So, here are the details:

QPrize is aimed at the mobile industry’s most promising early-stage technology companies and is open to entrepreneurs from six different markets from over the world, of which Europe is one. The prize is up to US$750,000 in total seed funding. From the pool of competing entries, Qualcomm will select up to six finalists from the six contest markets (North America, Europe, China, South Korea, Israel and India).The finalists will each receive US$100,000 (€100,000 in Europe) of convertible note funding from Qualcomm. The grand prize winner will receive an additional US$150,000 of convertible note funding, for a total prize of US$250,000 in venture financing.

The deadline for business plan submissions is December 14, 2010 and entrants’ submitted business plans are evaluated by a panel of experts based on the merits of the technology innovation, its market potential, the company’s management capabilities and the attainability of the proposal’s financial projections.

More info on the competition can be found here: www.qprize.com. Get stuck in!

Congratulations to Ankit Agarwal. He was one of 7 mobile developers who entered the Appnation Conference Pod competition.

Ankit wins a Pod (like a small booth/stand) at the Appnation Conference from where he will be able to show off his applications to the influential crowds of developers, analysts, media and business people attending the event. There’s also some event tickets including the opportunity to go along to the Appnation evening reception.

Ankit’s company, Micello is Google Maps for inside buildings. Really, really useful for big shopping malls, exhibition halls, Government buildings, that sort of thing.

So congratulations Ankit!

I’m going to contact Ankit to verify that he can attend — in the event that he can’t, I’ll do another random draw on the spreadsheet. Meanwhile I’m going to see if there’s any other possibilities with the Appnation team for those who didn’t win. Standby!

If you’re a mobile developer, you should be at the upcoming Appnation Conference in San Francisco, happening on the 13th and 14th of September.

I’ve got one exhibition Pod to give away.  The Pod is brilliant — it gives you the ability to show off your wares to the thronging masses.

And for all the British and Europeans reading, don’t underestimate the power and potential of the American entrepreneurial spirit. That spirit is absolutely thriving in Silicon Valley right now thanks to the innovation (and money) flowing around the area.

So if you need to kick-start your app’s growth or if you’re looking for companies and organisations to adopt your technologies, this is the place to be. And it’s all 100% mobile application focused.

By all means go — but if you’d like a little Pod, I’ve got *one* to give away to a lucky mobile developer.  You will need to get yourself to San Francisco but I’ve managed to get the Pod, a load of passes and a ticket to the uber-cool evening reception.

If you’d like to participate, all the details you need are here.

I’ll be selecting a random winner this evening at 10pm London Time. Good luck!

In the post, I wondered what noted social media expert James Whatley made of it. James is Engagement Strategy Director for 1000heads. He was kind enough to send me an email with his viewpoint. If you’re supervising or managing your company’s social media strategy, take note.

Here’s James….

- – - – -

Ewan,

In short; you’re spot on.

This really isn’t of any benefit to you, the devoted twitter follower of old or really to anyone else who makes up the sub-20,000 follower list. This competition is quite meaningless. I mean, what about the folk who have been with them since the start?

MotoMobile (I would imagine) has probably been through some tough old times in the past… *cough* motorola razr *cough* …and pre-android at least, one would imagine that they were pretty close to the brink. Building up a following of 20k+ followers is no easy feat, admittedly. To have got this far they must have had at least some kind of engagement strategy to build this up, right?

This strategy, with the right PR behind it, may well raise the profile of the presence significantly (as those who care not for the brand or the conversation sign up and race to be that 20,000th follower) but the quality of engagement will surely dip.

A better idea would be to offer a free device – at random – to any one of their 20,000 followers once they’d hit the magic number.

This competition doesn’t incentivise me as much as it doesn’t you… and I don’t even follow them.

There is no engagement here. No long term plan. This is simple carrot and stick. But the carrot isn’t for you, for all your hard work and support – it’s for the next donkey that turns up (who hasn’t done a damn thing).

MotoMobile’s tweet is poorly worded, it may as well say – “To thank YOU for YOUR support, we’re going to give a Moto device to SOMEONE ELSE!”

I could go to town on the lack of personalisation, the poor use of the Twitter B/G, the lack of intent to make their presence work that little bit harder… but that’d be too easy.

At the time of writing there are eight of your followers who have called you on this MotoMobile (and that’s not including Ewan and his post) -

http://twitter.com/mariobutter/statuses/20157994452
http://twitter.com/kartracer3886/statuses/20157541502
http://twitter.com/mobilevation/statuses/20157137867
http://twitter.com/MuslimGirl11/statuses/20157137552
http://twitter.com/agousetis/statuses/20156944877
http://twitter.com/fonixmunkee/statuses/20156939441
http://twitter.com/keyboardxbully/statuses/20156887935
http://twitter.com/mosherjm/statuses/20156882005

– Will you respond?

A recommendation:

Fair enough, it is quite difficult to retract a competition once it’s out in the public domain. So I would advise MotoMobile should stick with it but, once complete – open a new competition/giveaway to the participants of your MotoPic Monday entrants. Creating content AND raising the profile of one your weekly features.

Or maybe even (as one of Ewan’s commenters suggested) give a new (and maybe even better) prize out for free to one of your followers at random. Do this live, using Qik. Not only demonstrating your honesty and transparency but also showing off one of the best apps available for your device.

That wouldn’t be too hard… would it?

- – - – -

Nice recommendation James and thanks for taking the time.

That’s an Amplicom M5010 handset which is 100% ideal for any elderly relative. It’s a simple telephone. Easy to use, massive buttons, loud sound levels, easy to read display and built-in hearing aid compatibility.

Peter was drawn from the list of newsletter readers who tweeted before 8pm London Time this evening.

Congratulations Peter!

Now, if you’d like to participate in upcoming competitions, you do need to receive the newsletter. Subscription is free at you can register here.

Also: Check out the Amplicom unboxing video we published recently.

But there’s a bigger problem here – with both the operators and handset manufacturers now generating revenue from application sales old friends have now become competitors.  How will the operators feel about the Blackberry store offering competitive navigation or music store offerings to their own?  And will operators want to allow the handset vendor’s stores onto their branded handsets when they could keep that revenue for themselves?

Ask the people involved (and I have) and there’s much talk of partnerships, co-operation and marketplace-growth.  In face, if I hear the phrase ‘bigger pie, not bigger slice’ used once more it may turn nasty… but the question remains to be answered: Apple’s making hundreds of millions of dollars from app sales.  Those numbers are too big for this to stay friendly.

We love free stuff (whenever we can).

We love giving you our free stuff more.

Viewers of the show will know we’ve handed out promotional and review devices to commenters for some time now, giving out some quite desirable kit recently.  We’re not going to stop doing that in the new year, but until then I’d like to introduce…

Mobile Industry Review Christmas Presents

We’ve stashed away some of our best stuff and will be giving it away in a draw on the 10th December with the intention that it reaches you in time for Christmas – a gift for you one less thing to buy.

So what’s different?  This time around we won’t be picking winners from the site’s comments.  Instead we’re running a prize draw.  Entry to the draw is in exchange for a donation to Mobile Industry Review’s two chosen charities – the UK-based Childline and the UN Foundation (winners of a Mobile Industry Review award) which operates internationally.

Full details and an online donation form can be found on our MIR Christmas Presents page so please head over there now.  Please support us in helping these excellent causes who rely on telecoms and mobile technology to help people in desperate need.

Voice and messaging provider, AQL, are staging a developer competition to both celebrate their 10th anniversary and to stimulate development across the industry. Always good news.

Dr Adam Beaumont, top chap at AQL, comments:

We’re seeing a host of applications crop up start to use our interfaces, from twitter-like applications and facebook plug-ins through to integration with legal software and CRM systems

Aye. There’s actually a lot of innovation going on in the marketplace — but it’s always useful to stimulate it. So if you think you’ve got a good idea that could make use of multiple APIs (e.g. SMS, MMS, Voice, Fax and Email), then you really should give a bit of attention to the AQL Developer Competition.

Stuart, their Biz Dev chap explains:

We’re specifically looking for clever use of multiple APIs together so any combination of SMS/MMS/Voice/Fax/Email. These can be either “self-contained” applications or websites, or they can be interfaces which “enable” third party applications (such as facebook) access to aql functionality. The winners will be notified on the 15th of November. It only remains for me to wish you all the best of luck and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to send me a private message [via the AQL developer forum].

The developer rules are right here.

I’m going to be judging along with Dr Mike Short of o2, Jay Daley (CTO of Nominet), Victor Keegan of The Guardian and Dr Adam himself.

I’m thinking of a few applications already. You’ve got a lot to play with there. Lots of APIs and possibilities. Conveniently, AQL will also provide text-in numbers free of charge to developers for the duration of the competition.

It made me smile a little.

The Bold certainly gives the iPhone a run for it’s money in my book, but the others listed? No. Not even near.

Here, then, is Mobile Industry Review on location.

Yes! This Saturday, we headed down to sunny Brighton on the south coast of England, to visit the inaugural social media cafe (“Tuttle Club”) establishing itself in the town.

We’ve got a packed episode of pure joy for you, featuring: -

* Quick overview of the Mobile Industry Review awards, James Whatley with Ewan Macleod ( 01:24 )
* Brief news and comment on the week’s events, Ben Smith and Dan Lane ( 02:12 )
* Lastminute’s FoneFood service, Ben Smith ( 02:44 )
* Twitter News ( 03:22 )
* Josh Russell interview at the Tuttle Club Social Media Cafe, Brighton ( 03:52 )
* A normob-walkabout at the Tuttle Club (ft our very own, ubiquitous James Whatley) – ( 05:39 )
* Sony Ericsson News ( 07:36 )
* TwistedCarbon‘s Bluetooth Speakerphone (direct link to buy) – ( 07:55 )
* The Uber Geek Q&A – coming next week, Dan Lane ( 09:53 )
* Apple iPhone simply isn’t business critical: Discuss. With a focus on email. ( 10:28 )
* Orange mobile data… woe! ( 16:12 )
* Ben Smith will be going to Beijing ( 19:20 )
* Shout-outs ( 21:03 )
* Competition and competition results! ( 21:53 )

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