UPDATE: Today is the last day to register and get one of my specially discounted VIP passes.

Here’s a link that will take you straight there: https://www.openmobilesummit.com/lon/register/step1.aspx?dc=MSEARCHVIP

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Now in its second year the Open Mobile Summit (May 26-27, London) covers all the bases to again set the bar. I attended and spoke at this exceptional event last June and was struck by to things: the sold-out crowd and the balanced mix of speakers and authorities from companies and organizations across the entire ecosystem.

Doing business (and making money) in an Open Mobile world will require new thinking and business models. The caliber (and variety) speakers my esteemed colleague, Robin Batt, Open Mobile Media Founder & Executive Producer, has brought together for this purpose will undoubtedly deliver the audience some answers.

This is not just another mobile conference; it’s an industry happening – which is why MSG is extremely proud to be a media sponsor. It’s rare to find such an impressive gathering of thought leaders in such an intimate setting, and I look forward to connecting with this year’s speakers (participants include Spotify, Gowalla, Admob, Ogilvy, AKQA, Yahoo, the BBC, Google, BSkyB, MTV, FT.com, Opera, Vodafone, O2, HTC, Nokia and more – and all at the top executive level.

It’s just four weeks away and there are limited seats remaining, so you should register now.

MSG has 5 guest passes at just GBP850 (retail GBP1395). If you’d like one, register here with VIP code MSEARCHVIP . https://www.openmobilesummit.com/lon/register/ (First come, first served.)

WHY ATTEND

Whether you’re a start-up or a media giant, Internet company or mobile operator, ad agency or software company, mobile and Internet convergence presents a huge opportunity. Over two days the Open Mobile Summit provides participants a clear vision of how the industry will evolve in the next 12-18 months, which – in our fast moving space – is invaluable.

At the Open Mobile Summit you can:

• Understand the business drivers of all the players in this fast converging ecosystem – the key to finding a successful business model for your services
• Explore all the hot topics –mobile advertising, the future of search and discovery on mobile, the role location and social, content monetization models and mobile payments, apps in the cloud vs. the mobile Web and the impact of the iPad, to name a few
• Do business with all the influential people –operators, handset manufacturers, Internet and media giants, agencies, software and application start-ups
• Meet with me (a little humor here, of course)

So, register as soon as possible to ensure your place – if you’re quick, you might get one of my specially discounted VIP passes.

Here’s a link that will take you straight there: https://www.openmobilesummit.com/lon/register/step1.aspx?dc=MSEARCHVIP

Smartphones now account for one out of every seven phones, and Nielsen says that Blackberry gained the most smartphone market share during the period, up five points to 19 percent. Nokia’s woes continued, with its share of the total UK market down 7 percent to 44 percent. Source

The bottom line: If only 20 percent of UK mobile users are getting online with their phones, there’s still a lot of growth left in that market for content providers and mobile marketers.

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ONE IN SIX HANDSETS WILL HAVE NFC FUNCTIONALITY BY 2014, according to Juniper Research, as use spreads outside of Japan. The company says that in five years, the value of transactions processed over NFC worldwide will exceed $110 billion, with mobile payments and retail applications (such as coupons) the most widely used applications, though ticketing (such as for public transport) will also play a roll in pushing the rollout. Source

The bottom line: It seems like we’ve been waiting on NFC for a long time, and in the west, it’s never moved much past the trial stage and isn’t readily available in handsets. That’s one problem, but another is the cost of POS equipment for retailers, who won’t want to shell out for readers and other gear unless there’s really something valuable in it for them.

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CONSUMERS WHO RESPOND TO MOBILE MARKETING ARE MORE AVID USERS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES, says a new report from BIGresearch, and tend to be young men, the company says. It also adds that since its last study of US consumers in 2008, the percentage of people who don’t like to get SMS ads (66.8 percent), as well as the percentage of people who believe marketers need permission before sending mobile ads (58 percent), have increased. Source

The bottom line: With two-thirds of people saying they don’t like text ads, and almost 60 percent saying there needs to be opt-in, one message is clear: sending out blanket text ads (especially without permission) isn’t an effective use of mobile marketing.

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DESPITE THE MOBILE’S CONNECTION TO USER-GENERATED CONTENT, people prefer to watch professional video content on their handsets, according to research from Real Networks. It says that while YouTube is the most popular UGC video site on mobile, it’s eclipsed by content from pros (at least in the US), such as NBC, Fox, The Weather Channel, MTV, Comedy Central and ESPN.(Source: a Real Networks “mini-bulletin email)

The bottom line: One possible explanation for this is that users on mobile are task-focused: that is, they want to see what the weather is going to be, or they want to see a certain sports clip, and the professional content is better for that than something like YouTube. Also, the browsing and finding experience of the professionally curated content may be simpler than with many UGC sites on mobile. Or, it could simply be that many of these professional channels are accessed through a carrier portal, so they’re more prominent to users, or may work more reliably than some UGC sites.