Here’s what Kantar has to say:

Apple’s iPhone 4S launch has helped the company regain global momentum with the US driving growth, according to new data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. In the latest 12 weeks of sales*, Apple’s share was at 44.9% while Android took 44.8% of the US market. Apple also increased its share of the British smartphone market from 22.0% a year ago to 34.0%.

Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director, explains: “Apple has continued its strong sales run in the US, UK and Australia over the Christmas period.  Overall, Apple sales are now growing at a faster rate than Android across the nine countries we cover.”

Windows 7 is yet to break past a 2% share in any country despite the media attention gained by the new Nokia Lumia range. The Nokia Lumia 800 finished quarter four just outside of the top 10 smartphones sold in Great Britain.

Dominic continues: “BlackBerry remains the brand of choice in the smartphone gifting market, 57% of BlackBerrys were purchased as gifts in quarter four.  This rose to 76% during December and a whopping 55% of recipients were under 16, indicating BlackBerry’s hold on the UK youth market.”

Looking at Latin America, it is clear that Android is starting to make a big impact.  Although the smartphone market is still in its infancy, Android took a 28% share in Brazil and 20% in Mexico.

Dominic Sunnebo comments: “Brazil and Mexico have a combined population of over 300 million, meaning that the mobile opportunity is huge.  By staking an early claim on the smartphone market in these countries, Android is laying important groundwork for future sales from the increasingly affluent middle classes.  Over the next few years, Asian manufacturers such as Huawei and ZTE are likely to focus smartphone sales on these regions. Their ability to offer prices under $100 will be crucial to their success.”

In Great Britain, smartphones made up 70.7% of sales over the 12 weeks, meaning that 48.9% of the British population now own a smartphone.

When considering a brands performance, it is important to bear in mind that all countries covered in the survey are experiencing strong smartphone growth, meaning a share decline does not necessarily correspond to a drop in actual sales.

* 12 w/e 25 Dec 2011

And here are the actual statistic breakdowns. Click through to a larger image:

A reader emailed me this morning to point out that having returned to the UK from the Google I/O conference, he’s got an HTC EVO 4G device that’s utterly useless in the United Kingdom since it’s CMDA only.

Ergo he’s wondering if someone else can make use of it.

The box is entirely unopened and he’s looking to sell it for £550 or nearest offer.

The phone is useless in GSM-UK so if you’re quick, you could make him a rather good offer. And get to use the phone before everybody else.

Drop me a note if you’re interested and I’ll connect you both by email. As always I’m ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

For more info on the EVO, check out the PhoneDog HTC Evo 4G WiMax Android phone unboxing:

First up — Windows Marketplace:

Windows Phone demo:

Windows Live demo:

Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile:

Windows Mobile email:

My first reaction is that I’d have liked to have seen this from Microsoft two years ago. But at least they’ve got there – at least it’s finally coming. I wonder if they’re too late to have captured the zeitgeist? Are consumers far too obsessed and enamoured with the iPhone? We will see. I think there’s still a lot of love in the room for Microsoft. When the last video swapped into ‘email looks like Outlook’, I had to wince. That interface is broadly unchanged since I was doing email on my Compaq iPaq back in 2002.

Anyway I look forward to seeing how the devices get on in the wild.

(I should point out that these videos are sponsored thanks to Unruly Media and Microsoft)

Their website doesn’t seem to be working at the moment but I’m sure his email is operational.

(via MoMoLondon)

And that’s where I hit a wall.

Who do you recommend for good mobile and tech PR in the Valley? I’d welcome your suggestions either here, on Twitter (@ew4n) or by email (ewan@mobileindustryreview.com).

There are a few companies I know actively looking so please do get in touch with suggestions — or pass this post on to anyone you recommend.

Do you have any suggestions I can pass the reader?

He’s looking for a UK company — but if you’ve got any international suggestions that would supply a UK dial-in number, that would still work.

Email me or post below? I’m ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

Update: Scott Curzon from Bridge Talk got in touch to say that his company holds the Guinness World Record for the largest conference call ever (10,424 participants) and that they have dial-in numbers in 67 countries around the world. Probably a good company to talk to, if you’re in the market for these kind of services!

Hi

Does anyone have any expertise on this? I am looking to have a Performance Management App created and want to sub-contract the work. Unsure if Server or Client app is best – as I need the server to be able to recall them.

Anyone with skills and interested, please email me,

Thanks

Jim

Take a look at Patrick Smith’s entry, PR In A Box — he’s offering a highly convenient and very effectively priced PR package that may well be relevant for a lot of startups.

I’d like to build a decent directory of services and perhaps one or two special offers (like Patrick’s) geared toward the MIR audience.

Indeed if you’d like to send me some special offers for new customers — you know the kind — 25% off your first order or something like that — then I’ll do a post about that.

It does, strangely, work.

For instance, the chaps who emailed me on Monday looking for UK premium rate services have, I gather, done their deal already. I put the post up at 1030pm on Monday. They had about 10 enquiries from companies wanting to do business by about 2pm on Tuesday.

Right now I bet there’s a few people reading this who’ll be interested in Patrick’s PR services. Similarly, I’m willing to bet that there’s a few companies interested in buying your services too. Just.. they don’t know about them. I’d like to try and change that.

So drop me a note with some details: ewan@mobileindustryreview.com. Or get me on IM (details here).

(There’s no cost, by the way — but if you get a referral from us here at MIR, remember us with a donation or a bit of sponsorship. Or a free midnight blue Bentley Continental GT. Something like that.)

They’ve got a thriving mobile sports messaging alerts service which, of course, runs on premium rate. They emailed to ask how the UK does business and I explained that it was eminently possible to contract with one company to provide premium rate connections to all UK networks.

Who would I suggest? Well I’ve got a few suggestions in mind that I’ve talked with them about — but I said I’d open it up to the readers.

If you’ve got a premium SMS connection for the UK, could you drop me a note by email or post a reply here? I’ll simply forward your email to the company directly.

Here’s an overview of what they’re looking to do:

We’re interested in your reverse billing sms service (Premium Rate SMS).

We are currently running a very successful goal alert SMS service in Iceland and we are interested in expanding our service to the UK market.

Following is the process that we use in Iceland and could you please tell us if you can provide us with the same service or something similar.

Signup
- The customer enters his personal info and mobile number on our web site
- We send a single signup confirmation code via SMS to his mobile (this SMS is free of charge for the customer)
- The customer enters the confirmation code and the registration is complete
- After that the customer can choose what alerts he likes to get and also stop alerts.

Goal alert
- Depending on the customers registration an SMS Goal Alert is sent to his mobile and he is charged for every SMS that he receives

Resign (“Unsubscribe”)
- The customer logs into our web site and can resign from there

Lost password
- If the customer has lost his password he can select to get the password via SMS.

So could you please tell us if this setup could work with your service.

Once again — if you’d like to help these guys, drop me a note and I’ll forward it directly to them. I’m ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

Have a read:

I’m currently contracting into a large global email esp – one of their global clients has requested help with sms campaigns – across US, Latin America, EMEA and Asia pac.

Can you recommend any agency/software provider that might be able to help?

I’ve been in touch with 2ergo (lacked the global reach needed) already.

Cheers

Who do you suggest?

Who do you recommend for Blackberry Exchange hosting in the UK? There are plenty of suppliers advertising on Google, just, we’re not sure who to go with. Who do your readers use?

Martin, the only companies I’m aware of and have tried are American (e.g. Mailstreet and Intermedia). I found them reliable and responsive but I’m afraid I haven’t tried any UK Blackberry Exchange hosting companies myself.

Do you have any recommendations for Martin?

Unfortunately I had to reply no.

I know NOBODY at LG.

Let me just check again in my mind….

No. Nobody.

I know a few LG PR people. However the last time I checked — and this was a good 8-9 months ago — LG Mobile’s development team* simply wasn’t engaging with bloggers.

So whilst I’m continually in the middle of helping broker deals with the other handset manufacturers and mobile developers, LG is a big big blank in my life.

Which has suited me fine when they’ve been knocking out beautiful but fundamentally useless devices (from a mobile developer perspective).

But now I think the time might be right. This is the second person who’s asked if I know anyone.

So I pass that on to you.

Do you know anybody worth knowing at LG Mobile — who’d be interested in being passed potential opportunities from the MIR audience?

* Update: I modified this from the original statement (“LG Mobile simply wasn’t engaging with bloggers”) after Helen (from LG’s) wholly accurate points in the comments below.

Wondered if you could point me in the right direction. My publication has asked me to find an Asian company that’s taking green IT seriously. I’ve then got to interview the CEO about why that is and look a bit into their green strategies overall…it can’t be a vendor. I need to know: how much of a prioroty is green IT? What motivates them to do it? And what business opportunities does it provide? Lastly – in Japan, are there any trends in green IT that are specifically different to any other country?

If you’ve got some suggestions, drop me a note and I’ll forward it. I’m ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

HulloMail, my voicemail provider of choice, are looking for a marketing manager…

Jobs – Marketing Manager
Company: HulloMail
Location: London
Salary: TBC
Start date: Immediately

Background
Want to revolutionise the way people deal with their day-to-day communication and messages? So do we.

HulloMail is a young and dynamic company, founded in 2008, that offers a fast and easy way to handle your voicemail from virtually any mobile device, landline phone or email account, no matter which operator you use. It’s free and easy to use and lets you receive instantly “voice-emails” to replace the limiting, traditional voicemails, with even more functionalities. HulloMail is available today for download on Android phones in the UK and US and will be soon available, on many other leading platforms and in a wide range of countries.

Job description
To support our ambitious growth, we are looking for a strong hands-on marketing professional who thrives in the start-up environment and who has the abilities to build, deliver, and co-ordinate an innovative consumer marketing program internationally and other cost-effective activities that will drive HulloMail brand awareness, customer acquisition and retention, and boost revenue conversion.

Roles and Responsibilities

Own the development and execution of the overall HulloMail marketing plan for this year
Work with marketing colleagues as well as product and tech. teams to initiate and manage cost-effective acquisition and retention campaigns (including viral, SEO, paid search, social media, affiliate networks, email, etc.)
Co-ordinate with agencies and other virtual members, the design and delivery of supporting communications materials including website, email, offline and online collateral.
Put in place a strong CRM program to maintain user engagement and conversion
Cultivate and grow the HulloMail community engagement by putting in place and co-ordinating viral initiatives within social networks, relevant websites and the blogosphere
Support the development and co-ordination of partner activities including promotional campaigns and creative development
Monitor and report on marketing performance and user activity, and act upon this intelligence.
Pre-requisite Knowledge, skills and experience

Committed, enthusiastic and self-motivated
Creative and challenging mindset
Direct experience of managing budgets and strong commercial awareness
A proven track record of delivering a significant increase in traffic and sales through online marketing, social media and email marketing campaigns
Experience of social-networking platforms
Good project and time management skills
Ability to think and act clearly and calmly when under pressure
Proven ability to work to stringent deadlines whilst coping with the demands of a rapidly growing company
Good oral and written communication skills, attention to detail, autonomous
Knowledge of the telecom, mobile sector is a plus
Enjoy working as part of a fun team
Fluent in English
If you’re interested, thanks for sending your CV and profile to jobs@hullomail.com

Hi Ewan,

I know you review the mobile phone industry. We are looking for someone to help us with dynamic sms polling and audience participation programs (example: http://www.polleverywhere.com/) similar to what blue state digital did for Obama’s (http://www.bluestatedigital.com/). Not sure if you know anyone that works in that field, but let me know.

Regards,
D

My initial thoughts would be to talk with One Point Surveys – they provide instant feedback via SMS. I’ve used the service and it’s very smart.

Any other suggestions?

The way this works at the moment is very simple. Email me. I publish. Any expressions of interest are either posted as a comment (or, as is far more popular, emailed to me and I forward them on).

Which brings me to this morning’s marketplace request. The reader, Adam, is buying. Here’s his request:

- – - – -

Hi Ewan,

I wonder if you could help me with one of your supplier appeals please?

We are looking for a company that can provide us with either a short code or a virtual mobile number on the Meteor network in Ireland. We need the number to receive MMS & SMS (no billing is required). The MMS & SMS content would need to be passed to us via a http API or similar. The number is only required for ~ 1 or 2 months.

Any contacts you have would be greatly appreciated,

Many thanks in advance,

Adam

- – - – -

There we go. Does anyone have some suggestions for Adam?

(You can read the post here: Marketplace: UK aggregator and barcode service provider required for travel company.)

I want to see if we can repeat this.

If you’ve got a business development enquiry, email it to me and I’ll aim to publish it. The way I’ve been doing this is simply cutting and pasting your text, but not publishing your identity — useful and often required if you don’t want to talk publicly about your specific requirements.

Interested parties either comment on the post — or, what’s far-far-FAR more popular, is they email me, then I forward their mail to you. People still don’t like to post comments. That’s understandable when we’re talking about contracts and business opportunities.

So if you’ve got anything you’d like to try out — any requirements, demands, or actually, if you’re offering some services you’d like to get out to the MIR audience, let’s give it a go? No charge, of course.

I’m ewan@mobileindustryreview.com.

First of all, here’s his request:

I am representing a client in the travel industry. We are helping them increase their online conversion rate.

Right now their customers go online and book tickets and simply get an email confirmation.

They are interested in looking at the option of sending a ticket code via SMS with times etc – the day they book and the day before they travel. (just like easyjet do)

They are also interested in the barcode option – which can be sent to the customer via email for printing and via the mobile phone if the customer’s phone is capable of receiving it.

Which companies offer this technology that you can recommend?

Now, they’re a big company — the opportunity appears to be a reasonably big one too. If you’d like to chat to the author of the above text, either email me (ewan@mobileindustryreview.com — I’ll forward your email to him) or contribute a comment below with your company URL/contact details and he’ll be in touch. He’ll be monitoring this post for the next week or so.

(I understand that mBlox do something similar with Star Alliance (aircraft) and Kizoom and many more.)

If that’s your bag — or if you know someone who’s looking for a new project, go ahead and talk to Andy.

His email is Andy at Hullomail.com. Tell him I sent you. Or drop me an email and I’ll do you an introduction.

Here’s his enquiry:

Two of our customers are in need of a short code in Canada. Our aggregator is killing us with high rates to connect there and messaging fees. All we need is an XML connection. Anyone local in Canada you know of?

There’s a few people I know — I’ll drop a note over to them. But if you’re reading this and you’ve got some good suggestions for Canadian aggregators (preferably tier 2/3 — who’ll work with smaller companies) that we should highlight, drop me a note?

Either reply here or email me.

The reader also asks:

Is your writer in Canada still? You know, the girl that is terribly stuck using Rogers and their incredible price plans?

Why yes indeed, Krystal is the writer you’re referring to. I have yet to enquire as to whether she’s considering upgrading to one of the Rogers Android handsets. We normally try and keep Krystal locked up away from the wider mobile industry news. Reading about all the new toys and ridiculously cheap unlimited data plans in Europe and the United States was proving just too much for the poor girl…

Update: The first suggestion I got via JCDunn on Twitter: http://www.vortexmobile.ca/

Update 2: Here’s some more recommendations I received by email from reader JK. “Magnet, Atlas, or Vocomo. Sybase 365, Mythum and Impact Mobile will be the more expensive.”

I am in need of an iPhone developer who can help me finish a project quickly. The timeline is 2-3 weeks. I would only require that you follow my exact guidelines (screenshots and full descriptions of program flow and functionality). I need somebody who can set up the framework of an App and then give me the code so that I can finish it and add some information that we wish to keep quiet until the App is released.

Please let me know if you can help me,
Danny

He posted the note on the AdMob iPhone Meetup message board. To reply to Danny, simply get an account on Meetup.com and you can send him an email.

For years I’ve been screaming with utter annoyance at the absolute rubbish Sony Ericsson has been vomiting into the marketplace. Their devices are amongst the nicest engineered on the planet. They’re well built, stylish, reliable and the cameras are simply amazing.

But the dumb operating system (or, more accurately, the stupidly limited UI) is — literally — from the 1990s.

I positively loved their K800i handset — a class leading device in it’s time — and I’ve continued to admire the workmanship of their more recent models — but actually using a Sony Ericsson is akin to jumping in an Ashes to Ashes style timewarp back to 1990.

It’s pretty accurate to refer to a Sony Ericsson user as a Mobile Caveman. Just like a human caveman, a Mobile Caveman (”MobCav, anyone?”) is able to manage life’s various transactions (fire, food, sex) but when it comes to anything more enlightened or connected, no dice.

Your Sony handset will browse the ‘mobile web’. Cool. It will — with quite a bit of persuasion — synchronise your address book. You can play music on it. You can even play game(s) on it.

But put a top of the range Sony handset next to other class leaders (iPhone, G1/G2, Palm Pre, Nokia N-Series) and it’s immediately clear it’s not in the same league.

Don’t get me started on developing for a Sony Ericsson.

Besides from a degree in Nuclear Physics (with hons and some fannying about with the Dean’s List), you’ll need a massive budget and the patience of a demigod to develop for the current range of Sony Ericssons.

The Xperia device is … well, let’s put it this way, have you seen anyone with an Xperia recently? Hobbled by a ridiculous, ridiculous Microsoft bollocks operating system, the Xperia was never, ever going anywhere.

“Why won’t they go Android?” I used to scream, “Can you imagine how brilliant a Sony Ericsson would be with Android?”

Well… it’s happening.

Finally.

It had to happen. It was inevitable. Just like Apple bringing out an iPhone (they had to make the move or surrender the mobile music market to the likes of Nokia).

Slashphone reports that at a recent showcase in Taiwan, Peter Ang, the Sony Ericsson VP of Marketing, confirmed Android is now a key operating system for the company. Along with Symbian and Windows. Gah.

Sony’s Android handset(s) are due to arrive with Android 2.0 — and there’s speculation (from Chris Davies over at Android Community.com) that the devices will sport a proprietary UI along the lines of the Xperia UI.

The upshot?

Upgrade Android in your estimations. With the consumer giants such as Sony Ericsson (and Samsung) jumping in, it won’t be long before high-end (and shortly after, mid-tier and low-end) normal mobile users (”normobs”) will be shopping for their Apps via the Android Marketplace.

Exciting news.

I’ve been using my Android G1 a lot since I arrived in America because, conveniently, my US T-Mobile sim works perfectly with it (even though it’s a UK device). I didn’t have to do any configuration since HTC thoughtfully included the T-Mobile US web settings on the device already.

So I’ve been taking pictures.

As you do in a city as nice and as varied as San Francisco.

I’d like to send them directly to Flickr. Since there’s no ShoZu service on Android at the moment (and I haven’t re-installed Pixelpipe yet) I thought I’d have a look around the Marketplace on Android.

Unlike others, I take it upon myself to buy as many applications as possible. I did a certain amount of evaluation on ‘Flickr Upload’ when I came across it. From memory it was $0.99. Or perhaps less.

I scrolled down to the comments.

On the 28th of April, ‘Matthew’ commented:

Works wonderfully. Well integrated.

.. and he gave it five stars.

I suspect Matthew is referring to the share option. When you take a photo on Android, there’s a button that pops up called ‘Share’. Click on that and you get the choice of sharing by Email, by Google Mail or — to Flickr (enabled by this application). Smart. I was warming to the concept.

I noted that it’s had between 100-500 downloads. Ok. Not a brilliant well-trodden path. I continued with the comment review.

On the 21st of April, ‘z0mbix’ commented:

Will not authorise with flickr on t-mobile/G1. Can’t get any reply from the developers em[ail]…

Er.

I’d gone off it right away.

The final comment on the app’s frontpage was a day before z0mbix’s one from Benjamin:

Exactly what I was looking for works perfectly

Hmmm.

Z0mbix’s comment put me right off. But I reasoned there must be a reason, maybe he/she didn’t know what they were doing? Afterall if Benjamin and Matthew each had a good experience, I should be ok?

Right?

As I walked out of the Westfield Mall in downtown San Francisco I spotted an advert I wanted to write about. I decided to download Flickr Upload there and then, configure it and get moving.

I paid the money, the app downloaded and within seconds I’d got to the main prompt, asking me to authorise my Flickr account to work with it. Fair enough.

I typed in my Yahoo account username and password and hit ‘login’.

Nothing happened.

Nothing.

The screen went blank.

Er.

‘I’ve just paid a dollar for this,’ I thought, rather disappointed. I was experiencing the pain of fellow user, z0mbix.

I tried again. Maybe I typed my details wrong?

Again it failed. The app just sat on a blank screen like this:

Rubbish!

I ended up sending the photo to my email account and walked home, rather annoyed with myself.

I was annoyed because I thought I’d obviously got my Yahoo password wrong.

What self respecting developer would allow an application to go live — a chargeable application at that — which doesn’t actually work?

Then I reasoned that it must be a Yahoo screw-up and spent a good few blocks cursing them in my mind.

I got back to my desktop and immediately changed my Yahoo password to check I had it correct.

Again I tried authorising the app.

Nothing. Nada.

I’ve bought a dud.

I don’t know who is responsible. It COULD be Yahoo, entirely. But one assumes that the two other recent commenters on Android Marketplace aren’t lying and they got it to work.

I’ve tried a few times over the past few days to activate it to no avail.

So I looked up the developer online.

They’re called Macrospecs and they’re a privately-owned startup in the bay area.

Ah hah! They’ll have a GetSatisfaction page, right? Or a forum or something?

No.

Nothing!

It’s a one-page website and — ultra annoyingly — the ‘contact’ page goes straight through to their email address.

Confusingly there is absolutely no reference to the Flickr Upload application on their site.

I then had a look back on the Android Marketplace and saw that the ‘developer site’ is listed as FaceofMobile.com/Flickr. Ah hah!

No, hold your excitement.

This is the entire site:

Yup… it’s one page. It consists of three screenshots and a macrospecs logo, with no link. No contact details. No support option. Nothing.

In fairness to the developer, one wouldn’t expect that many support enquiries from an application that simply sends a photo to a Flickr account. It’s not rocket science and there’s hardly any failure points.

Except the authorisation process.

And, of course, macrospecs don’t control that, Yahoo do.

Tough luck for me and z0mbix, right? If it ain’t working, you can try contacting macrospecs but it’s rather clear they don’t want to know — and are not expecting to support any enquiries.

I hunted around and I found a support forum for macrospecs’ Face of Mobile application, a $1.99 Windows Mobile Facebook app.

I suppose I could try posting there.

But I’m not feeling very welcome — or smart for buying the app. Indeed I’ve paid a dollar for the privilege.

It’s perfectly fine for it to happen to me, I have a good understanding of the trials and tribulations of mobile development — but if this is the experience of your average consumer who’s just picked up a G1 or G2 and is expecting 100% friction-free total quality-assured service from the Android Marketplace, they’re not going to be at all impressed.

Like the ringtone marketplace a few years ago — you’ll pay once and if the experience sucks, you definitely won’t ever pay again.

What’s the right response?

Is this a FAIL on the part of the team at macrospecs? Is it a Yahoo FAIL?

Or is it an Android FAIL?

Would this have happened on an iPhone?

My name is Ewan and I’m founder and Editor.  You can find out more about me here.

After Mobile Industry Review turned subscription-only back at the end of March, I’ve been looking around for other projects to commence.  Mobile Developer TV started off as a concept in the back of my mind about 6 months ago.

Here’s the Background

I’m founder and editor of Mobile Industry Review (”MIR”), one of the world’s most influential commentators on the mobile industry.  The site published daily news and opinion for almost 3 years, reaching a core audience of 250,000 industry executives and fanatics.  MIR’s feed is integrated directly into the intranets of many mobile operators, handset manufacturers and mobile service companies.  Super reach, super influence.  Witness, for example, our ground-breaking video of the never-before-seen Nokia Test Labs in Farnborough (Over 175,000 people viewed it within days of publishing). Or take a look at the recent post I published about iPhone centric developer mindset in Silicon Valley, picked up by MocoNews, VentureBeat and the Washington Post.

I thoroughly enjoyed producing the site with a team of brilliant contributors.  In March 2009, I turned MIR subscription-only, providing the site’s on-going feed to one company.  The nature of the company’s requirement developed to the point that I was able to engage a small team of writers to deliver the on-going service.  I still retain all MIR rights and content — including the domain names and the site’s extensive reach — so I’ve been looking for another project to put these resources to good use.

Why Mobile Developer TV?

I really, really enjoy producing online video features. There’s something about ‘TV’ that you just can’t match with the written word.  It’s about seeing the person (or people), visualising their excitement and seeing just how passionate they are about their products and services. I did a lot of experimenting with the Mobile Industry Review Show — the MIR Show — and after a good few hundred hours of stress and learning, I think I’ve more or less perfected the art of brilliant online video production: Top quality HD cameras, excellent HD video hosting, super-expensive microphones — in fact, the best equipment you can buy, a bit of creativity in the editing studio (Final Cut is excellent, but iMovie, although frowned upon from the professional sector, is extremely quick).

Marry this passion for online television with my fascination with the mobile industry — and more specifically, with mobile development — and it didn’t take me long to hatch the concept.  And here it is!

The Aim

I’m going to meet the best and the brightest in mobile development — and I’m going to put them on camera.  I’m aiming to publish one TV show per week to start with.  Each show will centre on one or two people in the mobile development space.  iPhone App developers, certainly.  But I’m interested in the whole spectrum — from Blackberry’s App World, to Nokia’s Ovi, to Microsoft’s Windows Marketplace and beyond.

If you’ve ever seen any of the interviews I’ve produced in the past, you’ll know I like to keep myself out of the picture. It’s not about me, it’s about the interviewee.  In some cases I’m aiming to do a straight interview — me to the right of the camera pointing the microphone and asking questions.  In other cases, I’ll do a walk-about or a show-and-tell with the developer.

I’m interested in talking to and profiling:

• Mobile application developers
  (Platform agnostic: iPhone/Blackberry/Nokia/J2ME/Samsung/Microsoft/Android)
• Companies whose primary business is NOT in the mobile space — but who have developed or are developing mobile applications.
  (For instance: A travel company launching an iPhone app, dotcoms launching their own apps — eg. Lastminute’s FoneFood app)
• Companies who supply services to/work with mobile developers
  (Example: Providers of mobile advertising, debug/testing)

Video will comprise most of the content here on Mobile Developer TV — however in my research over the past months, it’s clear that, whilst there are a lot of developers in Silicon Valley and London (my two primary locations), there’s a considerable geographic spread of developers.  Only today I was talking to developers from Ohio, Johannesburg, New Zealand, Ukraine, Paris and Scotland.  I’d like to be able to fly into meet each — that might be a bit of a challenge in the short term though.  So to supplement, I’ll aim to publish text interviews and profiles regularly.

One developer I spoke to suggested recording his own interview on video, answering my questions to camera with his own facilities — and sending it over to me to publish.  I think it’s a super suggestion and I think we’ll do that.

Can I profile you?  Contact Me!

I’m based in London and San Francisco so I’ll be producing the majority of in-person videos from those locations.  If you’d like to feature, drop me a note.  I’m ewan@mobiledeveloper.tv — this is the best way of contacting me.  But you can also phone/text me.  My mobile numbers are:

+44 7769 658104 (UK)

+1 415 200 9515 (US)

… (I’m happy to hear from PRs too.)

Don’t Be British

Please don’t be British — that is, sit at the back and hope I’ll come across you.  I really will do my best to find mobile developers and companies to profile — I’ve already got a big list from working with MIR — but I am most certainly no genius.  So I need your help in order to profile you — I need to know you exist. So please do drop me a note if you’re keen to be profiled.  At the very least I’ll aim to send you out a list of questions to answer by email that I can turn into a profile piece here on the site. (Who are you, what are you creating/have you created, what platform, why, what challenges have you had, and so on).  Ideally I’ll arrange to meet physically to interview you on-camera and perhaps produce an application walk-through.

Got News?

If you’ve got a particular topic of announcement that you think mobile developers and those working in related fields should know about, knock me over an email right-away.

Design

I’m doing a Robert Scoble at the moment — that is publishing with a default WordPress Theme.  I’ll update it as we progress.  The content is way more important than the theme and that’s where my focus is at the moment.

Editorial Policy

As for editorial policy, I’m aiming for a macro view of mobile development.  I don’t plan on publishing code level discussions, or discussing the finer points of the Symbian operating system.  Instead, I’ll be looking at the commercial aspects of the mobile applications development sector along with the trends I’m witnessing.  The overriding focus is, of course, on profiling developers.  I’m particularly interested in talking with one-man-bands:  The chaps (and ladies) who’re single-handedly driving the massive change sweeping the industry.  That said, I’m also keen to talk to the business people — the product managers, the executive teams — about the challenges and successes in the field of mobile applications development.

This is a work in progress so I’d welcome your feedback, either below or by email.

I’ll be syndicating the output through the public feed on Mobile Industry Review so if you’re already a MIR RSS subscriber, you’ll start to get updates shortly.  You can also catch blog updates via the new Mobile Developer TV Twitter account @mobdevtv.

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Of course AdMob are also hugely active in the application monetisation space with well over 1,000 iPhone applications carrying AdMob inventory. What’s good to know is that in many cases, AdMob is writing cheques (or ‘checks’) in excess of $10k+ to a lot of developers. (Indeed, some of the more popular apps are knocking back hundreds of thousands in AdMob revenue.)

So this evening’s event was both an introduction to AdMob’s iPhone related services, a panel discussion on the hot topic du jour (iPhone App Discoverability) as well as the opportunity for developers to network with each other.

The panel featured the following luminaries:

Mike Kerns, CEO, Citizen Sports (Sportacular)
Jonathan Zweig, CEO, Jirbo / Epic Tilt (ESPN Cameraman, many others)
Ben Lewis, Founder, TapJoy
Alan Wells, Zynga

Here’s a pic:

The always reliable and informed Richard Wong (far right in the blue shirt), General Partner of Accel Partners was moderator. If, by the way, you’ve come up with a genius mobile service, you should be talking with Richard. Right now. They’re hunting.

My evening began on the boulevards of San Mateo — a rather picturesque series of boutique shops and pizza restaurants (I think I walked by about 10 pizza outlets on the walk from the station). I used the always reliable Google Maps on my N95 8GB to navigate the 10 minute walk from station to venue. (In a show of solidarity I thought I should bring my UK iPhone to the event — but in an uncharacteristic effort to avoid being nailed for £7/meg in data from o2 UK, I’ve had it set to Airplane mode, so I’ve been using my TMO USA sim in my N95.)

I arrived about 15 minutes early so the Benjamin Franklin Hotel wasn’t quite ready. I spotted a chap standing outside with his iPhone and I theorised he might well be one of the 150 developers attending the event. I struck up a conversation. Turns out that the chap — Steffen Frost has been working with iPhone app development since May 2007. He came up with the concept 1st of May 2007 and had $100k+ seed funding within two weeks. Nice. His product? Carticipate. They’ve basically fixed car-trip-sharing by iPhone.

Here’s a pic I snapped of Steffen:

“Show me!” I said as he described the concept. Within seconds he was showing the functions. You can browse the trips already being made in your area and ask to ride-share. Or if you’re heading somewhere yourself, you can advertise your trip and see if anyone else wants to join you. Smart. They’ve had some substantial interest from a lot of big companies wanting to sanitise their employee commuting traffic (amongst other applications).

“What’s your next platform?” I asked Steffen, “After iPhone?”

“Android,” he replied. “How about Nokia?” I asked.

“Yeah, well…”

Suffice to say he was severely unimpressed by the current Nokia offering.

That wasn’t a unique viewpoint. I’ll come to that later.

The venue opened a few minutes later so Steffen and I popped in. Jeff from 148apps, (the iPhone review site) had written his Twitter ID on his label — so I promptly copied and began marching around the room thrusting my hand out and asking questions left, right and centre.

Goodness me it’s iPhone, iPhone, iPhone. Obviously this was an iPhone developer meetup — but I was fascinated to see how insular, how wholly-iPhone the development community is here in Silicon Valley.

“What’s your next platform?” I asked another developer.

“Er… probably Android,” he replied, after a bit of thought.

“Right… and, after that?” I prompted.

“Well,…” he replied, the conversation trailing off to the point that we both stood there in silence for a few seconds.

I remembered myself and spluttered out “Blackberry?”

“Well…” he replied again. A nice way of saying no.

Ok.

“What about Ovi?” I asked. Hopeful. I was expecting either a venomous “GET OUT” or a knowing nod.

“Ovi? What’s that?” he looked at me confused.

“Er, the Nokia offering — their app store?”

He and his two colleagues who’d now joined us looked horrified. As though I’d taken their iPhone and nailed it to the wall.

“Nohhhkeeaaaa?” They asked. I’m sure their minds were drifting to the $29.99 bollocks-handsets they see on display in the mobile operator stores. The rubbish ones — the glorified mobile telephones complete with alarm clocks. (Think the Nokia 2100 series).

“Er LIKE NO,” said the chap’s colleague, as the other two nodded vigorously.

Interesting!

I thought I’d try out a killer stat on them.

“So 17m iPhones on the planet — Nokia reckons they’ll have the Ovi Store on 400m handsets by the end of 2010.” (I was paraphrasing — this is more or less accurate.)

Blank looks.

Nobody cares.

It’s a fascinating experience walking amongst these developers. They’re the cream of the cream. They’re the Stanford drop-outs (or not – “I did my first and second degrees at Stanford” said one chap”). They’re conditioned by the Silicon Valley mentality to think big, BIG BIG. This is where the innovation is. It’s easy to see why the Valley is the centre of everything.

At least it’s the centre of iPhone development.

There’s only so much you can do when you’re sat in a dark office in London waiting for the ‘your app has been accepted’ email from Apple. Compare that to one panelist’s throwaway comment, “We’re really tight with the Apple guys.”

And tight is good. Tight is the way ahead. Almost every chap I met has a friend-of-a-friend who works at Apple. Or knows a ‘guy’ at Google. Or whose dorm mate knocked out a $10k/day Chess app for the iPhone.

As I walked around the venue, I bumped into Omar, AdMob’s founder. I’m still ridiculously embarrassed — I haven’t got over sitting next to Omar in a dinner in San Francisco last September and asking him ‘what he did at AdMob’ only to find out he was the founder. OH THAT OMAR!

I found Omar in good spirits. He was on his way up to commence proceedings. It says a lot when the CEO and founder of AdMob took the time to pop along and introduce the event. He outlined his company’s commitment to mobile developers and platforms such as the iPhone before swiftly handing over to colleague Mike for a quick AdMob FAQ, namely:

Q: Can I monetise my app with AdMob?
A: Yes. Lots of people are already (1,000+ apps using AdMob).

Q: How much money can I make?
A: It’s very dependent on the application and it’s use case, but, for the sake of argument, assume $0.15 net revenue per customer.

The audience sat in silence, gobbling up the information as Mike delivered it. It was very smart to give some basic revenue examples. Some apps are clearly making a heck of a lot more than $0.15 per customer, but if you’re looking for a ready reckoner of what you might be able to achieve, having this information is really valuable.

Next? The panel. It would be fair to represent the panel as iPhone Developer Rockstars. They’re operating in the mythical space of more or less continual Top-50 App Store billing. As I sat taking in the panel debate I was mentally calculating just how many application downloads the four guys accounted for. If you’re looking for confirmation of rockstar status, witness this panelist quote:

“We worked out the other day that one of our applications has been played by our users for 2,000 man years so far,”

Shit.

Moderator Richard Wong did a super job of asking a series of pertinent questions to the panel around the issue of application discovery. Once you’ve got your app accepted, do you blow a load of money (on, for example, AdMob) to get your app discovered on the launch day? Or do you play a longer game? Can you really monetise with ads? (Yes).

One point I really liked was, I think, made by Ben Lewis of TapJoy. He explained that customers had emailed in saying they were finding it difficult getting above level 30 in one of their games. So they responded by making levels 30-40 easier. In doing so, they found that their ad-impressions flew off the charts. If you’re displaying ads at the end of levels, it makes sense to ensure that the majority of users can progress to an array of levels.

Panelist Ben caused me to rethink my stance on Apple’s micropayments. if you recall, Apple’s next OS version, 3.0, introduces the capacity to extract micropayments from consumers using your applications. Ben commented that whilst a 30% revenue share for the hosting of the App Store, credit card processing and so on was fair enough, taking the exact same share for micropayments ‘just wasn’t cricket’, as we say in Britain. The point being that Apple aren’t doing any more work, other than the transaction processing.

Now to the good stuff.

For months — possibly even years — I’ve been banging on about the iPhone platform finally unlocking the opportunity for developers. Not everyone has been agreeing with me. Indeed quite a few purists in Europe have continued to assert the apparent superiority of the Symbian/Nokia platform for development. And whilst there’s certainly an argument to be had there, it’s — fundamentally — all about money. And there’s a reason Silicon Valley is going nuts for mobile. (Where ‘mobile’ equals ‘iPhone’). It’s the 800 million iPhone downloads, 70% of which are revenue generating. It’s the fact that you can, theoretically, become a millionaire overnight by developing a successful iPhone application, even though there are only 17m iPhones in existence.

So having been a diehard make-it-easy-for-developers chap, it was rather exciting to be surrounded by a few hundred of the Valley’s iPhone geniuses.

Panel questions arrived. I’d already been mentally willing Richard to pick me when he eventually opened the panel up to audience questions.

“Right, any quest..” he began. I shot up my hand.

“Ewan!” he said.

“Hi, I’d like to ask you about…”

I was getting stuck in.

“Wait a moment Ewan, introduce yourself for the audience,” prompted Richard.

Ah. Yes.

I couldn’t wait to ask my question.

“Given that Nokia expects to have their Ovi store on 400m handsets by the end of 2010, are you looking to develop for that platform?”

The moment I mentioned ‘Nokia’ I could feel the audience bristle.

One of the chaps on the panel looked at me — that ‘what the fluck’ look.

“Er, no,” he said.

He passed the microphone.

“No,” said the next chap.

“Er, we’re thinking about it,” said another.

“Errrr NO,” said the next.

Geez.

I felt like a pariah as the panel began to dissect their reasoning. The path to cash is unclear. It’s a massively fragmented handset population. It’s not centrally controlled and beautiful like the App Store. The Ovi Store doesn’t appear to be that ‘easy’ to work with. The capabilities of the development platform are unknown (at least within the Valley)… and so on.

Judging by the response of the audience and the other developers I spoke to after the panel, the ambivalence to Nokia’s Ovi offering — and the offerings of the other manufacturers — is echoed across the Valley.

Blackberry was mentioned once or twice. Surprising, given the amount of Blackberries in use across the States. But when you consider that a whopping amount of devices are corporate devices that are locked to prevent downloads — and that Blackberry App World isn’t pre-installed as yet — you can see why it’s getting little attention from this community.

Another surprise was the lack of Windows Marketplace discussion. Yes this was an iPhone developer meetup but you’d expect — or at least I expected — most developers to be reasonably platform agnostic or at least looking at other possibilities. Out of the 150 developers there, a show of hands revealed only one chap who had worked on the Windows platform.

This will change. Effort is driven by monetisation. If Ovi, Blackberry and Windows Mobile deliver on their promise, I’m sure the majority will give them the time of day. But right now it’s iPhone, iPhone, iPhone and I don’t blame them.