just get acquainted, then please reach out to me directly at peggy@msearchgroove.com, or schedule a briefing with my PA Andrea Henninge (andrea@msearchgroove.com). It’s unlikely I’ll blog from the event; I’m more focused on hearing presentations, connecting with startups and enjoying the day. Speakers are invited to a wonderful dinner followed by a TechCruch mixer on the beach, so there will be lots of new companies to showcase on MSG. (In fact, Rudy is supportive of my plan to profile cool companies on MSG and provide startups a platform from which they can address the investors and the mobile industry at large. Yes, these are exciting times!)

• Posted in
• Location-based services, Web 2.0, Mobile Social Networking, Personalization, Content Discovery

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