Midem is coming in January. It’s the music industry’s premier connected event and it takes place in Cannes, France, every year. If you’re working on something mobile-music related (or “connected” music), then I strongly, strongly recommend you consider attending the event. You’ll meet almost 7,000 other folk.

Don’t just buy a ticket though. Get in touch with the organisers and find out how you might be able to get involved, whether it’s participating in their hackathon or speaking on a panel. I know the team there so if you’d like an introduction, please let me know. Indeed, if you’d like to submit a paper, you can submit a paper for consideration — although I think it’s getting quite late now.

If you’re a startup, there’s a special €495 ticket price (or €295 for students and artists). Otherwise it’s €795 if you book in advance (or an extra €100 on the door).

Some key reasons for attending:

• Source music content
• Benchmark your technology and business model
• Showcase and sell your latest products, services and solutions
• Raise funds from an international community of investors
• Be visible among the global music ecosystem
• Develop deals & partnerships with artists & brands

Make the decision soon though as hotel rooms will get booked up.

I just looked the trip up on Expedia and I’m astonished to report that you can stay at the Intercontinental in Cannes (including return flights from London Luton on EasyJet) for just £635! Or consider the Mercure near the beach — that’s just £298 for the hotel and flights!

Charms & Pendants: charms,
Earrings: gold and silver earrings,
Rings: Diamond Rings,
Birthstones Jewelry: Birthstones by month.

If my schedule will allow it, I’ll definitely be popping along to see what’s moving from a mobile perspective — so I might see you there!

If you’re working in mobile music, I strongly recommend taking a look at midem. Most people working in music know all about midem, however it’s not so well known in the mobile sphere.

modem — always written in lowercase — is the world’s largest and most influential music industry event. It takes place each year in Cannes and if you’re looking to connect with senior folk in the music industry, it’s the place to be.

I write this because I know the organisers, Reed Midem, very well. If you’d like a personal connection, please let me know and I’ll introduce you.

Perhaps you’d like to speak, get more details on exhibiting or find out about participating in some of their mini events? For example, I think the midem Innovation Factory could well be highly relevant for some readers.

Here’s their event announcement:

For its 46th edition, midem is undergoing a makeover orchestrated by the music industry market’s new director Bruno Crolot. “We’re keeping the fundamentals, but we’re aware of the need to widen our positioning to encompass a broader range,” he explains. To adapt to the natural evolution in the music market, a number of innovations will be implemented. “We want to reach a bigger ecosystem. midem, which next year will run from Saturday to Tuesday, will bring together technology companies, advertising agencies and brands around artists and traditional music industry players.”

Alongside this new positioning, the tariffs for accreditation have been simplified and revised down: “We are proposing some very attractive prices for artists and start-ups. We’re also offering a special price of €495 until 30 September,” said Bruno Crolot.

Among major innovations for 2012, midem will create a new space, the Direct2fan Camp, where independent artists and labels can meet and where the latest digital tools aimed at developing and enriching the direct relationship with audiences will be showcased. Participants can benefit from advice and training on techniques to optimise their online presence via new technological tools and social networks.

Henceforth, the MidemNet programme will now run concurrently over the four days of the market, with a special day dedicated to major keynotes on what will be known as Visionary Monday. midem 2012 will also see the launch of the Innovation Factory, a space for meeting and discovery where start-ups, major technology players, artists and labels will be able to share their needs, projects and expertise in the field of music.

At the heart of the Innovation Factory, the midemlab, the international competition open to innovative start-ups and developers of applications, which was a great success in 2011, will widen its scope to include companies from all sectors. Candidates should propose innovations and digital solutions aimed at helping executives, artists and brands reach and cement bonds with audiences whilst generating revenues.

For brands, the new-look midem is developing an even more sophisticated programme of content, conferences and workshops, in order to foster interaction with artists, publishers and labels. After the success of Sync Day last year, midem is expanding this event through the addition of a competition, which will bestow awards for the best use of music in a marketing campaign.

Another novelty will be the launch of the midem festival, open to industry executives and for the first time also to the general public. This will comprise three evenings of special concerts in a single dedicated venue, during which upcoming artists and international stars will share the line-up. The Fringe stage, launched last year, has been renamed midem off, and for the forthcoming edition will include musical programming in the heart of the market by day, and live performances in the bars of Cannes by night. “We want the event to be more fun, to put live music at the core of midem, and do all we can so that participants feel more involved than they have in the past,” summarises Bruno Crolot.

It’s all-systems-go on Thursday here in London. MEF Global has come to town. I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed MEF events. The calibre of the other attendees is always extremely high.

The last MEF event I attended was a good few months ago now — in Miami — and it was simply brilliant.

This week’s event — MEF Global — brings key members from the MEF community from around the world together — but the key point here is that if you’re not a member, you can still come along. You’ll just have to stump up a bit more cash for a ticket. (If you’re not a member and you operate in and around the mobile entertainment space, you really are missing a trick.)

I’m hosting a panel this time, too. The subject? Leveraging the Unique Characteristics of the Mobile Device to Drive Mobile Social Commerce. Oh yes. Get in.

One of the MEF organisers asked if I could be counted upon to deliver some robust debate as panel moderate.

I nodded sagely.

Robust is my middle name when it comes to moderating panels. It should be a good one too.

Shall I let you into a little secret? I have a weird fear of panels. It’s still a real fear, I think — or perhaps a major aprehension — even today. A long time ago I moderated a panel in California on the topic of mobile. Android was just a glint in the milkman’s eye and ‘mobile development’ had only one definition: ‘iPhone’. My panel consisted of 5 chaps who all were apparently expert in their domain. I came up with about 13-15 questions to ‘get-us-started’, expecting each of the chaps to talk for at least 15-30 seconds each, filling the 45-minute session nicely and allowing for a bit of to-and-fro from the audience.

Yeah. None of that. I asked my first question and each person took the sodding microphone and said, ‘Yeah’ and handed the microphone along. 5 or 6 minutes into the session I’d used all my flipping open-ended low-ball juicy questions thanks to the stupid one-word or 6-word answers from the panel. The audience and I looked at each other. I could see they thought the panel was a bunch of idiots too.

But the fear. The panic. Goodness me. I filled the empty 35 minutes chatting along with the audience (who, thankfully, engaged with me perfectly normally) whilst the panel sat twiddling their thumbs. It’s a fear/panic issue for me, right up there alongside the horror of walking out of the house in the morning, getting on the train and finding my mobile battery is on 10%. Anyway. There you go. That’s a real fear of mine — moderating a panel and getting zero interaction from them.

This will not be a problem on Thursday though. The MEF team know what they’re doing. I’ve seen the participant list and they’re all excellent. I think we’ll have some fireworks and some good debate.

The rest of the agenda is looking good too. I’m looking forward to seeing the ‘lightning presentations’ — they should start the day off nicely. I gather this session comprises a series of 5-10 minute ‘quick-hits’ from some influential mobile people to set the scene. Then there’s a ‘thought leaders critical debate’. I do hope it is critical. I’m sure it will be. And on we go.

Here are just some of the folk speaking:

John Conlon, Senior Innovations Manager, Global Innovations, Barclaycard

Ty Roberts, Senior Vice President of Sony Corp. of America, Co-Founder/CTO of Gracenote

Daniel Angel, Head of mobile payments at Everything Everywhere/Orange

Lee Epting, Content Services Director, Vodafone, as keynote speakers at the event.

We’ll also see executives from Shazam, Whitbread, Aurora Fashions, Evernote (use it every day), CBS Mobile (love their stuff), A&N Media (ditto), Lightsquared (please come to the UK), Gracenote, Boku, Telefonica (BlueVia rocks) and QTel.

The day rounds off with always exciting Meffys Awards:

In the evening of the 7th July, MEF is celebrating industry achievements at its 8th annual Meffys Awards gala dinner hosted by Ruby Wax. This year’€™s Meffys is set to be a fantastic evening of celebration and networking. Tickets for the Gala Awards Dinner are selling out quickly so buy yours today.

You can pick up a conference & Meffys ticket for £599. Or just attend the conference for £299.

See you there.

Here’s the agenda and here are the ticket prices.

Look at that list there. That tells you something about the ecosystem that Qualcomm has created in recent years.

Uplinq is Qualcomm’s annual developer conference in San Diego and if my experience there last year was anything to go by, this year’s event (June 1st-2nd) is going to be fantastic.

The keynote speakers themselves are simply astonishing. First up you’ve got Qualcomm’s very own superstar, Dr Paul Jacobs. Youthful, engaged, highly watchable — the guy is brilliant. He’s going to be joined by:

- Jon Rubinstein, SVP & GM of Hewlett-Packard’s Palm Business Unit
- Peter Chou, Chief Executive of HTC
- Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia

When I read this, I did have to take a second glance. HP, HTC, Nokia and Qualcomm all playing together? Oh yes. It’s a brave new world. And what a coup for Qualcomm — the company has made a serious of brilliant moves placing its Snapdragon chipsets in the heart of the next generation of mobile technology. Almost any Android, WebOS and Windows Phone is sporting some kind of Qualcomm hardware.

Needless to say, I’m very much looking forward to seeing what each of these chaps has to say about the mobile marketplace.

There’s still time to register for the event and you can browse the full schedule here. If you’re into the business of mobile development, I recommend being there. Tickets are a pretty reasonable $375.

Now then here’s another event that I’d like to draw your attention to, especially if you’re into social media as I know a lot of the people reading are. BlogWorld & New Media Expo is taking place on the 24th-26th of May  in New York. This year they’re adding a mobile stream to the conference schedule — and all things being equal, I’m going to try and be there!

I asked Rick Calvert, the top man at BlogWorld to answer some questions about the event (particularly in the context of mobile). Here we go — my questions are in bold:

- – - – -

1. Could you introduce yourself — who are you and what’s your background?

I am the CEO & Co-founder or BlogWorld & New Media Expo. I have been reading blogs since 2000 and started my own political blog “The Real Ugly American” in 2005. Before launching BlogWorld I worked on several large tradeshows here in the US including The SEMA Show (everything you don’t need to make your car go faster or look cooler which brings 100,000 attendees and more than 2,000 exhibitors), ComiCon (everything you ever wanted to know about Comic Books 100,000 attendees and 1,000 exhibitors) and AWFS (Association of WoodWorking & Furnishings Suppliers)

2. Describe BlogWorldExpo — what’s the event concept? It’s not just for people who write blogs?

BlogWorld was built primarily to provide an industry wide gathering and help digital content creators succeed. In order to accomplish that we identified four main goals with our event.

#1 Help content creators learn how to create, distribute and monetize content.
#2 Expose the different communities within the blogosphere to each other.
#3 Educate companies large and small how to use these new media and social networking tools and teach them how to build relationships with content creators.
#4 Foster the convergence between new media and traditional media.

We also have a very diverse community. This includes four main groups:

• Digital content creators who are currently earning some income or a full time living via their blog, podcast, internet radio, internet TV or other form of digital content.
• Other folks that we consider a core part of our community include people who are insanely passionate about their content and want to improve what they are doing but might not be making any money at it or may never even have the aspiration to do so.
• The next group are the corporate bloggers, community managers, social media managers, and evangelists.
• Lastly, come the suits. The PR flacks and “Corporate Communicators”, the CMO’s VP’s and Directors of Marketing, the Ad Agency pitchmen and small business owners who want to engage with our core community and learn how to use new media tools to sell more stuff, provide better customer service and improve their internal corporate communication, etc.

3. I’ve always associated BlogWorldExpo with the West Coast — tell us about the addition of the New York show?

We have wanted to do a show in the east coast for a long time now. People are constantly asking us to produce an event on the east coast. This year we finally had the right opportunity to do that in partnership with our friends at Reed and Book Expo America. This is going to allow people within our community who have always wanted to attend but haven’t been able to travel out west to be a part of the BlogWorld experience.

4. What kind of organisations exhibit and present?

Like the rest of the blogosphere it is a pretty diverse group. Blogging platforms like WordPress and Posterous, to analytics and social media monitoring services like Radian6 and Raven Tools, content syndication services like Newstex, Advertising and Affiliate networks, domain hosting and registration companies, blog networks, audio and video hardware like Kodak and Sony, to corporate sponsors like Ford and Southwest Airlines.

5. Who should attend BlogWorldExpo?

Anyone who wants to create, distribute or monetize content on the web. Any company that wants to learn how to use social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn or how to blog and podcast.

6. The event seems to have a phenomenal reach — tell us about that?

Well last year we had 3,200 attendees at the show. In turn those 3,200 people had a combined monthly audience of over 250 million people. That is just counting their self reported blog audience. That doesn’t include their reach on Twitter, Facebook etc. I think the fact that we hold the Guinness World Record for “most social media messages sent in a 24 hour period with a single hashtag” #beatcancer is evidence of that reach and influence.

7. Mobile, blogging and social media are beginning to tightly integrate — and to this end you’ve introduced a mobile stream — tell us about that?

The mobile revolution is going to dwarf the internet revolution. As smart phones get smarter and easier to use and with the increased adoption of tablets like the iPad. Billions of people are all going to be consuming the content that bloggers, podcasters etc create on those mobile devices. They are also going to be making buying decisions and direct purchases from their mobile phones. Any content creator that isn’t formatting their content to be consumed on mobile devices is going to be left behind very quickly.

8. What’s your message to companies in the mobile industry thinking about coming along?

They need content creators as much as we need them. The sooner the mobile experience becomes friendly and easy to use and consumers can access content easily the faster mobile devices will be adopted.

9. Talk us through some highlights — what are you particularly excited about?

Well as I am writing this reply, we just confirmed WordPress.com as are newest exhibitor. We are pretty excited about that. It is the first time they have officially been on the show floor 8). But the co-location with Book Expo America is definitely the highlight of the NYC event. This is the first time an entire segment of the traditional media space is going to be exposed to the new media universe at large. We always attract a few publishers, radio, TV and film industry folks to our event and they attend other social media conferences but never have the two met face to face head on. I think both communities are going to blown away by what they learn from each other. A lot of misconceptions on both sides are going to be confronted and that is going to bring about some great conversations.

10. Where do we find out more information?

That’s easy www.blogworldexpo.com or give us a tweet or a call. Thanks Ewan!

- – - – -

Thank you Rick — thanks for taking the time and I look forward to physically meeting at BlogWorld soon.

I’m participating in a roundtable at the upcoming Mobile for the Cultural Sector next week. It’s one of the always-good Camerjam events and it takes place on the 8-9th of March at Ravensbourne, London.

There are quite a few luminary folk speaking:

Ed Vaizey MP, Minister for Communications, Culture and Creative Industries

Sarah Evans, Head of Mobile Internet, O2

Craig Hepburn, Global Digital Director, Nokia

Jessica Gwyther, Global Content Manager, Vodafone

Jonathan MacDonald, Co-founder, this fluid world, Every Single One Of Us and Human Dialogue

Louise Downe, Multimedia Producer, Tate

Ilicco Elia, Global Head of Consumer Mobile, Thomson Reuters

Ed Hodges, Mobile Consultant, Tesco

Henry Volans, Head of Digital Publishing, Faber & Faber

Katy Whitehead, Head of Interactive Products, HarperCollins

David Rowan, Editor, Wired Magazine

I’m going to try and get there for as long as I can on Tuesday to catch the presentations. I have already mentally circled Jonathan MacDonald (how LONG is that job title above, Jonathan?), Ed Hodges of Tesco, Illicco from Reuters and Mark from Flirtomatic. Always a favourite, Mr Mark Curtis. I need to be abroad on the Wednesday so I’ll miss all the action including Terence Eden’s WAC discussions. I hear his activities at MWC went down very, very well. Although I’m still rather undecided about the Wholesale Application Community.

Anyway, my roundtable is on the 8th of March (Tues) at 15:55pm. Bring it on. I’m looking forward to it.

I asked Dominic Travers, one of the organisers of this week’s Droidcon android conference, to give us a preview of one of the event’s keynotes. If you haven’t got your ticket yet, there are still a few left so be quick. I’m looking forward to it!

Over to Dominic:

- – - – -

Traditionally there was a big gap between Original Equipment Manufacturers and independent mobile software developers. The last couple of years have seen a rapid change in this dynamic. What is it like for a company to take a brand new operating system that has only been in the wild for 2 years, design hardware, code and deliver a range of devices? We think this must be quite a challenge, particularly as consumers now are very quick to spread news of anything they don’t like across social networks. Manufacturers usually deliver their phones to the network operators and quietly move on to the next set. I have never seen a handset manufacturer talk about these challenges, even behind closed doors with their major MNO customers, let alone to a public audience, until now.

On Friday afternoon, Karl-Johan Dahlström and Erik Hellman of Sony Ericsson will provide an unique insight in to what it is really like working with Android. Developing the hardware and software integration, and providing a compelling user experience. Factor in the integration with Sony’s consumer products and experience design, you can see how this enhances the range, and requires skill and talent to deliver. The Android behind the scenes keynote is at 2pm.

They’re not going to stop there. Erik Hellman will then expand on the technical side of their Android design and development in the Design Track with Implementing Android: a manufacturers perspective. This in depth look at managing requirements and dealing with implementing a very open OS, will be truly fascinating. The current furore around Steve Jobs saying that Android isn’t really open, is a moot point. It is massively more open than anything the mobile industry has ever seen before. Now the nature of openness is inspiring unprecedented collaboration through APIs and honest presentations like this. We applaud our friends at Sony Ericsson for recognising how valuable this is to the ecosystem, and leading the way ahead.

- – - – -

Thanks for that Dominic. See you there!

And for those who would like a quick reminder of the origins of the quote used in the title, I bring you this clip:

Hi Ewan.

Have just seen breaking news on the Register that Symbian workers in London and Cambridge have been told to go home this morning.

I would like to invite the all to attend droidcon for half price. Any chance you could pop a note on MIR to this effect.

Best thing would be to say that they can email me at domininc@droidcon.co.uk to get the discount.

Dominic

Nice one Dominic. See you there next week!

One of the best looking Android conferences I’ve seen in a while. I will aim to be there. If you’ve anything whatsoever to do with Android or you want to reach developers, you should be there too.

I’ll be posting more on this shortly.

Meanwhile, visit the site and buy a ticket: http://www.droidcon.co.uk/

I’m going to be at world leading IT infrastructure event, 360 IT, this coming Wednesday. It’s being held at Earls Court 1 in London on 22nd and 23rd (this Wednesday and Thursday).

I’m taking the camera and a crew down to the event to see what’s moving with enterprise mobile.

Registration for the event is entirely free so if you’d like to get on camera, come on down to the event. My schedule is light at the moment but it’ll fill up I think so please do drop me a note as soon as you can if you’re keen.

I’m particularly interested in the field of enterprise mobile development, mobile applications, mobile billing/transactions, mobile in enterprise and the like. But, I’m flexible and keen to discover new products and services with some kind of mobile element.

I’m ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Nokia delivers to the marketplace today. I’m excited at the possibilities.

However I still retain a sad-reality-view.

Today, Nokia needs to deliver unmitigated brilliance.

It’s a binary situation. Either it’s brilliant or it’s not. It’s that simple.

I am quietly fearful that the company will vomit out a range of almost-nice devices, especially given that — as Martin Bryant at The Next Web tweets just now — today is ‘Symbian Day’.

Just last night I was talking with one of Symbian’s key employees.

“What are you hoping for?” I asked the chap, referring to NokiaWorld today.

“Continued existence,” he said.

Straight face. He wasn’t joking.

Today, I don’t want to see another S40 device with a slightly better this or a slightly enhanced that.  I don’t want to see yet-another-6700 slightly modified device.

And I don’t want them to reveal the Nokia N8. It’s done. It’s out there already.  By all means announce that it’s shipping today, or do an Oprah ‘look under your seat’ moment for the attending delegates.

But please don’t shovel us any more shit please Nokia.

You can follow all the joy at http://events.nokia.com/nokiaworld.

And the All About Symbian team will be live blogging every pico-second of the event over at All About Symbian right here.

I had a note in from the 360°IT Event team to tell me that they’re giving away an iPad to a lucky delegate who takes the time to register to attend. The competition closes tomorrow at midday, so do get stuck in quickly.

To register, use this link.

Registration for the event is free and takes about 20 seconds.

They’re going to announce the winner tomorrow afternoon.

If you haven’t come across the event before, here’s an overview:

360°IT is the new, ground-breaking event that demonstrates how IT infrastructure solutions can help to achieve key business objectives such as improving service, reducing cost, managing risk and gaining competitive advantage and growth.

I can’t stand going to events and conferences and finding the WiFi services are either faulty, slow or non-existent.  It’s a big problem for event organisers — and one that can no longer be sidestepped as being the venue’s fault.

Complain to the event organiser that, “The WiFi is rubbish,” or, “I can’t seem to get a connection?” and you’ll invariably get a response like this:

“Oh, yes, sorry,” the event manager will say, “I’ll have a word with the Hotel Manger.”

And that’s when you’re trying to PAY the service provider a stupid rate per hour for the privilege of using their connection.

The Hotels & Venues Don’t Get It

Unfortunately, all the Hotel Manager can do is place a call to their disinterested WiFi provider who won’t lift a finger for at least 24 hours.  Enough time to ensure every delegate is well and truly cheesed off by 10am.  That’s because the hotel contract is usually for rooms.  Their service provider is specialist at extracting $6.95 per hour or $14.95 for 24-hours from any paying guest half interested in decent internet.  And this arrangement works fine when 3 out of 500 guests decide to use it.  The rubbish DSL connection feels very fast when only 3 people are using it.

And at some point, the hotel room WiFi fleecing service was co-opted to the ‘public areas’.

False Advertising

And all of a sudden, hotels started putting statements like ‘guest WiFi available in all areas’ on their websites and brochures.  In many places I’ve been to they’ve obviously installed no extra equipment.  It’s often just the reception ‘public area’ WiFi leaking into the ballroom.

Event organisers will, I’m sure, routinely phone up and quiz the ‘meetings team’ hotel/venue people who all nod like chickens when asked if there’s WiFi.

The Ebola Virus

Unfortunately, WiFi in hotels and conference venues is generally the equivalent of the ebola virus.  Forgotten.  Not quite understood.  Irrelevant for most.  Until 500 delegates who’ve all paid $1,200 for a one-day event arrive with laptops, iPhones, iPads and other implements that all need WiFi connectivity.

Then you’ve got a problem.  Everyone’s got a very big problem.  And what’s worse, it can’t be fixed pronto.

You can’t use one NetGear router on a 10mb home broadband BT connection to serve 500 delegates. Especially when the average device WiFi requirement per 500 delegates in the mobile industry is around 2.4 connected devices per person. But goodness me, I’ve experienced at least 3 events offering this kind of service level this year.

I’m sick and tired of experiencing this kind of shoddy service.

Who’s Problem Is It?

I know it’s not the event manager’s problem per se.  The technology just isn’t understood that well.  Even the hotel or conference ‘meetings’ teams don’t seem to understand what kind of infrastructure is needed.  Worse, a lot of the conference venue folk I’ve met simply don’t think it’s a problem.

And to be fair, it’s definitely not a problem when the venue policy is to proudly declare that their entire complex is WiFi-enabled — and then make it clear that there is no possible, conceivable way you will be given their Access Key.  No. Way.

Because their system only works for 200 odd people.

And they’ve only got a 1 megabit internet connection that they’re sharing with their own office PCs.

At so many venues I’ve been to, the WiFi systems appear to be held together with string and powered by really tired hamsters.

The New Series

Here, then, is a Mobile Industry Review series aimed at tackling this issue.

If you’re an event organiser or if you work in the ‘meetings industry’, this series is specifically for you.  And if you’re a long suffering delegate, I present this series for your bookmarks — to forward to the chap or lady who will, no doubt, shortly try and explain why the WiFi isn’t working at [insert conference name].  Send them this link and a request for a refund of your ticket fee.

The MIR Event WiFi Charter

First, I present to you: The MIR Event WiFi Charter…

1. Delegates should be given free WiFi, especially if they’re paying to attend the event
2. Delegates should be able to download files at an average of 50k/sec throughput and Google should appear and deliver results in 2 seconds
3. Delegates should be allowed to activate up to 3 WiFi devices
4. There should be no registration required — this is always implemented as though it’s been conceived and programmed by an utter arse.  No forwarding weird rubbish.  No stupid proxy rubbish that doesn’t work on a mobile browser.  You should just be connected to the open internet.

WiFi Industry Experts Galore!

So, how do you go about delivering perfect WiFi for 10,000 delegates?  Well I don’t know.  I only know the rough concepts behind the technology.  Which is why I’ve asked a series of industry experts — some of the best ‘go-to’ companies around — to give me answers to the following questions.  I will be publishing each expert’s answers across this week.

Here are the questions I posed to them:

1. What’s the best way of guaranteeing brilliant, seamless WiFi service at a PR launch for 100 users?
2. Now, factor that up to 10,000 or 20,000 people at a huge exhibition? What kind of technology is needed to support that?
3. What kind of technical considerations are required when you’re dealing with multi-room or huge venues like Earls Court or big, big hotels that might need connectivity on multiple floors?
4. Once you’ve managed to assign and log a user on to a WiFi network, what’s the best way to assure brilliant internet connectivity? Is it just a matter of a big, big data pipe? The bigger the better?
5. Is there a functional limit for the amount of people that you can get connected to a single WiFi network?
6. Do you have any suggestions for a rule of thumb in terms of data consumption? e.g. 1 user consumes 200mb WiFi internet data in a day, therefore 100 users would need 20gb bandwidth in total. And what kind of backhaul pipe is needed for a decent service? Does ‘fast broadband’ from the likes of BT cut it in this arena? Or should we be talking super-fast dedicated connectivity?
7. In reality, is it just too expensive to do this properly to serve, say, 5,000 or 10,000 delegates?
8. What are the main ‘gotchas’ that result in event organisers being harassed by frustrated users?
9. Do you have any brief case studies or examples you could share where the technology has really worked?
10. What would your equipment/service shopping list look like to deliver WiFi to 500 or 10,000 delegates?
11. Take a gaze into the future: What should we be looking for in the future to deliver this kind of connectivity?

Standby for the responses — they’re good.  And if you’re looking to solve the WiFi for one of your upcoming events, I think the participants will be able to help.

Here are the expert contributions:

1. Scott Reeves of Ruckus Wireless
2. Ben Wilson of Xirrus

Which is where Women in Mobile Data comes in.

If you’re a woman and you’re working in the mobile industry, I strongly recommend attending, doing some networking and having a bit of fun. I think you may well find it a valuable experience.

This time, Tanya Field, Head of Content for Telefonica UK, is speaking.

The venue is Beyond Boyle (All Hallows, Byward Street, London, EC3R 5BJ — Tower Hill is the nearest tube) and you’ll have the restaurant to yourself for the afternoon.

I even have the menu here for you… Choose between:

Layered Smoked salmon with Wasabi Butter
Lime and Shallot Pickle
Malooga with Roasted Butternut Squash
Crumbled Feta and Mint Pesto
Plawhatch Rarebit
With Beetroot and Chilli Ketchup
~~~
Frittata of English Asparagus and Broad Beans
With Piccalilli Hollandaise
Barbequed Tiger Prawns marinated in Galangal, Garlic and Green Chillies,
On Raw Papaya and Peanut Salad
Pithiver of Table Hurst Lamb
With Rhubarb and Lavender Compote
Charred Petworth Beef with Hermitage Butter
Horseradish Mash
~~~
Peanut Sushi
With Summer Berry and Rosehip Compote

Beyond Chocolate and Cardamom Fondant
Honey Comb and White Chocolate Ice Cream

I won’t be there. Obviously. I mean, I’d be delighted. But I don’t think they’d let me in.

But if you’d like to attend, you just need to sort out the £37 fee (more than reasonable, I think — covers the meal, drinks and petit fours).

Places are going really quickly though so get in touch with Sapna Malhotra (one of the organisers) right away. Sapna’s on sapna-dot-malhotra-at-amdocs-dot-com. And if you’re available to help organise things, take pictures, jot down notes, help at the door and so on, do talk to Sapna as well.

Kudos to sponsor Diffusion Mobile (the payment by results PR firm for the mobile industry). They’re sponsoring the drinks.

I’m flying into San Diego on Monday morning with the video equipment to attend Qualcomm’s Uplinq 2010 event. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what they’ll have going on. Qualcomm is a company that I’ve followed for quite a while, particularly because of their BREW platform. I’ll be very interested to see what Paul Jacobs, their CEO & Chairman will have to say regarding the marketplace.

The CMOs of AT&T and Verizon are also keynoting across the 2-days and, schedule permitting, I’ll sit in and listen.

The agenda’s looking pretty exciting too. I will certainly be dropping by the WIPJam UnPanel — indeed I’m going to try and visit as many of the sessions as I can.

If you’re going to Uplinq, let me know — we should meet!

Are you going to Senior Mobile Market this year? The agenda is packed and I think it’s looking like a brilliant event for anyone interested in the largely overlooked senior mobile market.

There’s still time to register — the event is on July 6th in London. Here are the details from one of the organisers, Dominic Travers. (My policy is to always aim to attend anything that Dominic is involved with).

The Senior Market Mobile conference 2010. Following it’s successful launch in 2009, this conference examines both the business and design values required for great senior market products & services. Curated again by Simon Rockman, who is very passionate about this sector. Highlights of a full and diverse programme include…

- How Japan has sold 16m Raku Raku phones into the Senior market.
- How better audio makes phones suitable for seniors and better for everyone.
- What to add. What to take away: Less isn’t always more, how to do an exclusion audit on mobile phones.
- Operator experiences: How European operators are benefitting from the senior market.
- Inclusive design ethos: Lessons learned from the motor industry.

The event takes place at RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London on 6th July.
For more information and booking details please see the web site…

http://seniormarket.mobi/

Now tickets are £349 each — and if you’re uber-quick, you qualify for 20% discount on the basis of being a MIR reader. Use the code ‘MIRsubs’ when you book online. But be quick. The deadline is fast approaching.

It’s a busy week this week. This evening is the MEFFYs award ceremony and tomorrow, MEM2010 starts. MEM stands for Mobile Entertainment Market and I always thoroughly enjoy the event. Last year I moderated a panel and this year, I’m delighted to be moderating another one.

Here’s the subject:

The Apps Explosion: What Does the Proliferation of Apps and App Stores Mean for the Traditional Content and Media Industry and How Must Their Strategies Adapt?

No pressure, eh?

And here are some of the questions I’ll be posing to the panel:

- With fragmentation amongst handsets and now app stores continuing plague the industry, what are the key decisions rights owners need to make when planning their content distribution strategy?
- Will the Wholesale Applications Community create a new, open ecosystem which will reduce friction in the route to market?
- Changing consumer demands: How must your business plan evolve to cater for new content consumption habits and expectations?
- Can in-app advertising/ad-funded apps help increase the delivery of mobile media?

The panel comprises:

- Oded Ran, Head of Consumer Marketing, Windows Phone UK, Microsoft
- Mark Linder, Global Client Leader, WPP
- Philip Blair, Product Director, HTC
- Tim Raby, Managing Director, OMTP

Now I haven’t met any of these chaps — but I’ve interviewed Tim Haysom of OMTP quite a few times so I’m reasonably familiar with them. It’ll be nice to meet Oded Ran. Having spent the best part of 4 years publicly trashing the simply bollocks Windows Mobile platform here on Mobile Industry Review, I am hugely excited at the possibility of Microsoft delivering a super new service in the form of ‘Windows Phone’. I saw it at MWC and it does look very, very encouraging.

I can’t say too much about HTC on the basis of not really knowing them too well. I couldn’t tell you who their PR is. Nice devices though.

And WPP, well it’ll be fascinating to see what Mark has to say on the subject of apps.

The panel is from 1120am until midday tomorrow. I’m not sure on the ticket situation but I’m sure if you give them a call, they’ll be able to sort you out.

Check out the conference Agenda. I hope to see you there!

If you’re into mobile apps, you should be aware of Appnation. And you should also be attending. The conference, founded by the former Chairman of ad:tech, Drew Ianni, is taking place on the 13th-14th of September at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. It’s going to be huge. Absolutely huge.

Keynotes confirmed include: Ilja Laurs, CEO of GetJar; Smule Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer Dr. Ge Wang; and Executives From Time Inc, Marvel Entertainment, Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners, Mediabrands and Initiative Media (Interpublic), Nielsen Telecom, The North Face, The Wall Street Journal, and Zynga.

Nice.

This is perfect, perfect timing. The app economy is growing in leaps and bounds and the market is in real need of a dedicated conference and exposition. I’m very much looking forward to see what Drew and his team come up with.

You can get involved too. Although they’ve got a good list of keynotes, they’re most definitely looking for contributions, so if you’re into apps and you’ve got something to say, talk to Drew and get involved. If you’d like an introduction, just send me an email.

I’m going to make sure I’m there.

There’s definitely still time to register — and you can find all the relevant information on the dedicated Attend WES website.

Plus, as the IntoMobile guys point out, there’s now a (free) mobile app for the event available for any BlackBerry user.

I’m off to download it.

I checked-in to the event then headed straight over to Mr Smith to say hello. He was arsing around with his laptop. Looking up, he briefly said hi, before advising, “Never, ever get an integrated SIM module on a Dell, this thing never seems to work.”

The holding area began to fill up. A chap by the name of Gary Gale came by and handed me the obligatory sticker sheet.

“You might remember me,” says Gary, “We had a frank exchange of views over BlackBerry AppWorld on Twitter a while ago?”

“Shit!” I think, “Errr,” I say to Gary, “I… errr, was I a little bit direct?”

I began to remember the episode and actually, I think Gary did have a good point — I just disagreed. Turns out Gary was a speaker too. I hadn’t connected the Twitter name Vicchi with Gary Gale, top man at Yahoo Engineering for Geo Technologies. Gary’s presentation was all about WOEIDs, something I knew nothing about until he stood up and explained them. Fascinating — highly relevant to the Twitter developer audience and expertly delivered. You can catch Gary’s WOEID presentation here.

So Twitter developers — that’s what Devnest is all about — anyone who’s interested in creating services and mashups with Twitter would do well to go along. The Organisers had done a phenomenal job — the place was packed.

Michael Camilleri came bounding over to say hi. Michael is one of the chaps behind FooCall (See last week’s post: “International calling for… FooCall“). It was good to see him. As we were discussing the state of British Venture Capitalists (in the context of this post), Paul Webster of Critical Path arrived to give us a glimpse into what’s coming with ShoZu. I agreed not to spill the beans though. Steve Kennedy popped over to say hi and pointed out that he almost bought a ton of Critical Path email services when he was supervising business development for Demon back in the good old dotcom days. Steve presented his business, DBVU, to the audience later in the evening — the company provides centralised analytics and monitoring for MySQL database servers. Very smart indeed.

With oodles of pizza having arrived and been consumed along with a good amount of beers, we headed into the auditorium and got started. I was wondering precisely how my presentation would be received, given the copious amounts of iPhones on show.

Angus, one of the organisers, had asked me to give a kind of ‘state of the nation’ about mobile development, so I’d worked to create something like that, with due deference to the fact that most of the people in the room could write and deploy a desktop Twitter app in 180 seconds. Mobile might not be their forte, but I was working on the basis that they could easily adopt various mobile platforms with a low amount of friction, so I decided to keep it pretty high level.

The thrust of my argument was — yes, iPhone is great; Android..yeah… but please, please, please remember the fact that Nokia makes 1.4m handsets a day. A *DAY*. And don’t forget BlackBerry, either. And while you’re at it, a lot of the other platforms such as Vodafone 360 would be delighted to work with you.

Here’s the presentation:

The other presenter that evening, Paul Kinlan, was talking about Google Buzz. Paul is Developer Programmes Engineer at Google and, goodness me, he knew his stuff. I managed to keep up with most of the REST and CURL stuff — essentially he was outlining how Twitter developers could make use of the various Buzz APIs now becoming available. Very smart indeed.

I missed the majority of the buzzzy.com pitch, but essentially they’re providing a search interface for Google Buzz. I doubt it’ll be long before they’re snapped up.

Todd Chaffee delivered his pitch, “Social Media ROI in 140 seconds” and had me thinking carefully about the ROI issues with social media. Fascinating stuff. If you’re interested in the field, Todd’s presentation is here. Definitely talk to him.

There’s been some great feedback from the event — I’d like to thank everyone for taking the time to write a tweet regarding the presentation. It’s very kind of you. Instead of flooding my Twitter feed with ‘thank you, thank you’ messages, I have decided to cut’n'paste your messages and put a link into your Twitter profiles here on the site:

bensmithuk @3mobilebuzz Yep. Listening to @ew4n now. #devnest

vicchi I want @ew4n‘s tee-shirt #devnest http://twitpic.com/17rh3j

chaffeet 30% of mobile apps are still developed for RIM according to @ew4n at #devnest 7.

richardBarley @ew4n banging the drum for Symbian at #devnest. Great stuff and good to hear

iamdanw Being pitched at to develop apps for symbian again. Shame symbian is an awful app environment, for both users and developers #devnest

(Dan, I agree, but do check out qt.nokia.com — Qt is really going to change things for the platform)

stevekennedyuk Great talk by @ew4n about mobile state of play – it’s all about Symbian #devnest

ketan @ew4n I would’ve stayed with nokia but ui and sync with my computer for email/music much easier on iPhone #devnest

(Fair point Ketan, but remember, you’re using the equivalent of a Fisher Price handset — capable, but the one-thing-at-a-time user model drives me nuts)

vicchi Just heard @ew4n equate Vodafone 360 with wife swapping. Never thought #devnest would be this much fun.

natts Amusing yet realistic talk by @ew4n at#devnest – iPhone only has 14% of world smartphone market in 2009 – http://bkite.com/3np10

michchapman At #devnest listening to @ew4n. Hmm when would be a good time to sneak out for more pizza?!

MarkABaker Fart apps is where its at. via @ew4n at #devnest

docstuart Enjoying first visit to #devnest, great first talk from @ew4n

ketan @ew4n great talk on mobile app development! Thanks. #devnest

MarkABaker missed recording @ew4n presentation at #devnest shame as execllent. Will ask him to do it again later on.

becva great first presentation from @ew4n #devnest

richardBarley Great talk from @ew4n on state of mobile development landscape. #devnest

nuxnix After @ew4n s talk at #devnest I am thinking the unthinkable – switching my iPhone. No not back to Symbian, but to give Android a try

@ew4n great presentation on #devnest yesterday

micrypt @ew4n Thanks for the splendid talk at #devnest yesterday. http://slidesha.re/9MRW10

Thank you everyone for your patience and attention — and thank you to the organisers for inviting me.

By the way: The organisers of Devnest have a 48-hour hackathon event coming soon, all focused on twitter. It’s called WarbleCamp and it’s on the 8th and 9th of May in London. Plus, it’s free. All the details you need are here: http://warblecamp.org/.

Finally, kudos to the sponsors of Devnest: PayPalX, Inuda, Sun Startup Essentials and Multizone Limited.

“Bring it on!” I said.

So I shall be there from 6pm this evening — if you’d like to come along, entry is free, but you do need to register.

There is also free pizza, beer and good networking — supported by new sponsor, PayPalX.

Here’s the agenda:

Agenda

6:00 pm – Pizza, Beer, Networking

6:30 pm – Developer talk

* Ewan Macleod – @Ew4n – Mobile State of the nation for developers
Ewan is Editor of Mobile Industry Review, http://www.mobileindustryreview.com He will illuminate the topic of which mobile platforms you should place your social media application development bets on?
* Gary Gale – @vicchi – Twitter’s use of our WOEIDs and associated technology
Gary is Director of Engineering in the UK for the Geo Technologies at Yahoo! which provides the tools and technologies that drive user location, geocoding, location identification and disambiguation within Yahoo!, both internally and via public services
* Paul Kinlan – @paul_kinlan – Introducing Google Buzz
Paul is Developer Programmes Engineer at Google. We are delighted to welcome google to our devnest community and hear and see and ask about what they are doing.

7:45 pm – Break, Network Time, 15mins

8:00 pm – 140 second show and tweet demo/preso

* Andras Serfozo – @SubZtep
* Tim Whitlock – @timwhitlock

Places available for sign up on the night. You have 140 secs to explain something, show something, or argue about something.

8:30 pm – Activities and events

* Chirp, an update on UK plans to attend the official twitter developer conference featuring @devmission
* WarbleCamp. the unofficial free twitter developer unconference @nuxnix

War·ble: n. a sound made by European Twitter devs when they work out the cost of going to @chirp

9:00 pm – Pub The networking continues…

The event is also kindly supported by: Inuda, Sun Startup Essentials and Multizone Limited

I look forward to seeing you there…

We’re putting on an event this month in Paris, France. I’ll have more details soon — but I can say that the event will be in the last week of this month and it’s set to feature some of the hottest mobile developers in France.

Much like the previous Developer event we held back in January (at Mobile Industry Review), we’ll be interviewing every single attendee, doing some show-and-tells demonstrating their applications and publishing those in a special edition of Mobile Developer TV.

France has always had a pretty decent mobile development industry — but it’s been severely hamstrung by the day-to-day realities of the European market (e.g. working with the likes of Symbian, trying to generate revenue via premium rate text). The iPhone changed all of that, though. At Mobile Monday Paris in March, I saw a community of 300+ developers electrified by the opportunities offered by the end-to-end iTunes platform.

It’s most certainly not all about iPhone, especially in such a Nokia-centric country and continent, but iPhone is, of course, garnering the lion’s share of attention and support from newly revitalised investors.

So I’m looking forward to visiting Paris. I’ll have more details up soon, we’re just confirming the date and venue.

Meantime if you’d like to come along to the event, just drop me a note (ewan@mobiledeveloper.tv) and I’ll keep you updated.

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I put mobile in brackets because I very much believe that the mobile medium will merge — it has to merge — into the existing raft of advertising mediums, instead of being the last thing your average media buyer considers when planning a campaign of influence.

Jonathan took a look at the marketplace as it stands here in the West and, like many, shook his head. Something had to be done. Somebody had to step up and sort it.

Here’s the problem. What is mobile marketing? What do you define as ‘permission based mobile marketing’? How do you define an ‘end user’ and the medium(s) of mobile. We’re no longer talking about text messages. It’s not just about knocking out 500,000 texts and hoping 0.5% of them will buy your ringtone. There’s a vast array of emerging sub-set mediums. Just look at the Apple iTunes App Store. Way back in the Summer, Steve Jobs defined it as a ‘half billion dollar economy already’. Goodness knows where it is now. That’s just talking application purchase fees. If I run an iPhone app and there’s an advert on the front screen, is that an impression? A hit? Or, if I give you permission to archive my entire public Twitter stream — is that marketing? Or pre-marketing? At what point do you market to me? Is Twitter a mobile marketing medium? Yes if I’m sending a text message to Twitter. No if I’m using the online Twitter.com site. Or… what if I’m using the iPhone application, Twitterific, to interact with the service. And, if I give you, the Nestle corporation, the ability to use my location as delivered to the public internet via my Twitterific app, is that advertising? Or… and by the way, how do I revoke that permission? Or modify it?

Mobile’s definitely in there. But right now the cash is in television, radio, internet — precious few are ‘in’ mobile. Partly because defining what the hell ‘mobile’ is — well, it’s far too difficult for your average media buyer who grew up in the age of three or four mediums.

It’s all personal. That’s the trouble. Consider this concept. You manage to obtain 100,000 mobile numbers — all opted in. You’re Reebok, right? You want to test this mobile medium. You knock out a text to all 100,000 numbers at 2pm on Saturday. The message reads ‘Get 15% a pair of Reeboks today. Use the code ‘REB200′ at any Reebok store.’

You text that out. You sit back. You relax. You get excited.

Until your mobile messaging partner calls you to report that 76,000 people have just written back to you with different variations of this message:

“Yes please. Where’s my nearest Reebok shop?”

Shit.

Now you’ve got to have 76,000 interactions.

Seventy-Six Thousand. You can kiss your complicated bollocks marketing preferences system goodbye. You know the ones I mean. The systems that will segment the entire country into six groups. No. You need 76,000 groups.

Because it’s all about me. Soon you’ll be able to use mobile and other mediums to connect directly with me. You’ll need to be ready to handle a two way conversation with me. Smartly.

But before we get there, before we even think about this sort of thing, we need some kind of parameters. Some kind of baseline. Some kind of research support. Some kind of standardised repository of best practice. Some kind of movement.

That’s Jonathan’s Every Single One Of Us. He’s aiming to get as many people as possible together from the advertising/mobile/beyond regions of industry in a continuously evolving best practice resource.

He doesn’t quite know the shape and it’s a tall order. He faces quite a challenge. It’s not as if he’s trying to catalogue the different species of Bear or something finite. We don’t really know where we’re going with the mobile advertising medium. It’s changing, growing — a moveable feast.

But we do know that there needs to be some kind of common taxonomy. Some kind of central area to help folk develop, exchange and modify ideas. So that once there’s a general model for doing stuff — that works — it can get written down and distributed to anyone that’s interested. So that when you’re faced with explaining the merits of conversational advertising methodology to your Chief Executive tomorrow afternoon, you can pull up some best practice case studies of what’s been done. You can benefit from the wisdom of the ‘intelligenced crowds’.

We’ve not had this before, really.

I can’t ever remember a ‘movement’ like this to help define, document and support a burgeoning industry that hasn’t really got here yet.

So it’s a brave one. I reckon Jonathan might need to take more of a hands-on approach in order for it to really make headway. There’s, alas, only so much you can achieve in ‘group mode’. Somebody needs to make the servers work and define the start and end points to help give context to the rest. He’ll need some kind of support or sponsorship for that. And it remains to be seen as to whether the marketing industry gets any of this ‘individuality stuff’.

Based on the 80 luminaries who attended Jonathan’s event this evening (the ‘powwow’ to formally introduce the concept), there’s an overwhelming amount of nodding heads. Lots of clapping. Lots of murmering agreement. Lots of assent. I’m not sure every attendee will be on the Every Single One Of Us site this evening contributing their recommendations to the wikistyle site Jonathan’s created. This isn’t a failure point. It’s a hesitation point. Lead the way Jonathan — show the way ahead and I reckon a lot of folk will follow.

Get 5 committed, smart people in a room Jonathan. Knock out the Every Single One Of Us creed. The way-of-doing-business. Knock out the to-do list of what you’d like to see. Post it up. Solicit requests to complete the tasks in the to-do list but appoint some trusted chaps to actually do the work, slowly, in their spare time. So something actually gets done. Shape it and keep it front-of-mind and I reckon you’ve got a go-er.

Back to more mundane housekeeping issues here at Mobile Industry Review. Ben and I managed to capture some good video. I’ve yet to check it out though. It’s sitting on some memory cards in my pocket at the moment — I hope the sound was ok. It features me talking to some luminaries at the event this evening. And all things being equal, we’ll have it up here soon.

In fact the full skinny, the complete low down, the full enchilada – everything you needed to know but were too afraid to ask.

We’d love to pass on the info we’ve learned, but we’re sworn to secrecy until 09:15 tomorrow morning.

All we can say is – Whoa!

Plus – hey, that’s cool!

And – really?

Followed by – when?

Stay tuned, be patient, it’s worth waiting for.

1. Always check the signal

It doesn’t matter who it is, from the lowly application developer to the mobile network operator, they all fail at this point.

It’s going to be rather difficult to check out the speed and dexterity if your handset/application/service/dongle if there’s no signal in the venue.

2. Cut out the music

Although you think it makes the place seem as though it’s got attitude and a good ‘vibe’, it simply means we ask the least amount of questions possible because it’s too loud. We can’t go into detail with you, we can’t explore tangents during the conversation. We end up screaming THAAANKKK-YOUUUUU and nodding very enthusiastically before pocketing the press release and hoping it’s got everything we need on it.

Case in point: The best feature of the LG Renoir is apparently the Dolby speaker system. Never heard it. Couldn’t try it. The bar music was loud (and, actually very funky). So we never tried it and we didn’t capture it on film for you to experience either.

3. Pay attention to the food

We’re often ravenous. Think pizza rather than really fancy bits of salmon-on-sticks. Pizza is good because one slice is pretty good, it’s whole — it doesn’t usually fall apart in your hands — and you can munch it down really quickly and get on with the learning & looking.

4. Free drinks isn’t necessarily a draw, nor important.

Free soft drinks is useful as that cuts down the friction of having to arse about with money, coins and the like. The MIR team typically chug on a few diet/regular cokes. Whatley will sometimes have a fancy cocktail if one’s going.

5. USB press packs are good

A press pack on a USB drive is excellent. Any more stuff to carry — unless it’s a decent handset that you’ve given us to trial/use/give-away — is a distraction. If it’s paper stuff, make sure we can fold it to put it in our pockets. Seriously. When you’re carrying cameras, laptops, stuff-from-work and a whole load of other stuff, a simple USB drive with the details is much more efficient. Better still, email it to us on the morning of the event. Or the next day.

Or consider publishing before the event (under NDA if necessary – we’re big boys and can respect them) so we can arrived prepared and able to ask relevant questions. Also, we like to ask our audience to submit questions in advance of product launches.

6. Lighting

I am usually good with faces and names, but when it comes to blogging and networking, I’m generally appalling. Often because whenever I’m out meeting people, I can’t actually see them. (Or hear them). Keep it bright, keep it easy to see the product and experience it. Remember we actually care about the products and services. If we’re turning up, we’ve had to PAY to get there and it’s a bit of an arse for us (vs Journalists who turn up because-its-their-job). So we’d like to SEE what you’re showing off. And take good pictures and video of it for our audience.

7. Speeches

Speeches are good. Keep’em brief and let us get in front of the technology.

8. Product Samples

A room filled with 50 people with two samples on show isn’t any good. Make sure there’s a shit load to play with.

9. Handsets

Never, ever underestimate the draw and the lure of the free handset. Consider that we often bring a team of four to an event (me, Dan Lane, Ben Smith, James Whatley). Each of us is expecting a handset. Because we’re all vocal and influential. We see little, little value in giving a handset to one of us whilst the other three forget about it. That’s almost literally what happens. Let’s be clear: We’re not into getting free stuff for the fun of it. We’ve generally got too many handsets lying around. But our viewers and readers don’t. We like to give them away as competition prizes. Huge, huge draw for the audience.

Consider telling us that we will receive a free handset on the day. So we can plan for this. Plan who’s going to take it apart and play with it, plan who’s going to write the review, plan WHEN we put it into the MIR Show, plan WHEN we give it away as a competition prize.

Do not NOT NOT underestimate the value of providing free handsets if you’re marketing an application. Patrick Smith, formerly of Sonus PR (and now at Joshua PR) called me once and asked if I’d like to check out Good Mobile Messaging. It didn’t work on my Blackberry so I was not inclined to hear what he had to say. I was planning on just doing a write up. “Look, come and have a drink and we’ll give you a Nokia handset to try it on,” he said.

Interesting. Ok. Lo and behold I picked up the device — I wasn’t entirely impressed with the E61 — but the Good Mobile Messaging service, I loved and converted to within days.

If it’s a network operator exclusive handset consider providing an unlocked version even if it’s just on loan – if it’s a handset we’re reviewing we’ll only be able to make a half-decent job of it if we can use our everyday SIMs in it to make and receive calls.

10. Contacts

Put your mobile number on all emails. I know it sounds a bit simple this one, but really — I was late for an interview the other day which would have given the company in question exposure out to our quarter-of-a-million audience. I tried to call ahead to reschedule or see if they were still at the meeting point — I scoured my email archive for mobile phone numbers. Curiously there were none at all on the email conversation. AND what’s worse, the PR wasn’t using mobile email. Ergo I couldn’t contact them. Ergo no interview. Ergo I’m a bit frustrated.

11. Timing

Please include us when the launch or announcement is new. Our readers expect news ahead of mainstream media so don’t ask us to wait until they’ve finished with all the review units. We will go out of our way to come to you if access to something is limited.

12. Link to us

If you’ve got a blog for the event, company or product, link to us. Put a note up saying you’re looking forward to seeing us at the event. We’ll get a Google Alert and we’ll see the pingback. It’s good subconscious memory prodding for us. And it’s nice to get a link. Similarly, after the event, knock up a few ‘nice to see you Twitter messages’ and blog posts. When we publish a post about you, knock us over a link again. It make it feel just that little bit more worthwhile for us.

13. Photos

It’s surprising how many people don’t have photos of their products/services ready for us to post. A big surprise for me is how many PRs don’t have screenshots of applications/services they are marketing. Get on to the clients and get some decent quality ones. If it’s on Nokia, Screenshot by Anthony Pranata is a super app. The iPhone’s got it built in now — and most other platforms have some kind of screenshot capability.

14. Engage

We want to talk about the products and it’s great to meet and interview people who are happy and confident to talk not just about the product, but the firm, industry or technology. The best events are often when we can meet product managers to discuss the design of the product.

15. Consistency

With so many bloggers it’s tempting to spread the invites around so everyone gets a fair share… no problem, good idea. But if there’s not space for us this time around let us know about the event and send us a press pack anyway. We’ll still mention the launch and maybe even invite another site we respect to contribute as Rafe from All About Symbian does this week (although we were there with him). Just to hear about it afterwards makes us sad…

16. Let us help you

Give us a shout before the launch – we love talking to firms as they plan their products and launches and we’ll try to help as much as we can. If there’s something specific you need we can probably connect you to the right people.

17. This isn’t Paxman

We’re people, you’re people… we get stuff wrong, you’ll forget if it’s the same battery as that unit last year. We’re cool with that… we’re excited about the product or service you’re launching. If we’re chatting it’s OK not to know stuff or even for us to disagree about things (we can’t agree amongst ourselves half the time). You don’t need a PR minder whispering in your ear. The best firms accept criticism as readily as praise.

18. Time of Day

Some of us have other jobs. This means there is absolutely no way we’ll all make the 10am briefing. If it’s bloggers you’re targeting, think about making the event after 5pm at least.

19. Location

Choose a central London (in this example) location that is easily reachable unless there’s a specific reason. If in doubt, remember the blogger is coming for the product/service launch and not to admire the venue.