Mobile Monday Barcelona

June is here and the flocks of tourists announce the coming of summer, the perfect time to present our own local entrepreneurial talent. Next MobileMonday on June 11 is about Barcelona Mobile Startups!

In the last months we have had previous presentations by local startups such as MyStrands, Lemonquest, Mobile Dreams Factory, Mobuzz, Futurlink and Daem Interactive. This time we have a dedicated event: it’s time to present our next wave of talented, young and ambitious companies active in the different fields in Mobile.

Speakers:

* Vadim Tarasov, Founder & CEO of bmat - http://bmat.com

BMAT enables computers and devices to understand music like humans do to provide musical search services, enhances the experience by selecting music that suits the user’s mood, can remove the vocal track from your favorite tune so that you sing along, even change your own voice so you can sound like your favorite artist. BMAT’s solutions convert a mobile phone from just a communication device into a full-blown multimedia entertainment center.

* Lluís Carreras, General Manager of Mobifriends - http://mobifriends.com

Founded in October 2005, Mobifirends aims to develop a new concept in dating and social networking. Being mobile focused, without forgetting the web, Mobifriends users can look for people to share hobbies, interests, make friends, flirt, or find a new love. They can contact each other through an integrated anonymous communication system (SMS, Chat and videochat). Still in testing the Alpha version, this is a unique chance to get to know Mobifriends before their launch later this year.

* Ghatim Kabbara, CEO of Safira Solutions - http://www.safirasolutions.com

Safira Solutions is a key player in the development of the Mobile Internet and is a leading provider of Mobile Commerce solutions worldwide. Founded in 2003 and with headquarters in Barcelona (Spain), Safira Solutions has helped individuals, organizations and brands in over 15 countries to effectively position themselves on the Mobile Internet and to monetize their presence. Safira Solutions lowers the barriers of entry and facilitates the process of getting on the Mobile Internet by providing turnkey technology solutions to help build mobile sites, generate mobile user traffic and bill consumers directly on their mobile device.

* Eve Goldman, Business Development Manager of Acquamedia Technologies - http://www.acquamedia.com

Founded in 2003 in Barcelona, Acquamedia is a world-leading retailer of digital content with traffic to conversion rates 3 times higher than its closest competitor anywhere in the world. The company specializes in the management of WAP portals and selling music and entertainment focused content through mobile platforms. Acquamedia has recently expanded and signed deals in over 10 countries in Europe and Latin America. The upcoming entrance into the US market will position the company to become the world’s largest mobile digital content provider.

Please join us to find out more about this homegrown initiatives. However, in Barcelona at this time of year we all want some entertainment:

Alberto Tognazzi will present the winning “mobile movie clips” of the MovilFilmFest, also “Made in Barcelona” - http://www.movilfilmfest.es/

Networking
As usual, a networking party will follow the conference where participants will enjoy a glass of cava while sharing experiences about life and work. Attendance is free; all you need to do is register and/or confirm your presence for this event at www.mobilemondaybarcelona.com/subscribe/ to reserve one of the 150 seats available. Book now to avoid being left out!

• 19h00 Registration and Pre-Networking
• 19h30 Barcelona Mobile Startups speaker sessions & discussion
• 20h30 Cocktail and Networking Party
• 21h30 End

Venue: Auditorium University of Pompeu Fabra - França Building (Edifici França), Passeig de Circumval·lació, 8 - Barcelona 08003

Location and Directions here at Google Maps.

MobileMonday is a community of mobile professionals organised around local networking events in almost 40 cities around the world. This open community promotes the mobile industry and fosters cooperation and networking among industry people and their companies by providing opportunities for personal and virtual contacts.

MobileMonday Barcelona is organised by Rudy De Waele, Carles Ferreiro and Barcelona Media.

Our Partners
Our thanks to our partners Telefónica Movistar, 22@Barcelona, Alcatel-Lucent, Ajuntament de Barcelona, CIDEM (Centre d’Innovació i Desenvolupament Empresarial of the Generalitat de Catalunya) and Agora 22@ for their invaluable support.

For our next MobileMonday Barcelona event on Monday, May 7, we invited some of the most important international players in Mobile Search to present and discuss the opportunities and challenges that lay ahead, this event promises to be one of our best editions so far.

Since Google introduced it’s easy to use Search Engine in 1998, a lot of things have changed in the internet business, very few people could imagine the impact of simple search as we know it now. With even more mobile devices connected to the internet than there are computers globally, Mobile Search is one of the key area’s in mobile development to satisfy the demands of the consumer… A mobile search request has to be easy and relevant and needs to be available in the right context. Organising all existing online data to be displayed correctly on a small screen is one of the biggest challenges laying ahead for the industry the coming years. Search news, locations, people, products, tourist and travel information, music and video files, all that data is already accessible on the last generation of mobile phone, a lot of companies are positioning in this interesting and lucrative market space.

Since 2005, a lot of new companies have been starting to position their service. Projects like Wapedia, Mobilicio.us, 4INFO, Technorati Mobile, mInfo in China, and more recently mowser are some of the interesting projects here. This year seems to be a breakthrough year in Mobile Search now that the more established internet brands are starting to position in mobile and are doing major deals with operators, we invited some of the most important players for this event:

Speakers Program:

Jeff Pedigo, Director, Business Development at Yahoo! Inc. (UK)
Steve Ives, Founder & CEO Taptu.com (UK)
Philip Gontier, Sales Director EMEA, JumpTap, Inc. (USA)
Anat S. Amir, Senior Mobile Marketing Manager, EMEA, Google (UK)

Bio Speakers:

Jeff Pedigo, Director, Business Development at Yahoo! Inc. (UK)
Jeff Pedigo will attend Mobile Monday in Barcelona on May 7, to take you through the latest developments within Yahoo!’s Connected Life mobile division. Jeff is a Solutions Architect in Yahoo!’s Connected Life division, which focuses on delivering Yahoo! services in the mobile, broadband, and digital home arenas. In this role, he interfaces closely with Yahoo!’s partners to design and deliver solutions that leverage Yahoo!’s assets in content, technology, audience, and search and advertising expertise. Jeff plays an instrumental role in delivering mobile search, advertising, and client solutions across Europe.

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo!’s mission is to connect people to their passions, their communities, and the world’s knowledge.

Earlier this year, Yahoo! introduced oneSearch, an entirely new search service designed to give consumers exactly what they want on their mobile device — instant answers. oneSearch leverages Yahoo!’s deep experience, investment and expertise in search on the desktop as well as relationships with leading content providers to deliver an unmatched mobile search experience for consumers. oneSearch is live in the US both on the mobile web and through Yahoo!’s revolutionary mobile product, Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0

Steve Ives, Founder & CEO Taptu.com (UK)
Steve is a UK serial entrepreneur with extensive business growth and technical experience. Previously, Steve was the founder and CEO of Trigenix, a 3i-backed business which was acquired by Qualcomm Inc in 2004. He worked for Qualcomm Europe as VP Business Development and then VP Strategic Marketing until mid- 2005.

Steve graduated in Biochemistry from Cambridge University, holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvannia, and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London. He also serves as non-executive Chairman and director of Teamstudio Inc, a software tools company with operations in the USA, UK and Japan.

During his period as CEO, Trigenix won the 2003 3GSM Award for Best Wireless Application Developer, and the 2003 Sunday Times Fasttrack 100 Award for Best Management Team. Steve has presented at several major industry events, including 3GSM in Cannes and the GSMA General Plenary. Past media coverage includes Britain’s Financial Times and the Sunday Times.

Steve is married with four children and enjoys tennis, skiing and cycling. During a summer sabbatical in 2000, he raised $100,000 for UNICEF by cycling 7000 miles from San Francisco to Istanbul, crossing 2 deserts, 4 mountain ranges & 10 countries.

Philip Gontier, Sales Director EMEA, JumpTap, Inc. (USA)
Philip has over 12+ years of sales, sales management & business development experience for telecom / wireless/ enterprise solutions across EMEA. Philip’s primary focus is on Mobile Search & Advertising solutions for mobile operators.

Founded in 2004, JumpTap, Inc. provides wireless carriers with an end-to-end, carrier-branded mobile search solution that drives third-party revenue for mobile operators while providing a quick, easy and fun mobile search experience for subscribers. JumpTap’s comprehensive solution couples an intuitive user interface and mobile-specific search engine with a search marketing model that pays carriers for search success. JumpTap provides carriers, advertisers and subscribers with the industry’s most complete, easy-to-use and rewarding mobile search environment. For more information on JumpTap, please visit:

Anat S. Amir, Senior Mobile Marketing Manager, EMEA, Google (UK)
Anat heads the mobile marketing and mobile product launch activities for Google in Europe, Africa and the Middle East . She has many years’ experience in the mobile space recently joining from O2 where she was Head of Product Experience and Research, contributing to the company’s leadership in data services. Anat led the user experience stream at OMTP an operator-sponsored forum that serves the needs of each and every link in the mobile phone value chain by gathering and driving mobile terminal requirements.

Anat has an MBA from the Ben Gurion University in Israel and began her career as a financial analyst before moving on to usability consultancy and product design. A native of Israel, Anat has for the past 4 years lived in the UK.

Networking
As usual, a networking party will follow the conference where participants will enjoy a glass of cava while sharing experiences about life and work. Attendance is free; all you need to do is register and/or confirm your presence for this event at www.mobilemondaybarcelona.com/subscribe/ to reserve one of the 150 seats available. Book now to avoid being left out!

* 19h00 Registration and Pre-Networking
* 19h30 Mobile Search speaker sessions & discussion
* 21h30 Cocktail and Networking Party
* 22h30 End

Venue: Auditorium University of Pompeu Fabra - França Building (Edifici França), Passeig de Circumval·lació, 8 - Barcelona 08003

Location and Directions here at Google Maps.

MobileMonday is a community of mobile professionals organised around local networking events in almost 40 cities around the world. This open community promotes the mobile industry and fosters cooperation and networking among industry people and their companies by providing opportunities for personal and virtual contacts.

MobileMonday Barcelona is organised by Rudy De Waele, Carles Ferreiro and Barcelona Media.

Our Partners
Our thanks to our partners Telefónica Movistar, 22@Barcelona, Alcatel-Lucent, Ajuntament de Barcelona, CIDEM (Centre d’Innovació i Desenvolupament Empresarial of the Generalitat de Catalunya) and Agora 22@ for their invaluable support.

In our next MobileMonday Barcelona event on Monday, April 2, we will discuss the current state of the mobile gaming industry and present the new opportunties and challenges that lay ahead.

Currently, the mobile game market is highly dominated by games that have an easy gameplay, few simple rules and do not require special skills to enjoy. These games are mostly clones of successful casual games such as Minesweeper or Tetris.

However, the future of mobile gaming seems to rely on new types of gameplays that embed the new capabilities of mobile phones to sense their context. Like the newly released and successful Wiimote, mobile devices become sensitive to movements (e.g. Nokia N5500), engaging players to physically move as part of the gameplay. In addition, the emergence near-field communication (RFID, Bluetooth, QR codes) and location-aware technologies enable new types of scenarios that link virtual worlds with the players’ physical surroundings. For example, multi-player location-based games played out on city streets and built up urban environments.

The increasing contextual and proximity awareness of mobile devices provide new opportunities for players to engage in collaborative or competitive game settings. In contrast to this pretty picture, many issues such as the operators walled gardens, the size of the screens, network quality and coverage as well as the processing power of the mobile phone challenge the development and deployment of these new types of games. Finally, the Economic future: who is going to pick up the fragmentation and the distribution challenge? Where is the 8 bn mobile gaming market?

DATE: Monday, April 2 2007

SPEAKERS:

Nicolas Nova (Switzerland) - researcher at EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne)

His current research is directed towards the user experience of mobile and ubiquitous computing. He recently completed a PhD in computer sciences, which investigated the usage of location-awareness in a collaborative pervasive game (CatchBob!). He also works as a consultant for video-game companies, focusing on ‘user experience’ analysis, usability testing and foresight research. Read his blog here.

Maarten Noyons (France) - Managing Director, International Mobile Gaming Awards

Maarten Noyons has been a media entrepreneur since 1986 and works in mobile entertainment since 1998. Maarten runs the media consultancy company NCC & Partners and works for clients in the public and private sector. In 2004 he launched the International Mobile Gaming Awards, now the leading award for innovation in mobile entertainment in the world with US$ 40,000 of prizes to win and, in 2006, 400 innovative companies from 42 countries participating. Maarten will bring us an overview of the winning game companies of the International Mobile Gaming Awards and will give us his vision on the creative and economic future of mobile ‘connected’ games.

Ignacio Cavero (Spain) - President and CEO, LemonQuest

LemonQuest is a global publisher of mobile games and personalization products for network operator portals, delivering a vast ray of content in 48 countries worldwide. LemonQuest develops and publishes some of the world most innovative and exciting mobile games and entertainment applications and gives leading mobile operators everything they need — premium and niche brands, a comprehensive catalogue of content, and delivery technology to successfully provide these products to their subscribers. LemonQuest recently announced the acquisition of the Chinese company i4Game, an innovative developer of mobile games. The acquisition gives LemonQuest new territories of operations and a true 3D games portfolio ready to be sold to their mobile carrier customers.

Marta Vieira (Portugal) – Head of Entertaiment Division, YDreams

Marta has been with YDreams since 2005. She currently runs the Entertainment Division where she oversees the development and distribution of mobile games, business strategy, and marketing and product management.

YDreams Entertainment is an innovative developer and publisher of entertainment solutions & games, working with partners worldwide to develop original and licensed titles and interactive experiences for the future. A recognized world leader in location-based gaming, YDreams has brought exciting new experiences to gamers worldwide with titles ranging from location-based Massively Multiplayer On-Line Games (Undercover, Undercover 2: Merc Wars) to online cross-media (MS4 Spooks: Mobile). Their latest location-based game, Wall Street Fighter, was recently a finalist at Mobile Game Innovation Hunt at GDC2007 and is a finalist at the 2007 LBS Challenge.

Location has been described as the next killer app. The interesting question is: what can it do for your gaming experience? Find out why this is an innovative way of using your mobile, and why you can forget location’s boring connotation of navigation. Examples of LBG’s will be provided as quick cases, incorporating YDreams’ experience and, most importantly, what was learned every step of the way.

Thanks to Fabien Girardin from the Interactive Technologies Group, UPF University for his inspiration and energy on this topic.

As usual, a networking party will follow the conference where participants will enjoy a glass of cava while sharing experiences about life and work. Attendance is free; all you need to do is register and/or confirm your presence for this event at www.mobilemondaybarcelona.com/subscribe/ to reserve one of the 150 seats available. Book now to avoid being left out!

• 19h00 Registration and Pre-Networking
• 19h30 Mobile Gaming and Beyond speaker sessions & discussion
• 21h30 Cocktail and Networking Party
• 22h30 End

Venue: Auditorium University of Pompeu Fabra - França Building (Edifici França), Passeig de Circumval·lació, 8 - Barcelona 08003

Location and Directions here at Google Maps.

MobileMonday is a community of mobile professionals organised around local networking events in almost 40 cities around the world. This open community promotes the mobile industry and fosters cooperation and networking among industry people and their companies by providing opportunities for personal and virtual contacts.

MobileMonday Barcelona is organised by Rudy De Waele, Carles Ferreiro and Barcelona Media.

Our Partners
Our thanks to our partners Telefónica Movistar, 22@Barcelona, Alcatel-Lucent, Ajuntament de Barcelona, CIDEM (Centre d’Innovació i Desenvolupament Empresarial of the Generalitat de Catalunya) and Agora 22@ for their invaluable support.

After the succesfull MobileMonday Global Peer Awards the MoMo Barcelona team organised during 3GSM World Congress in Espacio Movistar, we’re heading back to normal with our monthly MobileMonday Barcelona event on interesting topics following trends and evolution in mobile technology and services.

MobileMonday Barcelona invites, for our next event on March 5, some of the most interesting players in the field of Mobile TV and IPTV going mobile, so if you want to learn more about this topic and hear it from the experts, please register ASAP, this topic promises to be a quick seat-filler.

Date: Monday, March 5, 2006

Topic: MyMobileTV

Speakers:

Ivan Communod, co-founder and COO of vpod.tv

Ivan started his career as a Telecommunications Engineer for France Telecom: starting in 1995, he spent three years as Internet Technical Director at Global One Holland (France Telecom Group now called Orange) where he participated in the creation of the first European Internet Exchange, the AMS-IX in Amsterdam. He later joined an Digital (now HP) at European headquarters in Switzerland as a Solution Architect in the Outsourcing practice, where he worked with the largest telecommunication and mobile operators of the world.

Presentation: vpod.tv is an innovative Video Publishing On Demand service, enabling consumers and corporations to very easily create their own private Internet and mobile TV channels.

Anil de Melo - CEO and producer of MobuzzTV

Anil founded MobuzzTV in December 2004, prior to that he was working in the mobile entertainment industry. He has been involved in the media industry for many years and his main passion lies now in all things IPTV !

Presentation: MobuzzTV wants to raise of the current type of vlog in two ways. Firstly, in terms of content: the aim to produce more highly structured, informative daily clips. Secondly in terms of format: while MobuzzTV is accessible online, it is specifically formatted for use on a mobile phone. With a daily magazine, celebrity interviews, cyber news, and a variety of other features, MobuzzTV strives to keep you informed and entertained, allowing you to watch what you want, when you want, where you want. MobuzzTV makes mobile Video On Demans a reality.

José Luis Jorge Marrasé - Barcelona Competence Center Manager for Multimedia applications in Alcatel-Lucent.

José Luis Jorge Marrasé has previously held a possition as a director of Mobile Solutions in Alcatel Spain until the merge between Alcatel and Lucent. After the merge the competence center of Barcelona has become one of the key Multimedia centers for Alcatel-Lucent. José Luis started in 1988 working as desing engineer for Intelligent Networks in Alcatel and his career has evolved with different management possitions in the applications area.

Presentation: From Video Streaming to a Convergent Mobile Interactive TV. Alcatel-Lucent will explain their view in today situation on WAP Video Streaming services and how they need to evolve to a true TV offer with interactive services and how this new technology will be linked to IPTV.

Xavier Kirchner - Director of Telefonica I+D, Barcelona

Presentation: the title of his talk will be “Telefónica Experiences with Digital Television” and he will be speaking on the experiences that Telefónica has had with its development and deployment of its IPTV service Imagenio (originally developed by Telefónica R+D and later transferred to Alcatel-Lucent for industrialization under the MyViewTV name), the current mobile TV streaming service and the recent pilot of DVB-H.

As usual, a networking party will follow the conference where participants will enjoy a glass of cava while sharing experiences about life and work. Attendance is free; all you need to do is register and/or confirm your presence for this event at www.mobilemondaybarcelona.com/subscribe/ to reserve one of the 150 seats available. Book now to avoid being left out!

• 19h00 Registration and Pre-Networking
• 19h30 MyMobileTV speaker sessions
• 20h30 Cocktail and Networking Party
• 21h30 End

Venue: Auditorium University of Pompeu Fabra - França Building (Edifici França), Passeig de Circumval·lació, 8 - Barcelona 08003

Location and Directions here at Google Maps.

About Mobile Monday
MobileMonday is a community of mobile professionals organised around local networking events in almost 40 cities around the world. This open community promotes the mobile industry and fosters cooperation and networking among industry people and their companies by providing opportunities for personal and virtual contacts. MobileMonday Barcelona is organised by Rudy De Waele, Carles Ferreiro and Barcelona Media.

Our Partners
Our thanks to our partners Telefónica Movistar, 22@Barcelona, Alcatel-Lucent, Ajuntament de Barcelona, CIDEM (Centre d’Innovació i Desenvolupament Empresarial of the Generalitat de Catalunya) and Agora 22@ for their invaluable support.

MobileMonday Global Peer Awards winners were decided last Monday in Barcelona at the Espacio Movistar. The awards were handed out to two European applications and one from the US, MobileMonday previously anounced.

The Audience Award went to a Swiss LBS application called Plazes. The Plazes service adds physical presence to the web. The Plazes website automatically detects your location and connects you to people and places nearby.

The jury’s favorite was a French 3D application that can scan and manipulate real life hand written text. The winner, RealEyes3D, operates at two levels: It runs a mobile copy service for camera phone users, www.qipit.com and sells “handwritten messaging” applications to handset vendors.

Community Award went to an American company Mobile Complete. It offers solutions to manage the user experience throughout the life-cycle of mobile applications, services, and handsets.

This was the third year MobileMonday’s Peer Award winners have been chosen. The competiton presentations were held in the Espacio Movistar mobile entertainment center in Barcelona.

Twenty-two of the most talented, creative, and innovative companies presented 3-minute “elevator pitch” style presentations to a panel jury, the audience, and MobileMonday chapter heads.

All finalists were best-of-breed companies who have demonstrated exceptionally innovative mobile technologies, services and concepts. Micah Gland, head of MobileMonday International Development, described the MobileMonday Global Peer Award finalists as “the foam that rises to the top of the café called 3GSM.”The Carnival of the Mobilists - ‘Host of the Year‘ award went to Rudy De Waele with his blog m-trends.org on Mobile Media Lifestyle.

Congratulations to all winners and finalists! A great networking party followed the event for all attendants.

More pictures of the event can be found on Flickr by Josep Ganyet, Martin Sauter, and Rudy De Waele, or by using a combination of various tags suchs as mobilemonday, peerawards, 3gsm, barcelona or other related.

UPDATE: we created a Global Peer Awards Flickr Group so anyone who has pictures of the events can upload them to the group to be shared by everyone.

The MobileMonday Barcelona team and Barcelona Media would like to thank Telefónica Movistar for hosting the event and to 22@Barcelona and Reitek for their fantastic support as a Premium Sponsor and Nexit Ventures as Silver sponsor. Big thanks also to Ajuntament de Barcelona and CIDEM — Generalitat de Catalunya, for their invaluable additional support.

The MobileMonday Global Peer Awards 2007 in Barcelona is being organized collaboratively by the MobileMonday community. Hosted by MoMo Barcelona, MoMo Italy, MoMo Helsinki, MoMo London and MoMo New York have also taken active roles. Many thanks to the everyone who helped building this great event, especially the whole MobileMonday community, participants, the jury (!), MC Caroline (wonderful job!) and Jari and Micah, without their initial and invaluable support it would not have been possible to make such event happen. Hope to see all of you again next year!

(and now back to normal preparing next months’ MobileMonday, stay tuned!)

All pictures © by 22@Barcelona.