So over to Lauren:

There has been much hype recently over the future of publishing, be it the death of print, the rebirth of paywalls or the excitement around interactive digital editions. Regardless of the headline, one name has been cropping up time again; the iPad. Heralded as the ‘game changer’ the device can fit into a number of areas including gaming/internet/eBooks/rich media, in addition one that has really caught my eye is that of publishing. As an iPhone owner (sorry) I have become accustomed to reading articles on my handset and I am not alone in this it seems: the iPhone accounts for a whopping 80% of the BBC’s mobile websites readers according to Jason Daponte – one of this week’s panellists. Yes, the iPhone has a small market share when it comes to devices in the marketplace, but blimey, those who have the iPhone really seem to use it..a lot! So I’m wondering if the same will be said of the iPad in the coming months? Many on the panel commented tonight that the iPad is a ‘coffee-table’ device and I would have to agree, but our browsing and media consumption habits are changing and the thought of reading my iPad on the sofa is actually quite a nice one. So I’m awaiting iPad usage results in the coming weeks and months with interest.

So a bit more about the panel.

The Panel discussion …

Russell Buckley, AdMob @russellbuckley – chair, Neil Johnson MD Teletext Mobile (AND), Dave Gwozdz CEO Mojiva @mojiva @gwozdz, Jason Daponte BBC @jasondaponte, David Gibbs BSkyB @dgibbs72 and our very own Helen Keegan @technokitten.

The move from print to digital is the perfect example for ensuring your brand is reaching customers through every channel available. It is no longer about a static news website; news can be shared and viewed via social media e.g. twitter so easily and the addition of location, makes the mobile phone a key target for brands. We are demanding personalised, portable, fast and relevant content through our mobile devices and advertisers need to take advantage of this. For the BBC, 50% of its iPhone page views are through WiFi further highlighting that we want content on the move.

One of the main concerns with the move from print to digital is how to make money, with much of this content previously available for free, will brand loyalty prevail? Potentially, I feel that if a news site provides me with a story that adds something I can’t find on another ‘free’ site then I will pay. That could be a video and/or image, interactive features, exclusive/personalised content or just a particular writer that I enjoy reading. There are a number of pricing models that could be applied for pay-walls including pay-as-you-go, monthly subscription or day-passes - the key here is to not make it a huge hassle every time we want to pay, a PayPal type service would be perfect … simple but feeling secure. Another option would be to use ads or sponsored apps to fund the content – media owners need to experiment with what works best for them and their readers.

The iPhone was mentioned quite a few times tonight and I understand that this can be annoying, but admit it or not, it has completely revolutionised business plans. If you own an iPhone you are five times more likely to use data then any other platform, which is a huge, and it’s also why so many target the iPhone above another platform. However, from a customer point of view iPhone only accounts for 10-15% market share and so by doing this you automatically alienating over 80% of your audience. Getting the balance right here is tricky, but one thing we can assure is that the majority of your readers will not have an iPhone or smartphone of sorts.

So what is the future of the publishing industry? Print magazines and national newspapers will be here forever or at least a lot longer … but will decline. The key take home message from today’s event is that media owners need to reduce the cost of producing good content and maximise the niche aspect of the content that they produce, be different.

Thanks for that Lauren!

This was a really in-depth panel session so it’s hard to convey everything that was covered in one short blog post. However, a few of our audience also blogged about the session – and some of them in-depth so please do have a read of the following:

Belen Barros Pena’s MoMoLo Chronicles

Life is Better On’s take on the event

And a very comprehensive round up from MoMoLo regular, Adam Cohen Rose (Adam’s also written up great round-ups of previous MoMoLo events too if you care to take a look at his archive).

And if that’s not enough, you should take a look at Cait Tierney’s video vox pops that she recorded at the event for Techfluff.tv. She interviewed some of our community on their thoughts on publishing, the iPad and more. I particularly like Dan Doherty’s description of his experience with his latest HTC phone – it’s a classic.

Lauren also did a short interview with Dave Gwozdz from Mojiva who co-sponsored the event. We’ll share the link here once it’s been published.

A special thank you to our lovely sponsors for the evening – DCKTN and Mojiva – our wonderful panellists and to everyone who came in person and also to those who joined the fun via twitter. All in all, it was a cracking session.

Our next event is on 14^th June and we’re covering platform fragmentation... registration open shortly at our website.

But before we go to Lauren’s write-up, you might be interested in the GSMA’s take on Mobile Money. They’ve produced a short animation which shows their vision for a world where mobile and money are integrated. For folks new to the concept, it’s worth a look. You can see it here.

You might also be interested in their Mobile Money Summit in Rio - 24-27 May.

So without further ado, over to you Lauren…

I have always been interested in how mobile phones can replace the multitude of items that seem to swamp my handbag.   I’ve seen the humble mobile phone evolve from simply making calls and sending SMS to become my mobile internet device, digital camera and MP3 player. Now it seems destined to take over the role of my purse too. There are some fantastic things going on in the mPayments space with a variety of busines s models; whether it is paying for items via airtime bills, PayPal type initiatives or taking money directly from my bank account … personally I am all for it.

The uptake of Oyster cards in the UK has shown that we are safe with the concept of Near Field Communications (NFC) and there are some exciting developments in this space. I think that this could be a good place for mobile phones to start: taking incremental steps towards the ultimate aim of high value purchases or providing an alternative to our banks. The success of the Oyster card provides a valuable case study for mobile phone operators and handset manufacturers, small purchases for e.g. travel is definitely a great way for us to get used to buying goods with our mobiles. Android has just announced that its multiple NFC-enabled phones will arrive in later 2010 and Apple just piping Google to the post with its latest patent around event tickets. So it looks like the two big guns have drawn and I would expect others handset manufactures to follow suit soon.

Last Monday, Mobile Monday London hosted its event delving into the world of mPayments: the myths and realities. This is by no means a new concept and one that we have been speaking about with much bated breath for some time now. However, instead of a flourishing industry and blossoming prospects we had expected, mPayments seems to still be battling to come to fruition.

The BBC’s personal finance reporter, Kevin Peachy, reported last week that it may be the mobile phone that could ‘signal the future’ for mPayments. In support of this, Juniper Research last week predicted that nearly half of all mobile phone users worldwide will be making mobile payments by 2014, a bold statement indeed and one that mirrors similar predictions in the past.

But why has the technology not taken off yet? Could it be slow operator uptake or a lack of consumer demand … has the recent banking debacle shaken us up to the point of no trust for new banking technologies? There were so many questions to ask and #MoMoLo brought together the experts to discuss and debate as to where we are now, why we are there and what’s next.

The first to take the stage was Neil Daly from our fabulous hosts, the GSMA. Mobile banking in the developing markets has always been heralded as a key place for the development and adoption of mPayments. There is a huge customer education challenge in this area as users do not see the benefit of mPayments. Neil stated the key drivers to getting mPayments off the ground are scale, sophistication and speed. Neil made the point that there is money to be made from mPayments and went on to describe the below five major initiatives:

• Mobile money for the unbanked (MMU) - 78 live deployments and 85 planned globally by 2012, the MMU will have made mobile money services available to 20 million new unbanked customers and boasts 19 operators deployments, with more to be announced soon
• Mobile money transfer (MMT) - global remittance flows are very significant to MMT, especially in non development markets; remittance typically costs 10-24% of remittance amount. The most popular way to transfer money currently is using a coke bottle with the money wrapped around, which highlights the need for more regulation
• Pay-buy-mobile (BBM) - The GSMA has seen a huge increase in number of operators interested in NFC, with 53 MNOs participating in the BBM project and trials in 11 countries from Australia to the US, generating interesting data to help operators develop

The case study – M-PESA

Next to the stage was Paul Makin, of Consult Hyperion, who is spearheading the M-PESA initiative with Vodafone. M-PESA is a money transfer service in Kenya and works with agents like MNO Safaricom in the region to set up shops to provide the service locally.

Key M-PESA stats include:

• Around 10m customers … 40% of Kenyan adults and 57% of Safaricom customer base
• USD 300m per month of P2P transfers
• USD 650m per month in cash deposits and withdrawals
• USD 7m per month in revenue
• 27 companies currently use it for wage payments

What lessons can we learn in the UK?

• Lesson one – get it out there – find a transport mechanism and let it evolve as you go
• Lesson two – find a corporate interface – salaries, social payments, payments, collections etc
• Lesson three – build good bridges - ATMs, post office, corner shops
• Lesson four – use good security that is SIM based
• Lesson five: Beware of the tariff – tariff structures encourage behaviours and bad tariff limits how you can evolve your business …

The Panel Session – David Birch (Consult Hyperion), Chris Thomason (Seren), Ben Whitaker (Masabi), John Lunn (PayPal) and Andrew Henderson (UK Mobile contactless forum)

Questions:

1. Michael Hobbs – does the panel think that in 3-4 years from now mobile operators will continue to feature in mPayments and if so how much?
   1. Ben – if you want to launch the product today the operator can take too long, but they have the clout to reach the customers. Perhaps I would see them take a more of a marketing channel
   2. Andrew – I think that some become bit pipes and the UK MNO market will shrink. I can see them working in the transport market, selling tickets. I think that we will be seeing more in mPayments from MNOs as they look to differentiate themselves
   3. John – we need to have the same payment system for all mPayments and although the mobile phone is great device for NFC but we can use anything we take with us
   4. Chris – with mobile banking either the banks will become telecoms companies or the operators become the banks
2. Andrew Hardy – what do you envisage the key regulatory obstacles globally?
   1. Andrew – there is a gray area across EU and UK, we would like to see closer cooperation with the regulators to allow the market to flourish
   2. David – we learnt a key lesson from the O2 Barclays and TFL trial, make sure customers know who to call … O2, Barclays or TFL?
   3. John – at PayPal our idea was to let everyone in and then get out the bad guys afterwards. No one knows where the crime will come from and rather then waste time in an over engineered security system, better to create a good user experience
3. Mark Davis – Virtual currency and convertible cash, do you think we will see mobile payments like this?
   1. Chris – there is no reason why we can’t change our currency
   2. Ben – mobile very accessible and as such anyone can be merchant
   3. Chris – is PayPal not virtual currency?
   4. John – PayPal can use any currency
   5. John – there are a lot of clever criminals out there so need to be cautious and maintain an interface with the real world
4. Chris Dadd, RBS (O2 Money) – interesting talking about the operators vs. banks debate ... we have seen the failed m-pay and Payforit initiatives, now operators are looking at single click for direct payments from their airtime bill. Bit isn’t this like PayPal’s one click offering?
   1. Ben – commission costs were far too high and operators need to be more comparable to credit cards
   2. John – we are working with mobile phone companies to help them allow their customers to pay for things via their bill and PayPal. There are some EU limitations and costing issues, we need to be competitive with credit card rates, which are currently very low
5. David Stone –do you think people will eventually start paying for higher value products through mPayments?
   1. Chris – down to the power of brands
   2. Andrew – there is a real fear that consumers will suffer from bill shock
   3. John – cloud payments will jump to the same as online, micro-payments will start at the lower end as everyone scared of bill shock. It is down to the retailer to find a way for you to buy on your mobile phone

MoMoLo regular, Simon Judge, also did a comprehensive write-up of the event which you can read here. Thanks Simon!

Thank you to our sponsors this month, GSMA and a special thank you to Galit Zadok for putting the programme together this month.

Lauren McGregor does Tech PR for Hotwire PR. She’s also events meister for @UKJTPR. She’s a self-confessed geek, sometime scientist & animal lover. You can follow her on twitter @laurenmcgregor

So best get your skates on if you'd like to enter!

So what’s this all about then? Well The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), the global trade association of the mobile media industry, is running its 7^th Mobile Entertainment Awards, known as the ‘Meffys’. And they are now open for entries until 16th April. The Meffys span the entire mobile entertainment & media industry, from apps to social media so there should be a category for everyone.

Companies wishing to enter should visit: www.meffys.com and submit their entries by 16th April 2010.

Now I know folks will be wondering if it’s worth entering, and I’d have to say I think it is which is why I personally support it and why Mobile Monday London supports it too. These are world class awards and genuinely do attract entries from across the globe. Which also means that the winners and runners-up are on a global stage with the appropriate reach – not just to the MEF membership (which is not insignificant) but also the associated media partners. Of course, not everyone will win. And yes, there is an entry fee. But it’s not unreasonably priced at £300 for non-members and £100 for members.

Further details below. And if you do enter, good luck!

For highlights from the 2009 awards ceremony and a list of 2009 winners, please visit  http://www.meffys.com/about/2009-highlights

This year’s new Meffys categories include Content Discovery & Personalisation, Cross-Platform, App Store Blockbuster, M-Commerce and Mobile Connected Device. These new categories not only reflect the growth in the number of apps and apps stores, such as the App Store Blockbuster Award that will recognise the best app on an individual app store, but also reflect current and future trends. Two such awards are the M-Commerce award and the Cross-Platform award, which reflect the 2010 trends identified by MEF at the beginning of the year.

In addition, the MEF board will once again present the Outstanding Contribution Award to a talented individual whose work has had a critical impact on the growth of the mobile entertainment industry.

Entering the Meffys 2010

MEF will be accepting entries for the 2010 Meffys awards from today. Companies interested in entering the awards or nominating a candidate for the Outstanding Contribution Award should go to the new Meffys website at www.meffys.com for full details. Entry costs have been frozen from last year and are as follows: £100 per entry for MEF members and £300 for non-members.

Meffys 2010 Categories:

Games Award
Music Service Award
TV & Video Service Award
Video Content Award

Content Discovery & Personalization Award
Cross-Platform Award

Social Media Award

Ad Campaign Award

App Store Blockbuster Award

Innovative App Award

Consumer Experience Award

Technology Innovation Award
Innovative Business Model Award
Mobile First Innovation Award

M-Commerce Award

Business Intelligence Award

Mobile Connected Device Award

Outstanding Contribution Award

And we’re proudly sponsored on the night by IPC Media, Orange Vallee and BlackBerry.

So who do we have? In no particular order:

James Hugman from Future Platforms will be presenting the Guardian Anywhere, a free product we've released for Android devices which helps you read your daily newspaper (and which we're looking to license to other news properties).

Chetan Damani from Imano will be demonstrating the acrossair augmented reality browser to explain how it works and how potential partners can integrate with their platform.

Finbar Hawkins, HipLogic evangelist, will be showing everyone HipLogic Live, available now on Nokia and Windows Mobile and available soon for Android, which gives you a one-touch access point to your social networks, news stories and applications that is always on.

Marko Balabanovic is presenting from lastminute.com labs. What’s good around here? Mobile apps that recommend things to do in cities from lastminute.com labs, with some brand new launches.

Matt Pollitt will be joining us from ustwo to show us PositionApp - With over 200,000 downloads, nearly 1 million user sessions, PositionApp is the number one mobile app discovery and metrics tool in the iTunes store.

Georgina Mackenzie from Toytek will be presenting their app, The Ultimate Alphabet, a puzzle-based word game using clues and anagrams to explore 26 realistic and surreal paintings; from basic to complex and even specialist words hidden within these images.

Giles Corbett from Orange Vallee will be showing us ON which makes phonebooks smarter by bringing together all users’ contacts and by helping manage user notifications across a range of different contact groups http://www.lifeisbetteron.com/

Sander Munsterman is from XS2TheWorld which is an award winning innovative mobile marketing company creating tailor made solutions for consumers and brands. They’re going to showcase their fuel checker application built for BP.

Martin Macmillan will be presenting from Bounce Mobile. They provide applications that give consumers new ways to interact with digital music via their mobile. The app they’ll be showing us is Fireplayer which is an app that allows you to remix and share your favourite music on your mobile. 

Terence Eden will be showing off one of his latest projects http://ivote2010.co.uk/ 

Plus

Ed Moore from Ocasta Labs sharing what they’re doing with Agora which is a mobile optimised social marketplace that matches buyers & sellers of goods & services by interest, location & reputation. 

John Roberts from Qustodian talking about permission based, engaging mobile marketing

Sanyu Kiruluta will be showing us a BlackBerry ebay 'SuperApp'.

After putting it to a community vote, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve put Audioboo forward to represent us at The Mobile Premier Awards in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress. It’s not a given yet that they’ll get to present. The jury needs to whittle down the long list of 48 to a shortlist of 20 who will get to present on the day and have a chance to win the award. We wish Audioboo the best of luck.

It’s also good to see that our friends in Mobile Monday Belfast and Mobile Monday Edinburgh have also put nominees forward so there’ll be a good contingent from the UK.

The Mobile Premier Awards announces 48 nominated startups to the Mobile Premier Awards in Innovation: The best grassroots startup innovation chosen by their peers in partnership with MobileMonday, the global community of mobile professionals. The nominees were chosen by participating MobileMonday chapters from over 250 participating startups.

An international jury of the most recognized mobile industry experts will select the 20 finalists who will pitch their idea, application or project at the Mobile Premier Awards event that takes place in Barcelona, at the Petit Palau of Palau de la Musica on February 15, 2010 in front of investors, operators, media companies, peer entrepreneurs, and press and influential bloggers.

The year's MPA best in Mobile Startup innovation Nominees are:

MobileMonday Austria - Mobilizy
MobileMonday Bangalore - mobiSiteGalore
MobileMonday Barcelona - fonYou
MobileMonday Belfast - SpeechStorm
MobileMonday Bergen - ComCom
MobileMonday Berlin - spendino
MobileMonday Bogota - RedSalvavidas
MobileMonday Brussels - Getyoo
MobileMonday Buenos Aires - Beepoint
MobileMonday Caracas - Consorcio Si-SMS
MobileMonday Copenhagen - Cepa Mobility
MobileMonday Dallas - Wave Integrated Marketing Solutions
MobileMonday Dublin - Locle
MobileMonday Dusseldorf - Yoose
MobileMonday Edinburgh - Mobile Acuity
MobileMonday Estonia - TaxiPal
MobileMonday Frankfurt - match2blue
MobileMonday Hamburg - apprupt
MobileMonday Hungary - InfomatiX
MobileMonday Jakarta - dotus indonesia
MobileMonday Kuala Lumpur - CWorks Mobile
MobileMonday Lithuania - SendFlow
MobileMonday London - Audioboo
MobileMonday Madrid - Tooio
MobileMonday Malmö - Color Monkey
MobileMonday Medellin - Industrialmedia
MobileMonday Melbourne - Callernizer
MobileMonday Mexico - Binbit
MobileMonday Mid-Atlantic - Amphetamobile
MobileMonday Milan - Soundtrckr
MobileMonday Mumbai - Umundo
MobileMonday Munich - Aloqa
MobileMonday New Delhi - Voicetap Technologies
MobileMonday New York - PercentMobile
MobileMonday Oslo - Bipper Communication
MobileMonday Paris - Presselite
MobileMonday Rest of EMEA - Layar
MobileMonday Rio de Janeiro - iMusica
MobileMonday Rome - Mobnotes
MobileMonday Sao Paulo - Atope
MobileMonday Shanghai - mInfo
MobileMonday Silicon Valley - CloudMade
MobileMonday Singapore - Just Mobile
MobileMonday Slovenia - Visionect
MobileMonday Sofia - Bianor
MobileMonday Stockholm - MoSync
MobileMonday Tel Aviv - waze
MobileMonday Vancouver - Sort Shots

The finalists chosen to the Innovation Awards will be announced on January 25, 2010. They will present along with the winners in the other categories chose by our partner networks (see below).

The event takes on February 15, 2010 in Barcelona at the Petit Palau of Palau de la Musica. Registration to attend this event opens on January 19.

About the Mobile Premier Awards

The Mobile Premier Awards are the biggest mobile startup innovation competition and event in the world and the point of reference in startup premiers during the Mobile World Congress on February 15, 2010 in Barcelona. The awards are organized in collaboration with some of the main networks in the industry including MobileMonday, Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), MEX, MobileActive.org, Women 2.0 and the Women in Mobile Data Association.

This year we have received over 600 startup submissions from all continents to the different awards.

* MPA in Innovation - The classic peer-reviewed, global grassroots competition where MobileMonday chapters nominate a local startup to eventually pitch in Barcelona.
* MPA in Marketing - The best startup in Mobile Marketing - in partnership in partnership with the Mobile Marketing Association.
* MPA in Entertainment - The best startup in Mobile Entertainment in partnership with the Mobile Entertainment Forum.
* MPA in User Experience - The best startup in Mobile User Experience in partnership with MEX.
* MPA in Social Change - The best startup using mobile for social change in partnership with MobileActive.org.
* MPA in Female Entrepreneurship - The best woman-lead mobile startup in partnership with Women 2.0 and the Women in Mobile Data Association.

The Mobile Premier Awards are a once a year opportunity to reach the most influential professionals and companies in innovation in the mobile industry and so it offers unique opportunities for visibility and communication. If you are interested, ask us for some more information at info(AT)mobilepremierawards(DOT)com.

The Mobile Premier Awards online

• Mobile Premier Awards RSS Feed
• Mobile Premier Awards on Twitter @mobilepremier
• Visit our Facebook Fan Page.

Please use hashtag #mpa10 in your online communications.

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. And I’m afraid this has taken our attention for the last few weeks which means we’ve had to cancel November’s Mobile Monday London event. Hopefully, this will all make up for it.

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 (pictured left), 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.

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 Yahoo Groups, 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!

“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.”

Also co-sponsors for the evening were Samsung who announced their new Innovation Quest competition with a first prize of £15,000! Go to www.samsungiq.com for further information about the competition and how to join.

Again thanks to all the demoers on the night: Ben Whittaker from Masabi, Dan Phillips from Ookl, Jeff Bloom from Synchro Arts/Singtones, Simon Taylor from Corebridge, Alex Will from Spoonfed, Tanvin Sharif from Vopium, Mun Kong from d2see / Peepr.tv, Simon Maddox from 0870.me, Alex Housley from Total Hotspots, Mark Rock from Best Before TV/ Audioboo, Dave Hodder from Artilium, James Norris from Proxama and Adam Hoyle from Do Tank Studios / Photofit.

As has now become tradition, rather than us talk ourselves up, it is over to our community ...

Blog - James Norris from Proxama
Blog - Adam Cohen-Rose from Kizoom
Blog - Alex Anderson from Masabi
Photos - Jag Minhas from Telefónica

Let us know if you have written any articles on the evening. You can view some of the comments during the event that used the #momolo hash tag.

As always, keep up to date with our upcoming events on www.momolo.org the blog on www.mobilemonday.org.uk the yahoo group mailinglist at tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/momolondon and of course for more up to the minute information make sure you follow us on twitter @momolondon (www.twitter.com/momolondon).

Hope you enjoyed the event, we are currently making plans for the next event in July, more information to come.

Yes, it's not long to go now to get your entry in for the Vodafone Mobile Clicks Competition. There's just about a week to go so there's still time. We've tried to keep the application process simple and you can even be pre-start-up and just have a great idea to apply.

We also wanted to reassure you over who owns the IP and any confidentiality concerns so to make things clear...

• Confidentiality is secured. All people involved are informed and committed to this confidentiality.
• The rights of the idea will be with the owner/submitter.
• With your entry, we don't need every single detail - just enough detail to give us a clear picture of the WHAT and the HOW of the mobile service.
• We respect the situations in which the start-ups do not have a patent yet. See our very very strict confidentiality claims. Above and in the Ts & Cs.
• Ideas will NOT be shared with competitors or other companies. Only the jury and the organizing team(s) involved will have ALL the registration data (UK and NL). The Press and Other Startups in this contest will ONLY have RESTRICTED access to only a few Registration Fields (e.g. Name, Contact Details, Short Description of Service).

If you have any further questions, then please refer them to Helen Keegan. Also have a look at our previous blogpost on the competition criteria.

Good luck and let's see what Britain's talented mobile developers have to offer!

p.s. you can follow the competition on twitter and we have set up a facebook event too for it. Oh and Mobile Monday London is also in twitter if you hadn't spotted us already.

You can provide links to sites such as blogs, websites and so on, however if you add a link to an RSS or Atom feed and select that it is a feed in the drop down list, on your public profile you will get the 5 latest updates to that blog, microblog or whatever. This is a great way to colour your profile.

Activities provide a way for all of us to share related material. There is a lot happening in our industry, many things can be gathered togethered under the umbrella of an activity. You can enter a title, summary and embed (or link to) content such as videos, slides and so on.

You can embed content in activity articles, comments on events, news and forum topics by copying the embed HTML (usually click in the field on say YouTube with your right mouse button so it is all highlighted and select copy) then paste into the embed field and save the comment. This is now a common way in Web2.0 platforms to share content that is hosted elsewhere.

Remember to give your comments and content a context and put in some descriptive tags (not too many) and that will provide an easy way for others to find your article.

Note - during the alpha we arent sending or receiving emails from this site, so sending out invites, or expecting to receive emails upon registration are currently disabled. We will look at getting this part live for March.

Important to note, this isnt yet going to replace the blog and Yahoo! group right now ... once we are happy with the alpha we will clear down any registrations, comments and test data and will migrate our community as a whole onto this site ... so bare with us please and keep posting to the Yahoo group :)