This week the Carnival of the Mobilists – the weekly line-up of the best blogs and bloggers on all things mobile – comes to us via Andy Favell over at MobiThinking, a valuable resource with a good selection of mobile advertising stats, reports and white papers. Between Andy’s outreach for old and new Mobilists to submit posts –and my eager tweets (@COTMobilists) encouraging more people to get involved – the COM attracted a whopping 40+ submissions(!). Thanks to Andy for his extra attention to collecting and ranking posts leaving us with the 10+ posts that made the grade.

AMONG THE HIGHLIGHTS:

• What makes a book a book? Does the iPad potentially change all the rules? What is the impact on how teens and kids interact with information? Read this post from new member Peta Andersen and find out.
• What are the key mobile healthcare companies, projects and takeaways from Mobile World Congress? The 3G Doctor, David Doherty, gives us a worthwhile roundup.
• Mobile banking and payments are the focus of several posts this week. From the proper design to the importance of partnerships to the inside story on a trial of contactless payments (NFC) in Canada. It’s all here – so read on and find out.
• Why is Apple determined not to support Flash? What is the link with differentiation? Francisco Kattan connects the dots, so read on and find out.

HELP MAKE THE MOBILISTS MORE SOCIAL

And now…a shout to the Mobilists and mobile enthusiasts for help to make the COM more interactive and – ultimately – more exciting.

As regular readers know I coordinate the COM, updating the host schedule, promoting submissions in a weekly summary post on MSG and over at the Mobilists and tweeting to inform the community that was begun by Russell Buckley (blogger at MobHappy and AdMob Vice President, Global Alliances) some five years ago.

And that’s the problem.

Five years ago social media and Wikis were the exception, not the rule. As a result, the Mobilist site (a WP site, by the way) is in need of a revamp.

During yesterday’s a brainstorming session with Russell, we identified some simple improvements that would yield tremendous results.

1. The tools allowing regular Mobilists to create and update their own page, linking to their blog and generally telling us their interests, passions and talents.
2. The software to develop real forum for discussion at the site and allow members to connect or just say what’s on their mind.
3. A way to bring our outdated Google Groups into the present, making it easier and more intuitive for members and hosts to email all the members and put out the word for blog submissions, ideas, input – the works!
4. Anything I left out? Well, contact me to put it on the list.

But the blueprint for change is just the start. With this post I formally start the search for a developer who can donate some time to help the Mobilists identify and implement the plug-ins etc… that will allow us to truly be a community.

If you would like to take on this task and help out our community, then contact me directly (peggy@msearchgroove.com).

Next week COM #215 stops at Mjelly – so submit your posts by the weekend. (Find out how to submit your posts here).

Tags: AdMob, Apple, cloud computing, contactless payments, Flash, Google, iPad, iPhone, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Health, mobile healthcare, Mobile Internet, Mobile payment, NFC

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 4:46 pm and is filed under Carnival Of The Mobilists, Mobile Advertising. 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.