With Peggy Salz

Back from Mobile Europe 2.0 in Barcelona and settling in to do a string of posts that summarize and analyze the key news and views that emerged from the one-day event. The sold-out event was more than a huge success; it was a clear indication that the mobile industry is ready for new concepts, new companies and new discussions. While many established conference companies will no doubt continue to charge companies outrageous fees to speak – a practice that stifles the very conversation we need to cultivate – the future belongs to events (such as this one) that showcase good ideas, open discussions and unbridled innovation. Looking all the more forward to the next Mobile 2.0 in November!

Kudos to Rudy de Waele, Gregory Gorman, Daniel Applequist and the rest of the committee for bringing together a top-notch group of mobile professionals, investors and start-ups. (Mike Butcher at TechCrunch posted a complete list of start-ups here, and I’ll also circle back with a deep-dive into my pick of cool companies, including Kooaba, aki-aki and Zipipop.) Congrats are also in order for Tommy Ahlers, CEO ZYB; Charlie Schick, Editor-in-Chief for Nokia Conversations; Doug Richards, CEO Trutap; Antonio Vince Staybl, CEO Itsmy.com (GoFresh); and Alex Romero, Director Partnerships, Yahoo! Connected Life Europe. Positive feedback after the session, as well as the flood of emails I got after the event, tells me our panel rocked! More when I have the transcript and Rudy has the video, so please check back.

Another presentation that stood out was Taptu, a provider of “socially-assisted” mobile search that MSG has tracked from the start. (This white paper provides a valuable primer if you need to get up to speed.) Stefan Butlin, Taptu CTO, used his slot to highlight an exciting new trend to recreational mobile search and his company’s innovative response. Put simply, recreational search is a new user behavior driven by two factors: the avalanche of content available, and a growing frustration with the mobile browsing experience offered by the majority of mobile devices.

Read the entire post on Peggy’s blog MSearchGroove HERE.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Guest Authors, News. 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.