Heroes of the Mobile Screen – 7 Dec 09 at the BFI Southbank, London

Some of you may be wondering what I’ve been up to of late. Well, if you have, then I can reveal to you that I’ve been working on a new conference, Heroes of the Mobile Screen, which is on next month on 7 December at the rather wonderful BFI on London’s Southbank. And I’d love for you to spread the word (like our wonderful media partners), buy tickets and join the conversation.

The team behind the conference, Isabel Fox, Neil Robertson, Carlo Longino, Dominic Travers and yours truly are also involved in running Mobile Monday London, Swedish Beers Mobile Networking, Future of Mobile, Over The Air, Mobile 2.0 and Tech Media Invest events amongst other things.

The day-long event at BFI Southbank will differ from anything else around (at least that’s what we’re aiming for) and get the stakeholders of mobile involved in discussing the issues affecting them and their customers. Uniquely the event also has teenagers on stage to tell the industry what they want from their mobile, what they expect from their network operators and what’s most important to them in terms of their mobile life.

Heroes of the Mobile Screen is already attracting a number of high calibre ‘heroes’ with speakers and panellists answering the call from around the world, including Kei Shimada, JP Rangaswami and Kevin Banks, Belinda Parmar, Julia Shalet, Doug Richard and Harald Neidhardt are all confirmed. The speakers are listed here and the agenda can be found here.

Heroes of the Mobile Screen opens with a keynote from Kei Shimada sharing his experience of what’s happening in Japan and what we can learn from that here in the West. And continues with four core pillars supporting discussion throughout the day.

The money
What's making money, who's making money and what's being invested in and where the money's going to be in the future? The answers to all the questions we want to ask of successful mobile service providers and VCs.

The impact of social/location
What is the impact of social media and location technology? What do customers want, what are the business models, what are the solutions to privacy issues. Carriers are placing their bets in this area, but will they pay off?

Teenage heroes
Led by digital youth marketing expert Julia Shalet, this is a new format where we invite four companies to pitch their product, service or device live on stage to six teenagers and they tell us what they really think.

Real customers, real applications, real marketing
A double session with the first half covering customers and what they really want on mobile with a focus on women in particular with some new research and insight into what women want from Belinda Parmar of Lady Geek. The second half will cover mobile marketing and advertising, what's working, what's not and what's coming next.

I came up with idea around the event because we realised that most of the events I attend throughout the year all talk around the same subjects, with the same people and bring up the same issues, without resolution. It’s time for us to stop talking to ourselves, look out beyond our industry and make some changes for the better. I believe it’s important to engage our colleagues in marketing, web 2.0 and media as well as more of our mobile colleagues from throughout the value chain. The exciting stuff is going to happen when industries cross over – that’s where the innovation is. In putting the agenda together, we believe we have something that will appeal to a wide audience – whether you’re a director of marketing for an FMCG brand or a web developer toying with the idea of developing apps for android or iphone.  And to do that, we need to share real customer insight that we can use to make ours and others mobile lives better.

Tickets are now available online now for £99 (ex VAT and booking fee) at http://mobileheroes.net . We’ve kept the price deliberately low and it’s subsidised by sponsors who we’ll be able to announce shortly.

If you’re interested in sponsoring the event in some way, please get in touch with me via email.

If you’re interested in pitching your gadget, application or service to our teenagers, please email Dominic Travers to put your name forward.

We are keeping a waiting list for potential speakers and panellists. If you’d like to be considered, please contact me.

So get your tickets now and become a fan on Facebook or follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/hotms too.

Technorati Tags: conference,mobile monday,mobile monday london,events,london,mobile media,mobile marketing,mobile applications,mobile network operators,learning,networking

The Mobile Premier Awards opens – and there’s an award for female entrepreneurs

You might be familiar with the Global Peer Awards that Rudy de Waele has been running in partnership with Mobile Monday for the last few years in Barcelona. Well, he’s now extended the concept to include more networks, including the Women in Mobile Data Association (see us on Facebook and LinkedIn) and has launched The Mobile Premier Awards 2010 and it is now open for entries.

The Mobile Premier Awards recognize the year’s best in Mobile Start-up Innovation and are the largest open, global start-up competition in the mobile industry. The awards are the point of reference in start-up premiers during the Mobile World Congress on February 15, 2010 in Barcelona (yes, it’s nearly that time of year again) and are organized in collaboration with some of the main networks in the mobile industry.

We’re particularly excited about the award for female entrepreneurship… Anyway, more details about the whole shebang here. It’s free to enter and it seems to me to be exciting to be involved in it with both my Mobile Monday London hat and my Women in Mobile Data Association hat on. (Good job I like wearing hats eh).

The Mobile Premier Awards 2010 will include the following awards:

* MPA in Innovation - The best grassroots start-up innovation chosen by their peers in partnership with Mobile Monday. The Mobile Monday chapters will vote for their local most innovative start-up. An international jury of the most recognized mobile industry experts will select the 20 finalists from all the local chapter nominees to pitch at the event in Barcelona in front of investors, operators, media companies, peer entrepreneurs, and press and influential bloggers.

* MPA in Marketing - The best start-up in Mobile Marketing

* MPA in Entertainment - The best start-up in Mobile Entertainment in partnership with the Mobile Entertainment Forum

* MPA in User Experience - The best start-up in Mobile User Experience in partnership with MEX.

* MPA in Social Change - The best start-up using mobile for social change in partnership with Mobile Active.org

* MPA in Female Entrepreneurship - The best woman-led mobile start-up in partnership with Women2.0 and the Women in Mobile Data Association

Participation to these awards is free and open to any start-up with a mobile angle. Go to www.mobilepremierawards.com and take your chance to walk the red carpet in Barcelona!

Technorati Tags: mobile,women,wimd,women in mobile data,mobile peer awards,mobile premier awards,global peer awards,mobile monday,mobile monday london,mobile world congress,barcelona,start-up,entrepreneurship

The postal strike isn’t bad for everyone

In case you’re not from around these parts, the UK postal service is currently taking strike action across the UK in various degrees of seriousness. Of course there are two sides to every story and it’s not fair to blame the humble postie for what’s going on there. As I understand it, the postal service isn’t actually in decline but it’s busier than ever due to e-commerce and that’s why the postal workers don’t understand the cuts that are being made to the business and the subsequent changes to their working terms and conditions.

Anyway, the strike isn’t bad for everyone. Yes, it’s annoying not to get your birthday cards or letters from your loved ones but I can’t say I’m missing the bills and statements much. And it seems it’s not been a bad thing for Sharpcards either.

Sharpcards, the world’s largest provider of mobile ecards, reveal how during the recent postal crisis people have turned to its mobile ecards service as a way of getting in touch with loved ones.
Interestingly, since the postal strikes began they’ve seen:

•    A 103% increase in visitors using Sharpcards ecard mobile application
•    A 63% increase in unique buyers compared to the monthly average
•    The highest amount of traffic on the ecards service on 22nd October – the first day of the national postal strike.

And it’s not the first time the company has witnessed such an increase because of a disruption to the postal service. During the three-day London postal strike in July (8th, 9th and 10th), earlier this year, this is what they discovered:

•    An 82% growth in visitors using the mobile Sharpcards application
•    A 64% increase in unique buyers over that period compared to the monthly average.

Will Walsh, CEO of Sharpcards said: “Greeting cards help people to express themselves, show their love for someone and say something truly personal. In times like this when the ability to get that message across is restricted, people are recognising that they can do all this on their phones too.”

I think this shows that there is a move, in some circles, towards virtual greetings and virtual gifts in general which is going to be a good thing for companies like Little World Gifts too. It’s not going to be everyone’s thing for sure, but in an age when we’re conscious of climate change and being green coupled with the economic crisis, buying lots of ‘stuff’ to show your appreciation of a friend or loved one may be becoming passé and perhaps the virtual gift is the way forward? That said, I still like giving and receiving real presents too, although I do less of that now than I did when I was younger due to being strapped for time as much as anything. And I’m not sure a small child will appreciate a virtual card in the same way that they’d appreciate a cuddly toy. I suspect there’s room for both for some time to come yet.

Technorati Tags: virtual gifts,ecards,sharpcards,mobile,postal strike

It’s Wednesday, there must be mobile stuff to write about…

Whilst I have a bit of blogging mojo going on, best share a few links with you and why I think they’re worth a look.

There’s an app for that. Or so the saying now goes.

The English National Opera joins the iPhone bandwagon and have put together a rather nice mobile application for opera buffs. I would test it, but I don’t have an iPhone. But since iPhone apps are essentially skins to a browser it shouldn’t be *that* hard to make a mobile web friendly version. I await with anticipation. And if the ENO can do this, surely it can’t be long before the rest of the West End realise that mobile is core to their digital strategy. I live in hope being partial to live theatre ‘n all.

And for the tiny tots in your life, there’s an app for potty training too. Read all about it here.

And with 65k other applications in the iPhone app store, marketing is even more critical to get your app noticed and sold. So there are some tips in this article ‘How to get to number one in the App store’. My caveat being that there is more than one App store out there and there’s more than one device where you can use and download apps. Also, the article isn’t as in-depth as one might like, but it’s a start.

There’s another ‘top tips for the iPhone app store’ type article over at AdAge as well which is also worth a look. It includes a handy checklist which they expand on in the article:

1. Make it useful or entertaining.
2. Use an analytics tool.
3. Make your app free, at least initially.
4. Release your app midweek.
5. Promote it.
6. Make it social.
7. Collect feedback.
8. Refresh continuously

Where are the women in mobile? Well Mobile Marketer wants to know and are asking the mobile community to nominate some lady experts in mobile marketing in particular. Of course, they’re hot on the heels of Mobile Entertainment Magazine’s Top 50 Women in Mobile Content 2009 list (I’m thrilled to be in the ME list, 2nd year in a row no less, alongside some eminent colleagues and friends). My take on this is simple.

Tanla Mobile Marketing & Advertising Guide 2008

View more documents from Helen Keegan.

And last, but by no means least, I’ve uploaded The Tanla Guide to Mobile Marketing and Advertising 2008 I wrote up to Slideshare. I wrote and compiled it at the end of 2007 so it’s a little out of date, but there are enough case studies and examples to keep you going that are still more than relevant today. The guide also includes essays and articles from fellow mobilists including Tomi Ahonen, Russell Buckley, Jessica Sandin, Daniel Appelquist and Mike Short. The font size is miniscule so make sure you increase that before you print off or read off your screen. Go download it, it’s free!

Technorati Tags: iphone,app store,mobile marketing,mobile advertising,guide,opera,potty training,mobile internet,marketing campaign,marketing

Vote for your favourite start-up and help them win Vodafone Mobile Clicks

Some of you may know that I’ve been working with Vodafone UK & NL on the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition. I helped to organise it and was also one of the judges for the first heats.

We're now coming to  the end of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition now and we have our 6 finalists. They'll be off to PICNIC next week in Amsterdam to fight it out to win hard cash for their start-up. There's 150k Euros up for grabs so it's a tough one. And there are six excellent finalists to choose from too. It wasn’t easy to get to the final six, but we did. There are three finalists from the UK and three from the Netherlands and there are 3 cash prizes up for grabs out of a total prize fund of 150k Euros.

The jury for the final is Richard Titus, Lee Epting, Rudy de Waele, Vincent Everts & Heike Scholz.

But it's not just down to the jury. Mobile Monday London members have a part to play in the process too. There has already been public voting which closes this Friday which is open to anyone http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/vote/ but in addition, we have been asked to create a poll so you can choose your favourite start-up and who you would give a prize too. The votes from Mobile Monday London members will be weighted more heavily than the public vote, so your vote really does count.

I've opened up the poll over at Yahoo Groups (I couldn't find a better way to run it so that it was one vote per person). If you're not already signed up to our Mobile Monday London Yahoo Group, then please sign up and make sure you fill in the bit that says why you want to join the group so we know you're genuine.
Our friends at Mobile Monday Amsterdam are going through a similar process and have already been busy voting.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/momolondon/polls

There is just one vote so use it wisely, but please DO vote! The poll will be open for a week only and will close on 22nd September in advance of the finalists heading off to Amsterdam.

And in case you're wondering who the companies are and would like a bit more info, then here you go...

Woobius http://www.woobius.com/ (UK)
A service for the construction industry allowing them to collaborate by gathering all info & data in one place with access for the team. With the help of Woobius Eye for mobile, it is possible to solve problems & reduce build costs & the number of mistakes made.

Rummble http://www.rummble.com/ (UK)
A service that recommends content to the user, based on people with the same interests and hobbies. By sharing information and creating a trust network, the customer will get more interesting & relevant content.

Mobypicture http://www.mobypicture.com/ (NL)
Share photos, videos & audio with friends at social network sites like hyves, facebook and twitter with one press of a button.

Audioboo http://audioboo.fm/ (UK)
Directly record audio (eg interviews or quotes) & share it with social network sites like twitter and facebook. The last recorded, most popular and featured "boos" from the community can be played as well.

Layar http://layar.com/ (NL)
A browser that uses 'augmented reality' so a user can see what is in their surroundings by looking through the camera of their handset.

MyNameIsE http://www.mynameise.com/ (NL)
Connecting people on & offline by gathering their profiles on various social networks in one place. These can be shared in real life via mobile or bespoke device, The Connector.

Thanks everyone and please get voting!

Technorati Tags: Mobile Monday London,vote,Vodafone Mobile Clicks,competition,start-up,Rummble,Woobius,MobyPicture,Audioboo,Layar,MyNameIsE

Over The Air – two days of mobile goodness

After a short hiatus, Over The Air is on again this year. It’s a veritable 34-hour mobile fest starting on Friday 25th September at 9am at Imperial College, London. Proceedings close at 7pm on Saturday 26th September.

“Over the Air is a grass-roots mobile developer event that is completely unique in the mobile industry events calendar – it is free to attend, is hands-on in the style of hackdays and barcamps, covers the cutting edge of current mobile development (as opposed to glossy future-speak or sales-pitches), and features bean bags, a big party and an overnight sleep-over. There will also be a competition at the end of the event for the best categories of applications created during the event, with many great prizes.

This year’s programme is currently being put together, but will once again feature technical presentations, tutorials, workshops, and break-out rooms. Expect topics such as Open Source, Java, Symbian (Series-60), Mobile Web, Mobile Ajax, Android, Mobile Linux, iPhone, Windows Mobile, Blackberry, etc. If you would like to run a session at Over the Air, please take moment to fill in our session suggestion form ( http://bit.ly/ota2009session ). (I believe there may be a couple of slots left if you’re quick - ed.) The sessions will be 55 minutes in length and while the focus of the event is on mobile development, we are also accepting sessions on user experience and design and we are putting together some sessions on mobile art including (hopefully) a mobile film festival.”

This year’s sponsors are Betavine, Lonely Planet, OMTP, Forum Nokia, Yahoo! Developer Network.

There are still places left so do sign up and join the fun with fellow mobilists from the UK, Spain and beyond.

Technorati Tags: over the air,barcamp,hackday,mobile,mobile technology,imperial college,mobile monday london,mobile developer,mobile development,mobile applications,mobile internet

Everything you need to know about being a presenter or panellist

Well, almost everything you need to know at least. Here are some links to interesting blog posts and articles about being a presenter or panellist which some of you folks out there might find useful, regardless of whether you work in tech or fashion – these tips are all relevant for you.

How to write a successful speaking proposal

http://blog.web2expo.com/2008/04/how-to-write-a-successful-speaking-proposal/

Jeremiah Oywang – how to moderate a panel – a comprehensive guide (this is a *must read*)

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/01/30/how-to-successfully-moderate-a-conference-panel-a-comprehensive-guide/

Benjamin Ellis gives us tips on working more quickly…

http://redcatco.com/blog/productivity/why-dont-you-see-what-you-can-do-in-an-hour/

and how to write a speech in 5 minutes…

http://redcatco.com/blog/communication/how-to-write-a-speech-in-5-minutes/

and finally, a presentation checklist

http://redcatco.com/blog/communication/preparing-to-present-a-check-list-for-presenting-at-a-conference-or-large-event/

Technorati Tags: conference,speaking,speaker,events,panel moderation,writing a speech,presentation

Forum Oxford round-up

Apologies for not posting this up for absolutely ages. Even though it’s from back in April, I think it’s still worth a look.

I was invited to speak at the Forum Oxford annual event at the University of Oxford back in April and a very good day it was too. It’s always great to hang out with Tomi Ahonen anyway but on top of that, there were a great range of speakers and topics covered – probably ones that I wouldn’t normally be exposed to – and it was all the better for that.

Rather than rehashing the event here for you, I’ll share some links from other people who covered the event so you can experience a taste of it for yourself.

Martin Sauter from Wireless Moves gives a comprehensive round-up of the event here.

Jonathan Marks, the roving ForumOxford reporter compiled a series of videos about the event:

· Impressions from Forum Oxford 2009 (including a couple of soundbites from yours truly)

· Interview with Professor William Webb, Head of Research and Development at OFCOM

· Interview with Simon Cavill, Chief Technology Officer / Director of Strategy, Mi-Pay

· Interview with Graham Trickey, Senior Director, GSM Association

If you have still not joined ForumOxford, which is free by the way, click here for details (if prompted, use the enrolment key forumoxford)

Technorati Tags: ForumOxford,mobile,conference,tomi ahonen,ajit jaokar

Smaato Mobile Advertising Awards

Apologies for blog silence for the last few months. I’ve been busy twittering, but haven’t quite managed to write anything over 140 characters in length. Hopefully normal service will be resuming shortly.

Anyway, back to mobile business. My friends at Smaato have just announced their Mobile Advertising Awards and it looks pretty impressive to me. It’s the second year they’ve run it and entries are now open to find ‘the coolest ad-enabled mobile content on the planet.’

There are three categories – iPhone (inevitably), mobile website, and finally, mobile applications and games running on other platforms. It’s free to enter and there’s more info available on the Smaato website.

Smaato will invite the winners of each category to participate at next year’s Mobile World Congress, taking place in Barcelona, Spain in February 2010. In addition, they will also make a number of introductions for winners to VC's at partner level.
Additional prizes are: a booth at M-Days in Munich, Germany in January 2010, free tickets for Mobile World Congress, and many more.

The jury features a plethora of experienced mobilists and I’m quite sure they’ll have their work cut out for them with 100 or so entries for the first year’s awards. They’ll be looking at unique approach, traction in the marketplace, the idea itself, originality, company positioning and more.

The main prize of a presence at Mobile World Congress is not to be sniffed at so if you’re working in this area, I suggest you seriously think about entering. And if you do, good luck!

Technorati Tags: mobile,awards,mobile advertising,mobile web,iphone,mobile applications,mobile games,smaato,mobile world congress

Mobilists on twitter

Carl Martin has done a couple of interesting posts on why he follows mobile folks on twitter and he’s included me which is very sweet. I happen to follow a lot of these folks too, so if you’re in to twitter and mobile stuff, then these two posts are worth a look. And if you’d like to follow me, then you’ll find me here. I can’t promise that you’ll find me interesting, useful or entertaining mind you!

Blyk announces Vodafone as its exclusive partner in the Netherlands

I’ve just got this press release in from Blyk. I couldn’t see it on their website so I’m publishing it verbatim (something, I don’t usually do).

Aligned to its global expansion strategy, the mobile engagement media will launch its brand in the Netherlands in partnership with Vodafone

Helsinki, London and Amsterdam, 23 July 2009 – Blyk, the mobile engagement media, today announces Vodafone as its exclusive partner in the Netherlands.

The partnership between Blyk and Vodafone builds upon a relationship between the two companies, which started in 2008, with a view to expanding the Blyk brand. The partnership will bring the Blyk brand and media model to the Netherlands and it is aligned to both companies’ strategies for growth and leadership in mobile advertising.

“We’re extremely pleased to be extending our relationship with Vodafone. For Blyk, the partnership is part of a global strategy to bring scale and speed to our operations, while continuing to provide an innovative and valuable proposition for both consumers and advertisers. Together with Vodafone, we intend to build a game changing engagement media in the Dutch market.” says Blyk co-founder and CEO, Pekka Ala-Pietilä. “Our relationship will include a co-development of the consumer proposition for the Netherlands and audience management. Blyk will have responsibility for the advertising sales and technology.”

Eric Kip, Managing Director Blyk Netherlands, says: “The Netherlands has the third highest advertising spend per capita in Europe and is a hub for many global companies and ad agencies, so it is an obvious territory for Blyk’s expansion. The advertising market, whilst both creative and dynamic, is also cluttered and we believe youth brands will welcome a highly engaging communication channel like Blyk. We are confident that both Dutch advertisers and global advertisers will make use of Blyk’s unique ability to connect them with an important consumer segment.”

Links & a recommendation

I have way too many tabs open on more than one browser so it’s time to get through them and share them here with you.

Motorola goes carbon free with the Motorola Renew. I didn’t spot this when it was announced in January and since Climate Change is such a big deal then I think mobile phone companies (network operators and hardware manufacturers) will have to be more transparent over their green-ness. Recycling phones alone is not going to be enough.

An interesting essay on mobile widgets and their impact on our personal timelines and communications from mobile futurist Paul Golding.

Turkcell puts mobile marketing at the centre of its strategy. Here’s an explanation of Turkcell’s Tone ‘n Win from MobiadNews.

Videos of some of the sessions at the Nokia Summit that was on last week in Monaco.

The Gizmodo lowdown on the various mobile application stores, including iphone – essential reading for anyone venturing into distribution via any of the app stores. And if app stores are your thing, then there’s a comprehensive review of the Blackberry app store from Terence Eden. Meanwhile Urban Spoon, an iphone app, is acquired. And if that’s not enough for you, then Pinch Media shares some of its secrets regarding the iphone App Store.

Investment in digital infrastructure could save or create 700,000 jobs in the UK with links to the relevant reports via the LSE (that’s London School of Economics).

Vodacom Thumb Wars – a mobile reality series. Teams will travel across South Africa, relying on their wits, Vodacom’s advanced communication technologies and their Samsung mobile phones as they take part in the treasure hunt of a lifetime launching on 4th June. An interesting concept, but is this simply extreme product placement or engaging television?

Mobile web usage still on the rise according to Opera. [Well, I would hope so, we’ve barely even scratched the surface yet for mobile web usage bearing in mind the number of web-capable handsets out there.]

Had enough of reading blogs about mobile, then how about making some skittles vodka instead? Or I believe crushed fisherman’s friends mixed with chilled vodka is popular in Finland – what’s the name of the drink again?

Or if you’re suffering from hayfever, like I am, then I can highly recommend Luminescents very own Hayfever Relief tea. It is the proprietor’s own recipe and he blends it himself so it may not always be in stock. I bought some from his shop at Merton Abbey Mills and it’s been brilliant! I haven’t had to take any anti-histamines since I got it.

Technorati Tags: links,linkage,mobile web,iphone,mobile applications,app store,vodacom,turkcell,hayfever

Diabetes support via mobile phone

Diabetes, or at least, Type II diabetes seems to be an affliction of modern, sedentary life. It has very serious implications with heart and sight problems associated with it and a strict dietary and medical regime in order to regulate and manage it. A member of my family has Type II diabetes and the associated heart condition and mood swings as well as a plethora of drugs and blood testing paraphernalia. You never quite get used to seeing someone you love inject themselves with insulin. What it must be like to actually have diabetes, I can only imagine. And I only hope that it remains imagination with me and that I don’t succumb to it.

Anyway, the bright folks at Mobile Health Tech, a mobile healthcare service provider, has rolled out its first commercial trial of mPro Care at Clarkstown Medical Associates PC in New City, NY.

MPro Care is the first two-way mobile diabetes solution that provides automated reminders and accepts readings using standard mobile phones on all major U.S. service providers.

Diabetes patients text back their blood-sugar readings, which are captured and plotted on a patient diary card graph in a secure portal for online access by either patient or physician. Nifty.

mPro Care was developed to help improve patient medication and treatment compliance for improved health care outcomes and reduced cost of care for patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, coronary artery disease and hypertension, asthma and obesity.

More information about it in this article on Mobile Marketer.

I suspect many of these patients are in the latter halves of their lives so I hope that the people creating and running these services have taken that in to account. As a refresher, you may want to have a listen to this podcast of Dick Stroud’s session on marketing to the Over 50s.

Technorati Tags: diabetes,mobile,mobile health,text messaging

Today’s spammers are…

I don’t have time to name and shame all the email spam I get but I will continue to highlight a few in the hope that it might actually make a difference and make the industry sit up and take notice and change their ways of doing business and running campaigns. It feels like there is a complete disregard of consumers as *real* people. These companies are suffering from TDC, aka Thinly Disguised Contempt – often seen in retail environments but is now spilling over into digital. They seem to have forgotten that *data* isn’t just *data*. It is actually attached to someone real, with a heartbeat and thoughts and feelings and who is ‘not just a number’ or a record on the database. It’s not just about conversion rates and click throughs and a numbers game. This is about real live people. And these email spam companies are wasting real live people’s time, bandwidth and testing their patience.

So an update on Daily Picture / Mikkelsen Media. Their UK MD did call me an did apologise and did assure me I’d been taken off the database. He even rang me to check that I hadn’t got anything from them. So I thought, ok, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt…. And then today, they send me more junk email. If their systems are so broken that an email address cannot be removed from the database, they have no business in sending out any emails at all I would suggest.

And another new spammer on the list is Cabestan who allegedly do email campaigns for the likes of Symantec. Well they send me an email to a *completely made up address* today selling me life cover so this is very much a consumer-based service not a work-related one so consumer laws do apply as I understand it.

Here’s the small print from the email:

Click is a brand licensed to Castle Publicity International Ltd registered in Gibraltar, company registration number (84755) at 932 Europort. Click Financial Ltd is the service provider for Castle Publicity International Ltd. Click Financial Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority, registered number 311877. Registered in England and Wales at: Click House, Bear Lane, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 7LG. Registered Number: 04183791.
*Policies from £2.50 a month, premium subject to individual circumstances.

If you don't recognize who used the Cabestan UK service to send you a given message, you can report it to us as spam by sending it to abuse@cabestan.co.uk. We receive, investigate, catalog, and take action based on these complaints. If you're worried that we would simply "list wash" your address without further investigation, feel free to report the message to whatever spam reporting entity you feel most comfortable working with. Spamcop at www.spamcop.net provides an easy way to report unwanted mail as spam.

Interesting that they suggest I tell spamcop. I’ve emailed them and suggested reporting them to the Information Commissioner.

Spam, spam and more spam. Companies like these are spoiling it for legitimate email marketers and will ultimately make email marketing, and arguably email itself, a very unattractive proposition indeed.

Technorati Tags: spam,email spam,junk email,spammers,email marketing

Monday Morning linkage – 27 April 09

How to make money on the mobile internet – a presentation round up from Sergio Falletti’s session at The Mobile Internet Forum in Vienna.

Comprehensive case study from Guinness and their use of mobile marketing for the Hong Kong Sevens (a rugby tournament for the non-rugby fans out there).

SMS biggest riser as mobile marketing recall increases significantly in early 2009 according to recent GFK research into advertising and marketing.

Rory Cellan-Jones meets Malcolm Barclay, the inventor of one of the many home-crafted applications being sold for the iPhone (short BBC video) and Rory also discusses the birth of the new mobile applications industry (including a short interview with James Whatley aka Whatleydude).

Are we living in a Totalitarian State in the UK? Political correctness going over the top? And what about the Government snooping on our every email, telephone call and web visit? [My personal opinion is that the government is neither equipped to deal with the data, nor has the justification to go down this track since there is no evidence to suggest it will make our lives safer and will be prone to abuse since it’s humans who will be running it not robots.] I agree, give us back our private lives.

Technorati Tags: linkage,links,mobile marekting,data,sms marketing,mobile internet,mobile web

The Mobile Phone Security Challenge

Today sees the launch of a national search for designers to develop new ways of securing mobile phones against thieves and fraudsters, as research shows that 80% of phones contain data which can be used by criminals to access bank accounts, steal identity, or sell on personal data.

The Mobile Phone Security Challenge is offering a total of £400,000 to designers and technology experts to come up with new ways of securing handsets, the data they contain, and their future use as electronic ‘wallets’ when m-commerce technology is introduced in the UK.

The Challenge is part of Design out Crime, an initiative from the Home Office Design & Technology Alliance Against Crime and the Design Council.  The Mobile Phone Security Challenge is supported by the Technology Strategy Board.

Applicants will submit a tender outlining how they will approach the challenge and identifying any relevant experience they may have. Once selected by a panel of experts, the teams will be allocated money for research and development from the £400,000 fund, and spend six months developing designs and working prototypes in one or more of three key areas:

· Making mobile phone handsets harder or less desirable to steal

· Making the data stored on mobile phones harder or less desirable to steal

· Making future m-commerce transactions secure and fraud proof

They will produce market-ready applications which may include hardware and software for handsets, new services and other innovations, which will be showcased and promoted by early 2010, with a view to their widespread and rapid take-up by the market.

A recent survey found that 80% of people carry information on their mobile phone handsets that could be used by criminals to commit fraud - and 16% keep their bank details saved on their phone, yet only 4 in 10 people currently lock their mobiles using a PIN. Such data includes website passwords, bookmarks, emails, personal security data and locations/addresses on map applications.

The deadline for applications is Friday 22^nd May. Short-listed applicants will present to the expert panel on Friday 27^th June, and the four finalists will be announced on Monday 29^th June. The teams will develop prototypes over six months involving a process of review and advice from the expert panel. Four prototypes will be showcased in early 2010. More details of the Challenge can be found at www.designcouncil.org.uk/crime.

Sebastian Conran, chair of the Design & Technology Alliance Against Crime said: “This challenge is the result of work undertaken last year when we engaged young victims of crime, police, mobile industry experts and designers to understand current and future issues regarding mobile phone crime.  The Alliance has prioritised five areas and is working hard to deliver insights that the UK’s design and technology sector can use to deliver innovative solutions to reduce the instances of crime and antisocial behaviour.  This is one of the early results of our work – there’s more to come.”

Previous advances in technology have led to unexpected new forms of crime; email heralded the phenomenon of ‘phishing’, ATMs precipitated the new crime of ‘card catching’ and online banking gave rise to ‘key logging’, used by fraudsters to track the input of secret passwords and account numbers. However, there are also many examples of technology being applied successfully to reduce crime – for example, British Crime Survey figures show theft of vehicles has reduced by 51% since 1997 as a result of improved security being designed into the vehicle, and an evaluation of houses built to the ACPO Secured By Design (SBD) standards showed that these experience 26% less crime than non SBD houses, and residents fear of crime is lower.

The Mobile Phone Security Challenge will be steered by a group of leading specialists:

· CHAIR: Simon Waterfall, Co-founder, POKE

· Steve Babbage, Security Technologies Manager & Group Chief Cryptographer, Vodafone Group R&D

· Mark Delaney, Director, Connect Design, Nokia

· Josh Dhaliwal, Co-founder, Mobile Youth

· Richard Martin, Business Security Consultant, APACS

· Joe McGeehan, Managing Director, Toshiba Research Lab and Professor of Communications and Engineering at the University of Bristol

· Dr Walter Tuttlebee, Executive Director, Mobile VCE

So that’s not bad then, a prize fund of £400k and will be supported to get to prototype and production stage. If this is your area of expertise, then I’d say it could be worth a shot.

I would like to see a woman in the steering group though. My hunch is that women have a very different response to security concerns than men do. I also believe that women and men respond differently to technology and that should be accounted for in the design process, but that’s one for another day.

Technorati Tags: competition,mobile security,design,mobile,mobile phone security challenge,UK

And today’s spammers are

Trifle Solutions I’ve tried to get off Shahida Afzal’s list for at least a year to no avail. And of course there’s no-one to speak to to sort it out. Let’s see if the message I left gets actioned.

Vitesse Media – these guys have bought a dud email address as it’s one I don’t actively use. Shame on the email sales house who sold it to them.

Fleet Vehicle Tracking – ditto

The National Business Awards which is run by  CMP Information also used not one but *three* dud email addresses using one of my domains. They’re an information house. They sell this data on. It’s ridiculous. They’re selling out of date, made-up data and there’s no way to tell the difference between good data and bad.

Message Takers – particularly insidious as it’s disguised as a personal email from someone who sounds like he’s quite high up in business. This could fool some of the more naive SMEs out there.

There’s more email spam and email spammers. Unfortunately.

Email marketing is so very very broken.

Technorati Tags: spam,email spam,email marketing,spammers,junk email

Don’t spam me please otherwise I’ll get nasty

and write about you here. You have been warned.

I’ve had enough of DailyPicture. I get rubbish from them every day in my inbox. I’ve no idea how or when or if I ever signed up to their email list. I routinely unsubscribe every day and it’s never worked as they keep sending me spam email. This has been going on for weeks, if not months. And I’ve had enough already. I don’t like email spam or email spammers. Wasting my time and wasting my bandwidth.

There are no contact details on their website. The only clue as to who they’re owned by is in their Terms and Conditions which says they’re owned by Mikkelsen Media.

So I call Mikkelsen Media to find out how to unsubscribe. Someone answers the phone. I say ‘Please can you tell me how to unsubscribe from Daily Picture as I press the unsubscribe button every day but you still keep sending me sh1t’ [Excuse the French, but I’m really cross about this]. Her answer, in a fairly disinterested, I get this all the time, kind of manner, ‘oh, I think it’s broken, I’ll look into it’. And as far as she was concerned that was the end of the conversation. I just managed to get a word in before she hung up to ask her why she hadn’t taken down my details and that if something didn’t happen, I’d be reporting them to the Information Commissioner for breaking the rules. So reluctantly, she took down my email address. What she will do with it, who knows.

Let’s see if I still get spam email tomorrow then…

Technorati Tags: spam,email,junk email,spam email,spammers,data privacy

Meffys Awards entry deadline extended to 24th April due to popular demand

And yours truly, Helen Keegan, will be on the judging panel for the Mobile Advertising Award. Something I’m actually rather excited about.

Anyway, the key point is that the entry deadline for the awards has been extended to the 24th April so you still have another week to get your entry in. The official blurb and details are below for you all. It is pay to enter the awards, but don’t let that put you off entering, it’s still worthwhile and I do know that previous MoMoLo members who have entered the awards in previous years have benefitted, so please do consider it. There are a wide range of categories to choose from and think carefully about which ones to enter. I’ve judged other things before and am frustrated when something is submitted into the wrong category and fails when had it been submitted to a more appropriate category, it would have stood a chance of winning. So think on!

+++++++++++++++

Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), the global association for the mobile media industry, today announces that due to popular demand, the call for entries for the sixth international Meffys Mobile Entertainment Awards has been extended to Friday 24^th April 2009. Companies wishing to enter should visit: www.m-e-f.org. 

MEF is also pleased to announce that Hardeep Singh Kohli, a leading social commentator, BBC presenter and comedian, will host the Meffys ceremony on 23 June in London. As a columnist for The Scotsman and The Guardian, and a great fan of mobile games, Hardeep is passionate about the increasingly important role that mobile entertainment is playing in our everyday lives and says, “I am delighted to be hosting this year’s Meffys awards to help celebrate the leading companies in an industry where creativity and cutting-edge technology collide”.

Entering the Meffys 2009

MEF is accepting entries for the 2009 Meffys awards until 24 April. Entry costs have been frozen from last year and are as follows: £100 per entry for MEF members, £200 for members of supporting organisations and £300 for non-members.

For more details and information on entry categories go to: http://www.m-e-f.org/index.php?id=44

Meffys 2009 Categories:

• Games
• Music Service
• TV & Video Service
• Technology Innovation
• Content
• Social Networking
• Search & Discovery
• Ad Campaign
• Application
• Quality of Experience
• D2C Service
• ‘Mobile First’ Innovation
• Business Intelligence
• Innovative Business Model
• Handset

If you do decide to enter, good luck!

Technorati Tags: awards,meffy's,mobile entertainment forum,momolo,mobile monday london,mobile entertainment,judging

Carnival of The Mobilists #168 is up

The Carnival of the Mobilists is still going strong and we're at number 168. Mjelly is this week's host for a round up of the best mobile writing this week in the blogosphere and it's well worth a look.

Want to know more about the Carnival? Then head over to the Mobilists website. You don't need to be Einstein to enter a post for the weekly Carnival either so please do try your hand if you have a mobile blog and fancy taking part. And once you've been included two or three times, then you qualify to be a host too.

Next week the Carnival is over at http://www.chetansharma.com/blog/