Posts Tagged ‘MobileBeat 2010’
HP’s Phil McKinney describes the mobile devices we will carry (video)
is one of the visionaries in ’s personal systems group, where he is a vice president and chief technology officer. He spoke about his vision for mobile devices at our conference this week in San Francisco. His talk goes a long way toward explaining why HP bought Palm and gives a high level view of how HP plans to participate in the future of mobile devices. to launch in the future. Check out the video of professor McKinney with his white board.
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MobileBeat 2010: Gadgets, gadgets, gadgets (photo gallery)
Being a conference about the superphone, presenters brought surprisingly few gadgets onstage, with the exception of HP’s Phil McKinney, (though he only used a whiteboard for his actual presentation.) The attendees and exhibitors, however, brought a considerable amount of technology to the conference, trying out and demoing new services. And, as usually seems to be the case with techie events these days, checking in is a favorite pastime.
[Photos: Miikka Skaffari]
VentureBeat would like to thank the companies that are supporting MobileBeat 2010, including GetJar, Placecast, Greystripe, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Paypal, and Jumptap as Gold Sponsors, AdMob, OpenMarket, Navteq, MasterImage 3D, Symbian, DeHood, Flurry, and Palm as Silver Sponsors, and Nexage, Offerpal, Marvell, Verizon, Mobclix, Mayfield Fund, InMobi, Appolicious, Offermobi, and Norwest Venture Partners as Event Sponsors.
Here’s what happened at MobileBeat 2010
We just wrapped up , our annual mobile tech conference. Over the course of two days, we brought speakers including HP’s Phil McKinney, AT&T’s John Donovan, and Facebook’s Erick Tseng on-stage to talk about their vision of the mobile industry’s future, and 20 companies demonstrated new products to compete for our Tesla Awards for best startup.
The big theme was “The Year of the Superphone.” If you didn’t make it to the conference, you can find links to all our coverage below. If you want to listen to full sessions, you can hear many of them .
So here’s the news from MobileBeat:
— DeHood, the location-based service building hyper-local communities, rolled out a revamped website, an iPad app and Facebook integration.
— Looking to bring SAT test prep to the 21st century, mobile startup eduPath launched its TouchPrep application series available for the iPhone, iPad and iTouch.
r — Ever wish you could be a smarter driver? Now a startup called Motolingo launched a set of mobile applications that sends car data to smartphones for improved service and travel.
— Educators looking to reach their students outside of the classroom may have a new tool at their disposal. Emantras, a company that develops online and mobile educational tools, launched Mobl21, a platform for creating, managing and distributing educational content to the web and mobile devices.
— OwnYourInfo gives users a secure, neatly-ordered location to store and view their most important data through their mobile phones — basically turning your handset into a locked filing cabinet.
— AppCityLife, a new city guide application for your mobile phone, seeks to provide you with all the details you need about your local environment, from post offices to laundry to schools and hospitals.
— Phil McKinney, chief technology officer of Hewlett Packard’s personal systems group, offered some broad hints about HP’s mobile strategy. He didn’t announce any new products, but he discussed HP’s acquisition of Palm and previewed some of the cool technology his team is working on.
— At first glance MyTalk may just look like another location-based social mobile network. A deeper dive shows that this application may offer a bit more than location-based check-in points and knowing where your friends are eating on a Friday night.
— Vaayoo provides a platform for application developers, web publishers and social networks to create and serve up new social and multimedia apps. Now its new SocialBox applications ties together everyone’s favorite social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and more to make it easy to share media and content via your phone.
— Mobile app startup Snaptu has a simple goal: To bring the rich mobile app experience seen on the iPhone, Android, and other smartphones, to every cellphone — in particular, low-end phones (often referred to as “dumbphones”).
— BlogRadio has come up with an interesting solution for RSS overload: The service lets you listen to any blog RSS feed with its natural text-to-speech technology.
— New mobile application SkyEye turns your mobile phone into an around-the-clock security and surveillance system for your person.
— The MobileBeat 2010 Startup Competition, sponsored by Palm, kicked off this morning with the introduction of five new consumer applications hoping to change the way you use your phone on a daily basis.
— AT&T Chief Technology Officer John Donovan described his vision for a future where more and more data is flowing through mobile networks. AT&T “will move heaven and Earth” to meet its customers’ growing data needs, he said.
— As mobile applications and startups become less pricey to fund, big investment firms are overlapping more and more with Silicon Valley angel investors as their funds and deal sizes shrink. The “Smart Strategies for Mobile Investing” session reflected this new convergence.
— Micello describes itself as “Google Maps inside a building.” The company has developed a simple method of mapping indoor locations like malls and universities.
— Locomatix, developer of a location-aware technology, announced the launch of its new cloud infrastructure for the development of location-aware consumer applications. The company’s technology helps to integrate location into new and existing applications.
— Referring to itself as “Constant Contact for voice and text,” mobile startup Call Loop allows marketers to tie together voice, text and email marketing messages into coherent, automated campaigns.
— AFK Interactive’s M4 platform (Massively Multi-user Mobile Monetization) is the holy grail for gamers: It allows you to stay connected to massively multi-player online games (MMOs) like World of Warcraft, virtual worlds like Second Life, and social games like Farmville from any mobile device.
— Noting the fact that 98 percent of fixed broadband capacity goes unused, Swedish startup Anyfi Networks is in the process of patenting technology that turns broadband network operators’ spare capacity into mobile broadband.
— The headline kind of speaks for itself.
— The MobileBeat 2010 Startup Competition, sponsored by Palm, recommenced with the introduction of five infrastructure and services companies striving to improve the architecture underpinning our mobile systems.
— Samsung is moving fast into the era of superphones now that it is in the process of launching its Galaxy S smartphones at six different carriers this summer.
— Now one year old, Aava Mobile offers both open hardware and software, giving mobile developers enough leash to make truly creative designs and applications.
— The first opinion network made for mobile phones, Thumbspeak gives companies and app developers a way to rapidly collect insights and feedback from their customers by asking them questions on their phones.
— POIdo, one of a number of location-based advertising startups, is putting a new spin on the concept.
— Mobile transaction startup Sentegra has come up with an all-encompassing mobile wallet platform with its meWallet system.
— Identity authentication startup Enole provides a secure way for people to use the same login information to access the internet through a multitude of devices, and will be particularly useful as more and more connected devices come online in coming months.
— The MobileBeat 2010 Startup Competition, sponsored by Palm, wrapped up with the introduction of five more infrastructure and services companies working to break down and rebuild the way we all use our mobile phones.
— The two panels of judges for MobileBeat 2010’s Startup Competition have spoken: mobile test-prep application EduPath nabbed the top prize in the consumer-facing app category, while indoor mapping provider Micello won the mobile infrastructure and services category.
— One of the themes this afternoon at the conference was “Who owns the user?” It would have been a great opportunity to pile-on criticism of mobile carriers, but a couple of speakers, including Twitter mobile head Kevin Thau, had favorable things to say.
. — A breakout hit for real-world mobile payments in the U.S. is still a year or two off, despite the emergence of superphones and rich ecosystems with hundreds of thousands of apps, said panelists.
— Now that mobile ad network AdMob has been acquired by Google, the company’s founder and chief executive, Omar Hamoui, is getting pulled into what looks like a mobile advertising battle between Apple and Google.
— Aside from the panels and breakout sessions going on at MobileBeat 2010, one of the major attraction of conferences is the chance to catch up with colleagues and new companies. The hallway is the place where networking happens, and MobileBeat 2010 is no exception.
— John Ellis, director of software and services for Motorola, said the handset manufacturer was happy with its big bet on Google’s Android platform.
— As large, national and international brands begin to show interest in advertising on location-based services, the check-in games are finding they’re on the winning end of the deal.
— While Android’s user base is expected to surpass the iPhone’s, many passionate gamers would tell you that the gaming experience on the iPhone is far better than on Android – primarily because of the buttonless form factor of iPhone, but also because of the superior iPhone graphics. But a panel on mobile gaming said that’s not the case.
— GetJar, an online mobile application store, announced the winners of The Gettie Awards, an annual mobile app competition.
[photo of VentureBeat Editor in Chief Matt Marshall and friends by Miikka Skaffari]
VentureBeat would like to thank the companies that supported MobileBeat 2010, including GetJar, Placecast, Greystripe, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Paypal, and Jumptap as Gold Sponsors, AdMob, OpenMarket, Navteq, MasterImage 3D, Symbian, DeHood, Flurry, and Palm as Silver Sponsors, and Nexage, Offerpal, Marvell, Verizon, Mobclix, Mayfield Fund, InMobi, Appolicious, Offermobi, and Norwest Venture Partners as Event Sponsors.
GetJar names Gettie Award 2010 mobile application winners
, an online mobile application store, last night announced the winners of , an annual mobile app competition, at VentureBeat’s annual conference in San Francisco.
Second to the Apple App Store, GetJar is the second largest application store. Though the company offers an open market for apps across all major operating systems, including Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, iPhone and Symbian.
The Gettie Awards 2010 had hundreds of developers submit their applications for testing and the chance to win up to $25,000 in GetJar credits. A panel of industry heavyweights selected 18 nominees (6 categories, 3 nominees in each). Of those nominees, the following companies were selected as winners, according to the :
Best Java application: WaveSecure Backup – Helps keep your personal data safe by letting you back up or restore your data securely.
Best Symbian application: Nimbuzz – Helps you get free calls, instant messaging, file & location sharing with Nimbuzz friends and Skype, Facebook, MSN/Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AIM/ AOL Instant Messenger, MySpace, ICQ, Gadu-Gadu, Hyves, & more.
Best Windows Mobile application: Opera Mini – Helps you get a fast, cost-efficient Web browsing experience with lightning fast data loads to your phone.
Best Blackberry application: Kayak Flight/Hotel Search – Helps you compare hundreds of travel sites at once, organize your itinerary and track your flights right on the Blackberry.
Best iPhone application: Tap Tap Revenge 3 – Helps you get access to over 100 free songs and 100 premium bundles of music rhythm games.
Best Android application: Lookout – Helps identify and block security threats, backs up and restores a user’s personal data, and can quickly find a lost or stolen phone by pinpointing its location on a Google map or sounding a loud alarm.
While the individual categories all won $15,000, the Gettie Award, the top winner across all categories, netted $25,000. This year’s recipient was , the augmented reality application that adds digital information to your surroundings. The company recently announced that .
Interesting, the company also identified which operating systems had the most submissions. iPhone accounted for 26 percent of nominations, Android 20 percent, Java 18 percent, Symbian 15 percent, Blackberry 13 percent, and Windows Mobile, 9 percent.
VentureBeat would like to thank the companies that are supporting MobileBeat 2010, including GetJar, Placecast, Greystripe, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Paypal, and Jumptap as Gold Sponsors, AdMob, OpenMarket, Navteq, MasterImage 3D, Symbian, DeHood, Flurry, and Palm as Silver Sponsors, and Nexage, Offerpal, Marvell, Verizon, Mobclix, Mayfield Fund, InMobi, Appolicious, Offermobi, and Norwest Venture Partners as Event Sponsors.
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MobileBeat: Will Android beat iPhone in mobile gaming?
While , many passionate gamers would tell you that the gaming experience on the iPhone is far better than on Android – primarily because of the buttonless form factor of iPhone, but also because of the superior iPhone graphics. But a panel on mobile gaming at VentureBeat’s MobileBeat 2010 conference today said that’s not the case.
The panel participants all vehemently supported Android over iPhone, although largely because of developer support and the openness of Android’s platform rather than quality. However they also acknowledged several problems with Android, such as payment options, app discovery in the Android marketplace, and fewer categories in mobile gaming. They said they expect these issues to be resolved in the near future.
Si Shen, CEO of Beijing-based mobile game company , who was on the panel, said she sees tremendous momentum behind Android in Asia. Even in Japan, which is more “iPhone friendly”, , the biggest mobile operator in Japan, has declared support for Android. Almost every carrier and OEM in Asia except Nokia is working on Android, she said.
The panelists downplayed the fragmentation problem, which many analysts cite as perhaps the biggest problem with Android. There are third-party platforms emerging to help developers port their applications to different Android devices, and the problem seems more similar to what developers face with slight differences in the way browsers read HTML rather than to the painful porting problems they faced with J2ME, for example.
On top of this, there are indications that Google is taking gaming seriously, as evidenced by its . Considering that gaming is one of the largest categories in iPhone applications, Apple should take the threat seriously. With the momentum behind Android and the soon-to-launch Windows Phone with XBox Live capability, things will get even more interesting.
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MobileBeat panel: Location-based services need brands more than brands need them
As , the check-in games are finding they’re on the winning end of the deal. This is a point that came up in one of the MobileBeat 2010 breakout sessions on location and advertising today.
Dinesh Moorjani (pictured), senior vice president at internet conglomerate referred to a scavenger-hunt-style promotion shoe designer Jimmy Choo organized with the popular check-in service , giving up a free pair of shoes for the winner of the hunt. “The question is, who benefited more? Jimmy Choo or Foursquare?” Moorjani asked. “It’s kind of ironic when you think about it. Who should be paying who?”
Brands like Jimmy Choo or Starbucks, or Pepsi, or VH1 are experimenting with location-based services, trying out different promotions and seeing what will stick. In the Jimmy Choo example, it can be argued that this promotion was just a testbed for them and a way to see if or how customers can be engaged. They probably didn’t need to reach out to Foursquare users to gain visibility in that demographic, much like a company with high brand awareness, like Starbucks, doesn’t need to win a new audience with Foursquare or . But Foursquare and Brightkite need new audiences, Foursquare haging over two million registered users, but still only a fraction of smartphone users, let alone cell phone users globally.
Dustin Jacobsen, ad agency vice president of social media, agreed. “Large brands can also saturate an app, buy it out in a sense, which means that all you could end up seeing is a million coffee ads. The question for big brands is how to build up the level of engagement and tie the location in with other existing customer relationships like loyalty programs, because that will bring a lot more context to [mobile advertising].”
Another point in mobile advertising, or specifically location-based advertising (which is a very small subcategory of mobile advertising) is how to engage the roughly 15-20 million small businesses in the U.S., many of which are not even advertising online, let alone on phones. “It’s all about closing the loop,” said Moorjani. “It’s about hearing the cash register ring and comparing that to the dollar spent in advertising, and so far, the cash register isn’t ringing enough for many small and medium-sized businesses.”
As Jacobsen sees it, one challenge is the fragmentation of location-based services right now. With dozens of companies working in the sector, brands are still in an experimental phase. “Ultimately, there will be only a few select winners of that space. Brands want to work with companies that have a sales force, and some of the companies are better at it, like , which has a dedicated sales force. When a startup grows enough to afford to have a sales force, that’s when their chances increase,” Jacobsen said.
But in the end, it may be that just knowing somebody’s exact location isn’t enough to make smart marketing decisions. Jeff Montgomery, location-based ad company chief revenue officer said the company has learned three things on location-based advertising, and they are 1) time affects a location, meaning that a hotel is very different on a Monday morning than a Saturday evening, and this impacts the user’s experience and needs concerning that location 2) consumer behavior can be changed, but the message – the ad – has to give consumers time to react, not reach them as they walk into a store, and 3) give consumers control on the messages and ads they receive.
Which is something that Erick Tseng, ’s head of mobile products, brought up on stage in a fireside chat with VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall, speaking about the classic coupon promotion with location-based services.
“How many people have ever used a type of coupon where an offer is pushed to you based on your proximity to a store?” Tseng asked a full room. Zero hands went up. “To me, those types of coupons feel like spam.” However, Tseng continued, if there is social intelligence on top of the location-based ad that makes it more relevant to the person, that’s a different story. “If you see that 30 of your friends are raving about the new pumpkin-flavored frappuccino, and maybe two of your friends are inside, that could be more relevant to you,” Tseng mused.
[Photo: Miikka Skaffari]
VentureBeat would like to thank the companies that are supporting MobileBeat 2010, including GetJar, Placecast, Greystripe, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Paypal, and Jumptap as Gold Sponsors, AdMob, OpenMarket, Navteq, MasterImage 3D, Symbian, DeHood, Flurry, and Palm as Silver Sponsors, and Nexage, Offerpal, Marvell, Verizon, Mobclix, Mayfield Fund, InMobi, Appolicious, Offermobi, and Norwest Venture Partners as Event Sponsors.
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Catching up at MobileBeat 2010 (photo gallery)
Aside from the panels and breakout sessions going on at MobileBeat 2010, one of the major attraction of conferences is the chance to catch up with colleagues and new companies. The hallway is the place where networking happens, and MobileBeat 2010 is no exception.
The second floor of the Palace hotel is a favorite hangout between sessions.
Plenty of mini-sized basketballs around this conference.
“The ball represents our ideas,” said Tyler Bell (pictured left) from LikeList.
A chance to sit down for a hallway conversation.
Exhibitions piqued attendees’ interest during breaks.
Rhiannon from DeHood demonstrating the neighborhood app.
The hallway just outside the Grand Ballroom was taken over by many exhibitors.
The breaks provided a great chance for shaking hands and exchanging business cards.
The Monday night reception was a chance to chill out after a day of keynotes, panels and breakout sessions.
Ankit Agarwal (pictured right), CEO of Micello, enjoying a drink after winning a Tesla award in the mobile infrastructure and services category.
VentureBeat would like to thank the companies that are supporting MobileBeat 2010, including GetJar, Placecast, Greystripe, Qualcomm, Microsoft, Paypal, and Jumptap as Gold Sponsors, AdMob, OpenMarket, Navteq, MasterImage 3D, Symbian, DeHood, Flurry, and Palm as Silver Sponsors, and Nexage, Offerpal, Marvell, Verizon, Mobclix, Mayfield Fund, InMobi, Appolicious, Offermobi, and Norwest Venture Partners as Event Sponsors.
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