It’s my first crack at hosting the Carnival of the Mobilists, so if you’re new around here, hello! There are just a few posts for the Carnival this week, but often, less is more. So for your reading pleasure I present:
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First up: James at mjelly asks “Is wholesale mobile data about to take off?”. Essentially, can the content provider pay the carriers for the data consumed by the end user? Coming soon after Vodafone’s annoucement of 500MB of free data for every contract customer, James nicely thinks around removing the barrier of cost, and whether carriers’ backend systems can even cope.
http://blog.mjelly.com/2008/05/first-example-1.html
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Next, Tomi Ahonen looks at a big advertising concept, which is only in Japan right now (though probably not for long). It’s something “…wacky and cool and youth-oriented and totally mobile, and very far-out in what is technically now becoming possible…”. Yes you’ve guessed it: it’s all-out warfare via a mobile MMOG based on packets of crisps!* Blimey, pass the cheese and onion, it’s going to be a long night!
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2008/05/getting-deeper.html
*That’s chips for the non-UK audience.
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Denis at WAP Review questions whether password masking is really necessary for a mobile device. It’s an excellent question, especially given that most mobile phones don’t have full QWERTY input. These sorts of usability discussions are essential as the web slowly shifts towards mobile.
http://wapreview.com/blog/?p=560
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Paul Ruppert of Mobile Point View breaks down the recent investment of UK mobile marketing giant Velti into the Chinese market, through their investment in CASEE. It also includes a bonus podcast with the CEO of Velti.
CASEE serves up 500m ads per month on WAP pages, so if you think you know mobile advertising just because you’ve heard of Admob, think again.
http://www.mobilepointview.com/2008/05/velti-invests-i.html
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Now, many moons ago, my university housemates and I wished we could have overlaid our banter onto any TV programme, so as to transmit our (drunken) pearls of wisdom to the world. And now this dream has come to life through the magic of Twitter! (except during downtime). Read all about it via SmartMobs.
http://www.smartmobs.com/2008/05/26/twitter-helps-tv-viewing-become-social/
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But it’s Ajit Jaokar at Open Gardens who has written my Post of the Week, and not just because he mentions the iPhone a lot 😉
It’s a very detailed look at what Google’s Android is, moving from handset internals to industry dynamics, and questions what the entry of Android may herald for the entire mobile value chain.
http://opengardensblog.futuretext.com/archives/2008/05/crossing_the_ch_2.html
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Some great reading there, so many thanks to all the contributors. Next week’s Carnival is over at tarekesber.com. Cheers!