IoT is taking off, and in a big way, evidenced by the massive amount of IoT solutions and applications shown at MWC.

The rapidly falling costs of key IoT building block sensor technologies combined with creative mobile software development is enabling new innovative IoT solutions in literally all use cases, from personal to business and across fixed and mobile networks and devices.

At the same time, the expected phenomenal growth in devices connected to the internet through either direct or mobile connections will drive up the level of “background noise” on the internet. IoT solution providers and Operators need to plan for managing the increases in network loads to ensure capacity requirements are met while providing an optimal user experience to customers and subscribers.

Opportunities will be plentiful for solution providers and Operators to target certain application areas, and to find ways to create smooth user experiences and minimize network traffic load.

Some of the most interesting that we saw this year at MWC included:

The area of IoT will certainly continue to be a hot topic for the mobile industry, and we expect to see even more focus next year at Mobile World Congress 2016.

Here is our take on four of the most interesting trends that we spotted at the show, subjects that we believe could well be important for MobiAD subscribers to follow over the coming year, including Internet of Things, m-Payments, Mobile Marketing, and Mobile For Development.

Altogether there were more than 1,800 companies showing their products and services at MWC, so trying to cover everything is never possible. However, over the course of the show there are always a few themes and trends that become evident and we have picked the following four to discuss.

IoT – The Internet of Things

Also called M2M or Connected Life, this is clearly an area that many operators are hoping will provide substantial future business as their other revenue sources erode. Unfortunately, just as it seems that no one has yet to be able to firmly settle on the right name for this market, it seems that the market itself is still some ways off in terms of becoming an actual consumer phenomenon.

The business use of M2M has been around for quite a few years, and seems to be growing well. Fleet tracking, cargo tracking, utility meter reporting, etc are all well known applications. Given the growth of economical higher speed networks, we are also seeing some video based applications becoming mainstream (think security cameras or remote video advertising screens).

Ericsson showcased new infrastructure designed to help operators offer advanced M2M services. One development stressed was the increasing ability to enable communication with remote devices be two-way for control purposes rather than simply one-way for tracking purposes.

For example, they cited a fruit shipping company that monitors the temperature of their fruit containers during shipment. They can also remotely adjust the temperature of the containers depending on the speed achieved by the ship so that the fruit ripens exactly when the ship arrives at the port.

On the other hand, the Connected Street part of the MWC exhibit was definitely less than exciting. It was intended to showcase how connected devices can impact many facets of our lives from education to health to transportation. However, with very few exceptions, the applications shown seemed to be more ‘science fair’ type projects, not things you would actually see using today.

Car manufacturers were also exhibiting at MWC once more this year, with promises of the Connected Car. However, from what we saw the real focus at the moment seems to be how best to integrate a smartphone into an automobile, rather than offering really compelling new services.

For example, the ability to use a voice recognition front end to control your iPhone apps while in the car (as shown by Ford) is an interesting idea, but somehow it seems to fall short of the full promise of Connected Car.

Mobile Payments Everywhere

Payments is a special interest of ours, so we have been tracking mobile payments carefully over the years. At previous MWC’s there were usually just a few companies focused on payments, but this year there seemed to be dozens, including both Visa and Mastercard who were both present in a big way.

Visa was focusing quite a bit on their V.me offer. Basically this is a way for consumers to store their card details in a cloud based wallet. Then, when shopping online, if the merchant accepts V.me, they can purchase by simply signing in with email address and password.

This is a good idea which could make life easier for everyone, but as always the hurdle will be to get a critical mass of both merchants and cardholders enrolled so that it it worth everyone’s time.

Mastercard featured their participation in the HCE announcement. Briefly HCE (Host Card Emulation) is a system which should allow for more flexible implementations of NFC, because it makes it easier for people to develop and run the NFC app.

Mastercard also demoed a system they are proposing to those operators who run mobile money systems (e.g. sytems like M-Pesa). The MC solution would allow the mobile operators to offer credit cards (pre-paid) to the subscribers that have these mobile wallet accounts. This would allow the subscriber to make purchases in retail establishments or online using the card, with the funds coming from their mobile wallet account. An interesting step for such a big player as Mastercard.

Samsung and PayPal were showing a technology first – mobile payments authenticated by fingerprint. Samsung’s new Galaxy S5 incorporates a fingerprint reader, and this is connected to a PayPal secure wallet in the cloud. No biometric information is stored by PayPal, but users can make purchases at any PayPal merchant with no login or passwords to remember!

Beyond these these giants, there were dozens of smaller companies offering every variety of mobile payments you can imagine. One thing that is true about essentially any payment system is that you need to achieve a certain scale in order to become an accepted alternative, so its not clear how all of these companies will survive long term.

Mobile Marketing is Mainstream (at last!)

This year – at last – it seems very clear that mobile marketing has finally become mainstream.

A large number of key mobile marketing companies were at MWC with very substantial stands, seemingly bigger than in previous years, indicating that business must be going fairly well. Millenial Media, InMobi, Urban Airship, Airpush, BuzzCity, xAd, Fjord, mBlox, Smaato, Sofialys, and Velti were all there, and in fact Hall 8, the App Planet, actually looked like a mobile advertising show.

With over 200 companies listed in the category of mobile advertising & marketing, it can be hard to know which stands to visit. One good idea – this year mobile agency GoldenGekko gave guided tours of what they considered to be the most interesting companies & mobile marketing demos at the show. One example was Fiksu, a fast growing company in the area of mobile app marketing. Their specialty is a very tightly integrated approach for mobile app user acquisition.

MWC also included a special seminar featuring executives from some of the biggest brands (e.g Kraft, Unilever, Nestle, Citigroup, Intel, L’Oreal), plus essentially all of the major advertising agencies, as well as many of the mobile marketing specialist agencies. (for more information see the Mobile Media Summit website).

Some of the topics were those that have been discussed regularly for a number of years – such as optimal use of location and navigating the barriers to mobile measurement. But other topics reflected the most recent developments in the field such as effective second screen advertising or an updates on the best ways to understand, recognize, and reach today’s digital audience.

Mobile For Development (M4D)

The GSMA defines Mobile For Development as “serving the underserved through mobile”.

For the past several years, the GSMA has had an internal group whose mission is to bring together mobile operators, the wider mobile industry, and the development community to drive commercial mobile services for underserved people in emerging markets. And this year is seemed to finally become one of the major topics at MWC.

A lot of this is driven by the fact that much of the world has essentially reached mobile phone saturation. In fact, 4 out of every 5 new mobile connections now being made are in the developing world. Because of this, there is now a very big focus on delivering products and services that are tailored to this sector of the world’s population.

One big announcement at MWC was Mozilla’s low cost smartphone. The phone will cost only $25, yet will have mobile internet, the Firefox OS, and the ability to run simple apps.

This device could greatly speed up the penetration of smartphones in resource poor regions, and lead to an explosion of services.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, also addressed M4D in his MWC keynote, focusing on the Internet.org initiative he supports. Internet.org is working to bring affordable internet to everyone on the earth, and in fact advocates that MNO’s offer basic internet – including Facebook – for free.

During his keynote he commented, “Why are the next two billion not on the internet? The reason is not because they don’t have any money, it’s because they don’t know the value of having a data plan or the services they can access.”

In addition, many other major mobile companies are keen to show that they are putting serious resources behind the M4D effort. For example Qualcomm with their Wireless Reach program was demonstrating m-Education projects from both developed and developing regions on their stand.

The GSMA also emphasized M4D in their Global Mobile Awards program, where they awarded numerous prizes for projects in M4D topics such as m-Health, m-Education, m-Women, and m-Agriculture.

Selected by a judging panel of independent experts, analysts, journalists, and academics (including MobiAD’s Jim Cook), here is a full list of the short-listed nominees, some of the best apps, services, and products in the world of mobile!

According to Michael O’Hara, Chief Marketing Officer of the GSMA, “The Global Mobile Awards recognize the world’s leading mobile devices, services, apps and technologies and this year, with a host of diverse categories reflecting the latest mobile trends, growth sectors and opportunities, we expect the competition to be even stronger than ever.”

Winners will be announced at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday, 25th February 2014.

Here are the nominees for 2014

Category 1: The Connected Life Awards

1a. Best Mobile Health Product or Service
  • ACEScreening by ACE Communications
  • Energize the Chain for Econet Wireless Vaccine Project in Zimbabwe
  • mHealth Tanzania PPP for Healthy Pregnancy, Healthy Baby Text Messaging Service in Tanzania
  • Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA)
  • Telecom Development Company Afghanistan Ltd. (Roshan) for Telemedicine

1b. Best Mobile Education Product or Service
  • Airtel Africa, The Wikimedia Foundation and Praekelt Foundation for Wikipedia Text
  • Applied Mobile Labs Private Limited for English On Mobile
  • Enable Mobile Technologies for Magic Pencil
  • Qualcomm Wireless Reach for the WE Learn Project
  • Samsung Electronics for Samsung Chromebook

1c. Best Mobile Product or Service for Automotive
  • Delphi Automotive for Delphi Connect
  • EnGIS Technologies for BringGo
  • Mahindra Reva & Vodafone for REViveTM
  • Nuance Communications for Dragon Drive
  • WMC for Ericsson Connected Vehicle Cloud (CVC)

1d. Best NFC/Mobile Money Product or Service
  • China Mobile for ‘Mobile Wallet’
  • Etisalat for Flous – Connected Commerce Program
  • Etisalat for ‘Mobile Cashier’ – mPOS (Mobile Point of Sales) Service
  • Giesecke & Devrient for Convego® System Commerce (CSC) Money: Multi-Channel Payment and Loyalty Services Platform
  • Telenor Pakistan for easypaisa

1e. Best Mobile Publishing Product or Service
  • BBG for Voice of America Organization: Broadcasting Board of Governor’s Office of Digital & Design Innovation
  • Celtra for AdCreator 3
  • MotherApp Limited for FamLoop KidsHub Children’s Book Publishing Suite
  • Track180 & DMI for Track180
  • Wibbitz

1f. Best Mobile Innovation for ‘Smart Cities’
  • Accenture plc & RCS MediaGroup S.p.A. for City1Tap
  • China Mobile for ‘Future City Future Living’
  • ParkU Verwaltung GmbH & Co. KG for ParkU
  • SK Telecom for Smart Guide
  • The New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) & Transit Wireless (TW) for BAI’s Transit Wireless

1g. Best Mobile Enabled Consumer Electronics Device
  • AT&T Mobility for AT&T EverThere
  • Filip Technologies Inc. for FiLIP
  • Garmin for Garmin Head-Up Display (HUD)
  • Mio
  • Sony Mobile Communications for SmartWatch 2 SW2

Category 2: Best Mobile Services

2a. Best Enterprise Mobile Service
  • Airwatch for AirWatch Enterprise Mobility Management, Version 7.0
  • Appthority
  • Nuance Communications for Nina Mobile
  • Truphone
  • Turkcell Iletisim Hizmetleri A.S. for Turkcell Smart Map

2b. Best Consumer Mobile Service
  • AT&T for AT&T Digital Life
  • ING Bank Turkey for Online Banking Platform
  • Samsung Electronics for Samsung WatchON
  • Sush Mobile
  • Vodafone Turkey for “Facebook Self-Service”

2c. Best Advertising or Marketing on Mobile
  • Blue Hive London for Ford EcoSport
  • PHD Global Strategy Unit, Unilever, YouTube, Unruly, Ogilvy Brazil for Dove Sketches Global
  • Lowe and Partners for Kankhajura Tesan
  • Ogilvy & Mather Thailand for TrueMoveH
  • SK Telecom for Noot Campaign

2d. Best Network Based Solution for Serving Customers
  • Avea for Location Based Push Notification Service
  • GMCR Inc for Globe Prepaid GoSakto: Create Your Own Promo
  • LG Uplus
  • SpatialBuzz and Telefonica UK for the Trusted Network Programme powered by SpatialBuzz
  • Turkcell for Turkcell SMS+

Category 3: Social & Economic Development

3a. Best Mobile Product, Initiative or Service in Emerging Markets Mobile Alliance for Maternal Action (MAMA)

  • Praekelt Foundation’s “Ummeli” Platform
  • Qualcomm & Telefonica Vivo Foundation for Fishing with 3G Nets
  • Range Networks
  • Vodafone Foundation in India, the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women (CBFW) for RUDI Sandesha Vyavhar (RSV) project

3b. Best Mobile Product or Service for Women in Emerging Markets
  • Easypaisa
  • Etisalat for Etisalat’s mWomen program – Weena
  • Millicom for Tigo Ghana Market Women MFS project
  • Vodafone Foundation in India, the Self Employed Women Association (SEWA) and the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women (CBFW) for RUDI Sandesha Vyavhar (RSV) project
  • Yesteam Solution Private Limited for SHG E Bookkeeping

3c. Best Use of Mobile in Emergency or Humanitarian Situations
  • Range Networks
  • Smart Communications for help.PH Global Fund Campaign via BayadLoad channel
  • Smart Communications for Smart’s SafePh: Yolanda Response
  • Uepaa! Swiss Alpine Technology for the Uepaa! Rescue Application
  • XPAl Power Inc for SpareOne phone

3d. Best Mobile Product, Service or App for Accessibility or Ease-of-Use
  • AT&T Mobility for AT&T U- verse® Easy Remote App
  • Bazile Telecom for Fuss Free Phones
  • BIG Launcher
  • Tobii Assistive Technology for Tobii EyeMobile
  • Turkcell for Turkcell My Dream Partner

3e. The Green Mobile Award
  • eRecycling Corps
  • Grameenphone Ltd. for Climate Change Program
  • Indus Towers for Indus Towers’ Shut AC Drive: Indoor (ID) to Outdoor (OD) Conversion of Telecom Sites.
  • TATA Teleservices for Project Optimus
  • Telefonica for ESCo Free-Cooling Project

Category 4: Apps of the Year

4a. Best Entertainment App (Gaming, Music, Sports, Video)*
  • Device 6
  • Bloom
  • Candy Crush
  • Spotify
  • YouTube

4b. Judges Choice – Best Overall Mobile App *
  • CityMapper
  • Fantastical 2
  • SnapChat
  • Uber
  • Vine
  • WeChat

4c. Most Innovative Mobile App
  • Everything.me
  • glasses.com for glasses.com app
  • Kakao for Kakao Talk
  • PointGrab for CamMe
  • Tempo AI

4d. Smartphone App Challenge
  • Winner will be announced at the Mobile World Congress

Category 5: Best Mobile Handsets & Devices

5a. Best Smartphone *
  • Apple iPhone 5S
  • HTC One
  • LG G2
  • Nokia Lumia 1020
  • Samsung Galaxy Note 3

5b .Best Low Cost Smartphone *
  • Lenovo A390T
  • Nokia Lumia 520
  • Samsung Galaxy Young
  • Sony Xperia E
  • Xiaomi Hongmi

5c. Best Entry Level or Featurephone *
  • Nokia 105
  • Nokia 208
  • Nokia 515
  • Nokia Asha 210
  • Nokia Asha 503

5d. Most Innovative Device Manufacturer of the Year *
  • Winner will be announced at the Mobile World Congress

5e. Best Mobile Tablet *
  • Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9
  • Apple iPad Air
  • Apple iPad Mini with Retina
  • Google Nexus 7
  • Sony Xperia Tablet Z

Category 6: Best Mobile Technology

6a. Best Mobile Infrastructure
  • Avvasi for Avvasi Q-SRV
  • Cisco for Cisco Quantum Virtual Packet Core ( Cisco QvPC )
  • F5 for F5 Traffix Signaling Delivery Controller
  • Nokia Solutions and Networks with Telefonica O2 UK Limited for iSON Automation for Operations
  • Samsung Electronics for Smart CA

6b. Best Mobile Technology Breakthrough
  • Ethertronics for EtherChip 2.0
  • Fastback Networks for Fastback Networks Intelligent Backhaul Radio (IBR)
  • KT Corporation for olleh TV Now
  • Sensory Inc. for TrulyHandsfreeTM 3.0
  • SpiderCloud Wireless for SpiderCloud Wireless Dual-Band 3G/LTE Radio Node (310)

6c. Best Cloud Based Technology for Mobile
  • Airwatch for AirWatch Cloud-Based Enterprise Mobility Management
  • Conduit for Conduit Mobile
  • Devicescape Service Platform
  • Fiberlink
  • Xively for Xively Cloud Services

6d. Best Mobile Identity, Safeguard & Security Products/Solutions
  • Cloudpath Networks for XpressConnect Enrollment System
  • McAfee for McAfee LiveSafe
  • Nuance Communiactions for Voice Biometrics
  • SecureAuth IdP – 2 Factor Access Control for the Mobile Enterprise
  • Xooloo for Xooloo App Kids

6e. Best Solution for Growing Smaller or Independent Networks
  • BroadForward BFX Interface Gateway for Teleena services agility
  • KT Corporation for Smart Small Cell Solutions
  • Metaswitch Networks for Project Clearwater
  • Multivision for METRIC
  • Reach-U for Demograft

6f. Outstanding LTE Contribution
  • Huawei SingleRAN LTE Enhancement Suite
  • KT Corporation for Wideband LTE-A commercial service
  • SK Telecom for Commercial LTE-Advanced Network
  • Telstra 4G
  • VIVA Kuwait for 4G LTE Internet

For more information about the Global Mobile Awards, see the event website.

Over the course of four days, 24-27 February 2014, Mobile World Capital Barcelona will host the world’s greatest mobile event.

As the mobile industry continues to diversify, how will the roles of the traditional and emerging members evolve and with what impact? In 2014, the Mobile World Congress Conference programme will examine the present and debate the future of our industry with in-depth analysis of the trends that are shaping it.

From the keynote programme to topic-focused conference sessions, thought leaders from the most dynamic companies in the mobile industry will be represented during the event. Want to know what’s next for the mobile industry? Find out at Mobile World Congress 2014.

If you’re a part of the mobile industry, you won’t want to miss it. Join us in Barcelona where we are Creating What’s NEXT.

Learn more at www.mobileworldcongress.com or @GSMA.

Although the show has been going for many years, it is still the best place to be if you want to see what is happening in the mobile business, and have a chance to meet those that are making it happen.

Here is a brief wrap up of some of the show highlights.

We’ve been going to the Mobile World Congress for over 10 years now – even back when it was the GSM Conference in Cannes – and the nature of the show has definitely changed quite a bit over the years.

Whereas previously it was the place where many companies made their big new product announcements, this is less the case in recent years, with several major players make product announcements just prior to, or just after the show.

However, it is still the one location and the one time during the year where you can get an excellent view of what is important in the industry, what are the latest trends, and you can meet many of the people that are driving those trends.

Here are some of the most important topics from this year’s MWC.

Low price phones are coming

A move towards dramatically reducing the entry price points for phones was clearly evident, with the biggest news probably being the Nokia 105 at only €15 (and it has a one month charge!).

Two big trends seem to be driving the push towards less expensive phones:

• Emerging markets – With mobile phone ownership in developed countries approaching 100%, much of the industry is looking at the two or three billion people in developing markets that do not have phones as the next area for growth, and they will require very low priced devices.
• Smartphones to new price points – Now that smartphones are so well established as the device of choice for most consumers, there is a huge focus on bringing basic smartphone capabilities to a lower price point in both developed and developing markets. Several companies are actively pushing this direction, including Nokia, ZTE, and Samsung.

NFC – still waiting

Once again NFC was pushed heavily at the Mobile World Congress by both vendors and the show organizers. And once again, the general conclusion seemed to be that it is still not a compelling customer experience, and still not likely to grow very quickly very soon. [for an entertaining but insightful report of the NFC at MWC, read Tim Green’s article]

It seems that operators are determined to keep pushing NFC technology in mobile phones for payments as they believe that it will give them a strong position in the payments value chain. Taking just a small percentage of the billions of dollars that are transacted in purchases could be a huge revenue stream, but in much of the world it is hard to see exactly how much value MNO’s can add. (this would be excluding locations such as Kenya where operator Safaricom, due to its unique position as a trusted organization was able to launch a payment service such as M-Pesa).

OTT (Over The Top) services

OTT services are services such as Viber or Skype or WhatsApp Messenger that provide, for example, voice calls or messaging over the mobile data channel without involving the mobile operator at all.

These OTT services have always been a huge threat to the MNO’s, as they cut the operators out of the value chain, and voice and messaging have been two fundamental revenue sources for the operators.

Strangely, up until this year there had not seemed to be very much discussion among operators about OTT. However this year OTT finally became a hot topic, with a lot of discussion around how operators could compete or cooperate with the OTT providers.

Mobile OS landscape – it may change

With Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android together having a market share well above 90% for smartphones, one might conclude that the battle of mobile operating system market is finished, and no other players should think about entering. However, there are a couple of recent entries which make us think there will still be some evolution in the OS marketplace.

• Windows Phone: While its true that Microsoft has had a very slow start in the mobile world, both Microsoft and Nokia are now firmly pushing the Windows Phone OS. Given that it has received essentially good product reviews, the weight of these two very large, powerful companies may finally be enough to push Windows Phone to some level of success.
• Firefox OS: Launched by Mozilla, the same company that has been making the PC version of Firefox, Firefox OS is a platform based on HTML 5 and open web standards that is intended to “foster greater participation in the value chain”, which basically means undermine the dominance of Apple and Google in the mobile OS space. Mozilla also launched Firefox Marketplace as a means for developers to distribute Firefox based mobile apps.

  ZTE has already launched a low cost device for Firefox, and several major operators have said they will launch Firefox devices this year. Further down is a chart of the partners listed on the Firefox OS website.

• And the rest: There are also a number of other players that might at some point have a chance of eventually gaining significant market share (“significant” meaning a big enough share to entice developers to make apps).
  RIM, good reviews on the initial device, but frankly we don’t give this much hope.
  Tizen, the OS from a committee spearheaded by Samsung and Intel. Given that Samsung is the largest producer of smartphones in the world and Intel another major tech power, you can’t count them out. But its not clear exactly what advantage Tizen will have over other open systems.
  Ubuntu Touch, and Sailfish (and perhaps others we did not even hear about) – it is difficult to see them making huge progress, but perhaps they can become niche platforms.

However, given the expected massive growth of low-end smartphones into some very large emerging markets over the next few years, perhaps a most likely possibility for additional smartphone OS would be one that has been particularly tailored to this market segment, and maybe even to a particular country.

M2M – Connected Life

Machine-to-machine applications were once again highlighted at the MWC. Under the branding of “Connected Life”, there were conference sessions and demonstrations at vendor stands that showcased applications such as connected automobiles, energy management, remote health, agriculture, etc. Smart Cities, much of it based on M2M communications, was another hot topic this year.

The GMSA also setup an entire “connected street” in one of the halls. According to the GSMA, “attendees could stop into a cafe, browse among a selection of vehicles, then visit their favorite shops. It was a great glimpse into the (very near) future!”

Many of these applications may take quite awhile to develop as they require quite a bit of infrastructure and impact some very big existing systems (eg city management). But there is definitely momentum building, and it seems clear that this will be a growth area of mobile over the next 10 years and more.

MWC’s new venue

And finally, this year the MWC was held in a new venue in Barcelona – the Fira Gran Via. While not as charming as the previous location (and unfortunately with much poorer transportation services!), the new venue was definitely better suited to an event of this size – better organized halls, better connected, and no need to walk outside to move from location to location.

The main difference is that there was much more room available for the exhibition, and so many of the vendors constructed enormous, very elaborate stands, much bigger than in any previous MWC. Here is a picture of just part of the Samsung stand.

For more pictures of the Mobile World Congress 2013, including some 360 degree panoramas, visit the MWC site.

The awards, which were launched by Hilary Clinton, Cherie Blair, the GSMA Development Fund and sponsored by Vodafone, challenged app developers to build an original app solution that targeted the specific needs of women in developing countries.

On offer was a prize of $10,000 from Vodafone to assist in the commercialisation of their apps.

In the Feature Phone Category, the winner was NextDrop, which solved the problem of infrequent water availability thanks to an app that partners with water utilities and consumer goods corporations in order to warn consumers who lived in that geographical location when water supplies had become available.

In the Smart Phone Category, the winner was TiendaTek which uses an Android App and a barcode reader in order to enable businesses to track transactions, connect with suppliers, identify areas in which they can improve and receive education about how they can improve.

Lee Epting, director of content services at Vodafone Group, said “At Vodafone, we are very focussed on developing products and services that make a difference to people in emerging markets, and I am delighted that we have been able to encourage developers to do the same via this competition.”

“NextDrop and Tienda Tek have been chosen for their ability to address the real problem of how to serve the 300 million women currently excluded from the social and personal empowerment of mobile,” Lee added.

For more information on the mWomen initiative, visit their website.

In the Best Mobile Advertising and Marketing category, six great mobile campaigns from all over the world have been selected as finalists.

This years awards include a new category for best Global Mobile App as well as awards for Mobile Innovation, Best Technology, Social and Economic Development, Mobile Innovation, Best Use of Mobile for Business and Enterprise and the Green Mobile Awards.

“The GSMA warmly congratulates all the nominees in this year’s Global Mobile Awards,” said Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer at the GSMA. “Our judging panel once again faced a daunting challenge in determining the nominees this year, selecting just 115 nominees across 10 categories from more than 470 entries.”

The nominees for Best Mobile Advertising and Marketing Campaign are:

• Dialog for StarPoints
• Globe Telecom for Project 4438
• Mobilera for Cornetto Multiplayer Interactive Wall Projection Mapping Game
• Mobilera, Vodafone Turkey and Kraft Foods for Vodafone Turkey – Deal or No Deal?
• Mr Price Group for Mobile Marketing Strategy
• MTS, Grape and Citymetria for Red Quest

The nominees for Best Mobile App are:

• Flipboard Inc for FlipBoard
• foursquare for foursquare
• Google for Google Goggles
• Google for Google Maps
• Rovio / Clickgamer / Chillingo for Angry Birds
• Spotify Ltd for Spotify on mobile

As part of the announcement the GSMA has said that British TV and Radio presenter Jonathan Ross will host the award show, and Grammy award winning singer Duffy and Indie Rock Band Metric will be performing.

Thank you for your enthusiastic response, perhaps we’ll see you in Barcelona!

Discover the App Planet

App Planet brings together the many critical elements of the broad mobile application ecosystem in one location. The App Planet experience includes over 200 app-specific exhibitors, networking at the App Lounge and Damm Bar, and perusing the GSMA App Garage. Plus there are App Developer Conferences and educational forums led by industry experts.

This year’s Application Developer Conferences include participation from
• BlackBerry,
• deveroperprogram.com,
• IMGA,
• Macworld Mobile,
• Mobile{dev}Sync,
• Nokia, Samsung,
• Windows Phone,
• WAS, and
• WIP Connector.

For more info on App Planet, visit the App Planet site.

]]> http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=5033 Tue, 23 Nov 2010 11:02:49 +0000 http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=5033 The GSMA has announced two new mobile app contests as part of the Mobile World Congress 2011.

The Brand App Challenge will see mobile app developers build “brand apps” for a selected group of global brands, including Coca Cola.

The Band App Challenge will have developers submit concepts to enable famous musical artists to engage with their fans throughout the world.

Prizes include cash, tickets, and trips to MWC Barcelona.

Brand App Challenge

Developers will create customized mobile apps for the participating brand sponsors based on the objectives and guidance provided by the individual brands. The apps will address a wide range of mobile operating systems including Android, Apple iOs, BlackBerry OS 6, HP webOS, Symbian and Windows Phone 7.

According to the GSMA the contest will run as follows:

• Developers can sign up for the Brand App Challenge via an online portal and then upload a brief video demonstrating their proposed brand app. Submissions will be accepted until 10 January
• Each brand will select five finalists who will then compete to become the ultimate winner for the respective brands. Finalists will be named approximately one month before Mobile World Congress 2011.
• Winners will be announced at the Mobile World Congress and will receive cash awards and a trip to Barcelona.

For more information, visit the challenge website.

Band App Challenge

“The Band App Audition has been created for app developers to showcase innovative and creative new ways that artists can engage and interact with fans around the world, across all mobile OS platforms,” said Michael O’Hara, chief market officer, GSMA. “This is the first competition of its kind, and we are delighted to have such a fantastic line-up of world leading and new artists participating in the contest.”

Leading bands such as Muse and Faithless, as well as emerging artists Metric and Eliza Doolittle will be participating.

App developers will submit 3 minute videos highlighting the key points of their proposed app.

The entries will be judged by the participating bands and their management. Prizes for the contest range from the opportunity to work with the bands to develop a full app, as well as meet and greet, tour tickets, and merchandise.

App developers can download individual mobile app briefs, along with graphics, tracks and other content assets from the Band Challenge website.

The App Challenges are an element of App Planet, the GSMA’s developer-focused program at Mobile World Congress.

Billed as an “event within an event”, the App Planet is setup to let all MWC attendees learn more about this important and rapidly evolving mobile phenomenon.

There are special events for both the technical side of app development as well as the business aspects, so it promises to be a really interesting event.

App developers are definitely one of the most important audiences for App Planet, and there are a series of activities to address their key concerns. But in addition to developers, the App Planet is also set up to help essentially everyone – content developers, mobile operators, handset manufacturers, platform companies – better understand the world of mobile apps.

There are really two core activities that are the center of the App Planet, the exhibit area and the Developer Conferences.

App Exhibition Hall

Located in Hall 7, the App Planet exhibition area brings together more than 50 app-specific exhibitors in one place. This area is open to all pass holders each day of the Congress, and provides a great way to get an overview of the wide variety mobile apps and meet the companies that are driving the industry.

To see a list of who will be exhibiting, go here, then click on the “App Planet” filter button on the left side.

There will also be an App Lounge located within the App Planet – a networking area to relax and meet other attendees. And from 18:00 to 19:00 each evening, there will be a special happy hour for attendees at the Damm bar near the App Lounge.

App Developer Conferences

This is the second key focus of the App Planet. Most of the major mobile app software platform companies will sponsor invitation-only sessions which go into both the technical and business aspects of developing apps on their platform.

There is a full schedule of Developer Conferences as follows:

• Monday 15 February – Vodafone 360 Developer Conference
  Vodafone sponsors a full day session about building and marketing apps for its Vodafone 360 platform.
• Monday 15 February – Motorola’s MOTODEV Developer Day
  See the tools and market knowledge to build great apps on Motorola’s Android-based device.

• Tuesday, 16 February – BlackBerry Developer Day
  RIM takes a look at the rapidly growing BlackBerry platform.

• Wednesday, 17 February – Google Android Developer Lab
  Targeted at current Android developers and those who want to learn more about the platform.

• Wednesday, 17 February – Sony Ericsson Creation Day
  A day of content creation experiences, focusing on the future of mobile UGC (user generated content).

• Thursday, 18 February – WipJam
  Hosted by WIP (Wireless Internet Partnership), a Developer Day bringing together developers and industry leaders.

And more …

Finally, the Apps Garage is the central location for all the GSMA-related programs and activities.

One such program brings together the GSMA with Berkeley Mobile International Collaborative, a non-profit organisation focused on bringing innovative, real-world educational and entrepreneurial opportunities to college students throughout the world. Together they have launched the global University Mobile Challenge, which will bring together teams of students from universities that offer courses in mobile app development and entrepreneurship. The winning teams will participate in a global competition at Mobile World Congress 2011.

Michael O’Hara, chief marketing officer for the GSMA, said, “Application development is one of the most vibrant, innovative areas within mobile today, and we’re thrilled with the early response to App Planet.”

So if you are going to the Mobile World Congress this year, make sure to plan some time to visit App Planet!