We’re not entirely sure.

Which is why we’re heading there in November. It’ll be cold. We might even get a bit of snow.

We’re going to take the MIR Show Team — Dan Lane, Ben Smith and James Whatley — to Prague and have a wander around and do some filming and put on an Unlimited Drinks networking event for the locals there.

We’ve other European cities on the planning slate so I’d welcome your suggestions.

We’ll have the dates shortly — if you’d like to come and join us you’d be most welcome.

…oh and one other thing too… what was that now…?

Listen now using the player below or see the links below for other options:

 

 

Episode link and feeds:

[Link] Direct link to this episode’s MP3 to download
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—-

The contributors:

Ewan MacLeod is turning off Motorola RAZRs and burning phone holsters he is SMS Text News.
James Whatley’s blog is here. He works for SpinVox doing clever social media stuff and their blog.
Dan Lane’s blog is at http://invalid.name. He’s CTO at Howler Tech.
Ben Smith is a management consultant. He has a blog, but anything worth reading is contributed here.

Sites mentioned in the podcast:

People we met at Unlimited Drinks Dublin:

Paschal from Mobile Travel Technologies
Connor from Connector.ie
Dave from Just Routes
Russel from Vodafone – watch this space for news of his project.

Flirtomatic

James’s Mobile Geek at Glastonbury post

Ewan’s Mobile Hell Hole post

Things of the week:

Orange’s N82
The new QIK client
The Loc8tor ’stuff finder’
JoikuSpot Premium

We’re really keen to get your feedback on the podcast – please let us know in the comments or tell Ewan – ewan@smstextnews.com.

A word of warning: I’m looking like a hunchback. The trauma from the blunt force dental treatment is still showing. I’m only able to smile on the right side of my face at the moment!

Here are the details once again for those coming along:

Critical Info
The date: July 10th (Thursday)
The venue: Magic Glasses Bar, The O’Callaghan Stephen’s Green Hotel, Dublin (map)
The time: 6pm onwards
Get on the guestlist: Email Ewan at ewan@smstextnews.com with the subject UNLIMITED DRINKS = YES as soon as you can.

The background
The Dublin Unlimited Drinks is a chance to meet Ireland’s mobile community. Some of you we know already, many of you we don’t. So we’re really looking forward to meeting you; finding out more about you, your company, your products; then watching you grow. Also, it’s a chance for you to meet other likeminded individuals. We think it will be valuable and interesting for us all.

You can find out all the details here, but all you really need to know is that it is being held in the Magic Glasses Bar, The O’Callaghan Stephen’s Green Hotel, Dublin (map) from 6pm onwards.

We’re expecting a really good night. It will probably be a little more intimate than the recent London events, but that’s good because it will give everyone more time to chat and network. Even if you’re based in Dublin it might be worth a trip over.

Don’t forget – send Ewan an email (ewan@smstextnews.com) with UNLIMITED DRINKS = YES in the subject line and we’ll see you there.

Critical Info
The date: July 10th (Thursday)
The venue: Magic Glasses Bar, The O’Callaghan Stephen’s Green Hotel, Dublin (map)
The time: 6pm onwards
Get on the guestlist: Email Ewan at ewan@smstextnews.com with the subject UNLIMITED DRINKS = YES as soon as you can.

The background
The Dublin Unlimited Drinks is a chance to meet Ireland’s mobile community. Some of you we know already, many of you we don’t. So we’re really looking forward to meeting you; finding out more about you, your company, your products; then watching you grow. Also, it’s a chance for you to meet other likeminded individuals. We think it will be valuable and interesting for us all.

Who’s supporting it?
This is where thanks are due to Anam, Arantech and ChangingWorlds who are supporting the night. More will be posted about each one of them shortly, but if you see anyone from these three companies on the night don’t forget to say ‘thanks’ and also maybe have a listen to what they do.

What’s happening on the night?
We’ve got an area of the Magic Glasses Bar set aside especially for us. Once you arrive you’ll be met by Ewan – and he’ll insist on taking a card from you and that’s the formalities over. The rest is up to you, it’s all about networking and drinking. No presentations, no announcements, no speeches, no hassle. Just remember to bring your business cards.

The Venue
They say it “is a very trendy spot decorated in warm terra cotta tiles and soft copper lighting. The contrast of the Georgian architecture of the bar with a contemporary setting, brings a unique ambience to the Magic Glasses Bar.” We say it’s all about providing a welcoming and relaxing atmosphere that will allow you to chat, mingle and enjoy yourself.

Here are some photos:

The Drinks
I named the evening ‘Unlimited Drinks’ because, genuinely, We’d like to offer unlimited drinks to everyone. It’s posssssssible that could overload Ewan’s capacity to fund it. All things being equal though, you will not pay for beer, wine or soft drinks. Spirits, however, will be chargeable at the bar. Therefore, like many of our big mobile networks with their data plans, there is a fair use policy at Unlimited Drinks.

There will also be a little bit of finger food provided to help the drinks go down.

The other attendees
Expect to meet people with opinions! Expect to meet mobile entrepreneurs, industry executives, analysts, public relations supremeos and those who work in and around the mobile, wireless and web 2.0 industries.

Come on along!
By default, you’re invited. But please email Ewan so we can control the numbers. If you want to come please email right-away with your name (and other guest names and job titles). Mail Ewan, ewan@smstextnews.com with the subject ‘UNLIMITED DRINKS = YES’ and he will reply to confirm.

After the event
You must be sure to give Ewan your business card on the evening as, soon after the event, he will write up a one-liner on every attendee and link to their respective websites. This is one of the highest trafficked elements of the site so do remember this.

We hope to meet you on the night!

The exact details will follow shortly, but it will be held in central Dublin on July 10th, so if you’d like to join us then email me at ewan@smstextnews.com with the subject ‘UNLIMITED DRINKS=YES‘ to get your name down on the list.

This will be the first Unlimited Drinks event in Dublin and I’m looking forward to a really fun, intimate evening meeting and chatting to the movers and shakers of the Irish mobile industry.

I’ll post more details shortly, but first of all I’d like to say thanks to the sponsors of this event. They are (in alphabetical order):

- Anam – We’ve covered Anam a couple of times, they do ‘Smart Services’ for SMS. In particular they offer operators SMS Money Transfer and have recently signed a deal with Telenor.
- Arantech – Arantech is a new company to me so I’m interested to hear about their pioneering CEM (Customer Experience Management) solutions. They’ve got an award-winning product that closes “gaps” in the mobile network that result in poor user experience.
- ChangingWorlds – ChangingWorlds is also new to me and their ClixSmart product offers navigation portals for Operators so that they can offer a personalised mobile Internet for users.

If you come along, please make sure that you say hello and thanks to the guys from Anam, Arantech and ChengingWorlds, and don’t forget to drop me a note (ewan@smstextnews.com) with the subject ‘UNLIMITED DRINKS=YES‘ to get yourself on the guest list.

It was a brilliant evening tonight at Unlimited Drinks, London.

Thank you all for coming.

I have a huge pile of business cards that I now have to ‘write-up’. It is seriously going to take me ages. But I will get through it and do a few lines on everyone and a link to their site. That’s a photo of the cards as they sit on my desk at the moment.

Standby for that shortly…

If you’re in San Francisco right now you can probably just make it if you’re getting on the plane RIGHT NOW and you take the Heathrow Express when you arrive in. But make sure you’re names down on the list by emailing me (details).

Here’s the critical info
The date: June 10th (Tuesday – TODAY!)
The venue: Number3 Bar, New Burlington Street, just off Regent Street, London (Google Map)
The time: 6-630pm onwards

What to expect
Here’s the standard user model for Unlimited Drinks:

1. Locate the Number3Bar on New Burlington Street. It’s quite easy to find. Don’t make the mistake of going down into Club Eve — that’s the basement entrance and is below the Number3Bar.

2. Tell the bouncers on the door that you’re here to see me for Unlimited Drinks and SMS Text News. They will no doubt smile benignly and point you through the door.

3. All things being equal, you will next encounter me. So you can easily locate me, I’ll be sporting a shocking, shocking pinstripe suit (black and chalk stripes), pink tie, pink shirt (comfortable with my masculinity). My function at the start of the night is to ensure I’m on or near the door, welcoming you — and demanding a business card from you. If you like, we can swap. I’ll then point you to the cloakroom area (one quid charge) — this is useful if you’ve brought laptops and coats. Do look out for the chaps from OnePoint Surveys who are usually dressed in sharp pinstripes too.

4. Walk through to the bar area and get yourself a drink. Folk tend to congregate around this area — mysteriously.

5. Talk to people. Seriously. Don’t just stand there, it’s no fun. Everyone at the event either knows me virtually or directly or knows SMS Text News — so you have something in common. If you start a conversation with someone, you will not be blanked, nor will you be ignored. You are encouraged to say ‘hi’ to folk. That’s the whole reason for being there. If you are blanked, by the way, tell me, and we’ll taser the offender and exit them.

6. No speeches, no guff. This event is primarily a thank you to the SMS Text News readership and an opportunity for you to network with people and just have-a-chat. You might be able to do business. At the very minimum, I hope you’ll be able to have a constructive conversation about mobile with other attendees.

7. Thank you, NinetyTen. The chaps there are supporting the event and ensuring it can happen. Without them we wouldn’t be able to deliver such a winning experience. Therefore, the quid pro quo is that you must familiarise yourself with the company. Make sure you’ve seen their site, make sure you’ve looked at BuddyPing. Hunt for David, David and Justin — and when you meet them, thank them.

8. Charlotte of Noisy Media will be filming at the event. We’re going to put together a video podcast compilation of attendees introducing themselves on camera. Standby to give an elevator pitch! She’ll also be able to discuss creating a movie or overview of your product or service — something I strongly recommend for any mobile related business.

9. Did you say free gizmos? Yes. Mark from AwarenessTech has dug deep to ensure that the first hundred of so guests will get a free (SMS Text News branded) mobile charger. Should work for most Nokias. Kudos to you Mark. He’s got some excellent mobile security and remote locking services that I’ll be doing some stories on shortly.

10. Life’s good? Yes it is. Thanks to LG. Chris and Nathalie of the LG Blog are popping down, big time. They’re coming with gifts in the form of two brand spanking new LG KF600’s (product page)

A new experience in design and usability
Featuring an innovative design with a sleek exterior, semi-reflective dual screen and black crystal finish. The dual screen InteractPad brings a new ease to phone navigation.

How can you get your hands on one of these swish devices? Well, we’re going to randomly draw a business card on the night. Twice. Yup, Chris is bringing two of them! So, *DO* give me your card when you arrive.

11. Drinks. Beer is free, as are house red and white wines and soft drinks. The food’s free too.

12. Be sure to give me your card so I can remember I met you. My memory is appalling. The card helps me do a little write-up about you in the event review the next day.

See you there!

PS. No phone holsters, please.

Here’s me in the pinstripe this morning to set context:

If you haven’t already emailed to get on the guest list, please do so at the link above. We’re extremely busy — well over our 150 person limit, however I’m working on the basis that some people won’t be able to make it and that, actually, 150 people don’t usually turn up at once. Do get there early, if you don’t want to be left standing with your nose pressed against the window.

I’ve got one important requirement for every attendee: That is to meet and thank the chaps at NinetyTen. They are graciously supporting Unlimited Drinks and enabling us here at SMS Text News to actually put on the event. The quid-pro-quo is that I’d like everyone to do the following:

1. Take a look at the NinetyTen site. These chaps are working hard to deliver smart and efficient mobile social services. They’ve put their money where their mouth is by supporting Unlimited Drinks.
2. Take a look at their flagship product, BuddyPing. They’ll be releasing an all new native Symbian client shortly that promises to be rather sexy.
3. Have a listen to the podcast interviews with both co-founder Justin and Sales Director David.
4. At the event, please seek out Justin, David and David. Meet them. Exchange cards. See if you can find ways to do business together.

Put on your best underpants on Tuesday morning, for Charlotte (and quite possibly, some of her crew) of Noisy Media is due to be filming during Unlimited Drinks this coming Tuesday.

They’ll be grabbing each and every attendee and asking them to do a piece to camera.

Charlotte, when she’s not creating masterpieces for a veritable who’s who of media giants, specialising in brilliant corporate videos. Something that, in today’s Youtube generation, your average mobile company cannot, cannot, cannot be without.

Whilst QIK is brilliant and every N95 on the planet does gorgeous near-DVD quality video, there is absolutely nothing that will beat a professionally crafted video series introducing your products and services. Doing them on the cheap by pointing the camera and talking in an echoy room, well, it’s not the way to go if you’re wanting to present a billion dollar image. Example?

Here’s a Truphone video from Youtube. I remember really liking it when I first saw it. I liked how ‘personal’ it was.

However, once I started seeing wobbly and temporarily out of focus handset shots I remembered I was seeing ‘a guy’ talking about his company’s product and wondered why they didn’t go and get the things produced professionally.

Yesterday I published this from Broca PLC:

By comparison, here’s a video we hired Charlotte and her team to create for us (for our SMS to screen nightclub services):

There’s no comparison. The top two are home made, right? The other one is proper.

QIK is great from SMS Text News. It’s got it’s place. It shows you *I* was there. It’s deliberately rough’n'ready. I don’t think companies in the mobile industry, of all industries (where things are sometimes complicated to explain) should be presenting knocked-up N95 vids to the masses.

So I’ve asked Charlotte to come along, record as many attendees as possible doing some three-sentence overviews of their companies and to hopefully spread the light. You’ll obviously get to meet her. I’m hoping that, if you’ve got a good company, offering a good service that you believe in, you’ll get yourself a decent (series of) corporate videos. You’re talking a few grand at least but it’s worth it.

If you can create a 60 second or 180 second compelling, smart, professional video that conveys your product or service offering succinctly, that’s what you want to send to the operator when you’re trying to get a meeting. Or to the global media company thinking about hiring you. No arse. No powerpoints. No knocked-up videos, please!

- Mike Taylor, Head of Media & Entertainment Services for WIN plc.
- Jane Young from Chargebox
- Andy Smith, Sales Director, EMEA, AdMob
- Roger Gronberg, Founder, MoMail
- Darren Cockburn, Corporate Development, Channel4
- Rafe Blandford, Founder, AllAboutSymbian– although Rafe points out that his attendance is subject to fair use and terms and conditions. Heh!

By the way, here’s Andy Smith of AdMob featured on SMS Text News recently.

We’re quite some way over the 150 limit however I expect a flurry of ‘woops, sorry’ notes — that’s obviously to be expected — so if you’re coming along, please do mail me — instructions at the link above.

If you’re planning on bringing colleagues, that’s no biggie, provided we know who they are and their name is down on the list, and that they’re not a Class-A arse.

It should be a hot’rockin’ evening.

So if you’d like to come along, please could you visit this overview post and follow the instructions there to get on the list?

It’s going to be a hot rockin’ event!

* That is, everyone except the chaps Ed, Michael and Christian from Zyb — my Google Apps account is prevented from emailing you because of a spam issue. You’re on the list though

Critical Info
The date: June 10th (Tuesday)
The venue: Number3 Bar, New Burlington Street, just off Regent Street, London (Google Map)
The time: 6pm onwards
Get on the guestlist: Email me with the subject UNLIMITED DRINKS = YES as soon as you can.

The background
Unlimited Drinks is an event primarily to thank you for reading. Your attention is extremely important to us, particularly in today’s hectic world of information overload. Secondly, I’d like to extend the opportunity for you to meet a load of other likeminded individuals who also read. I think it should be valuable for us all — in terms of meeting smart folk and I reckon it will be entertaining. It’s an exciting prospect to be able to put names to faces.

Who’s supporting it?
A huge thank you to the team at NinetyTen, makers of (amongst other things) BuddyPing. They are graciously supporting Unlimited Drinks London. I recently caught up with Justin, the company’s founder, to find out what was new. He had so much going on that I did an inpromptu podcast. More on that shortly. Please do take a bit of time to check out the NinetyTen site and download a copy of BuddyPing to your S60 or Java handset. The service is going from strength to strength and they’ve got some big, big news due to hit the streets in July.

What’s happening on the night?
The Number3Bar is ours entirely for the evening. After negotiating the rather large, official bouncers at the door to the venue, you’ll be met at the door by me — Ewan — and members of the UK-based SMS Text News team. I’ll demand a card from you and point you toward the place to hang up your coats (although, the venue does charge a whopping one-quid for this service) and then point you toward the bar and introduce you to other readers.

Otherwise, it’s simply a night of networking, drinking and eating. No presentations, no announcements, no speeches, no hassle. There are plenty of sofas, chairs, seats and places to lean on. Business cards. Remember your business cards.

The Venue
Think funky Moroccan and you’re there. Check out the Number3Bar site. Although it’s officially located in Mayfair, it’s spectacularly located in the West End. Walk down Regent Street, about half way from Oxford Circus (peer into the Apple store when you do) and shortly you’ll reach New Burlington Street and see the bar. Alternatively, walk up Regent Street from Picadilly Circus.

Some venue photos:

The Drinks
I named the evening ‘Unlimited Drinks’ because, genuinely, I’d like to offer unlimited drinks to everyone. It’s posssssssible that could overload my capacity to fund it. All things being equal though, you will not pay for beer, wine or soft drinks. Spirits, however, will be chargeable at the bar. Therefore, like many of our big mobile networks with their data plans, there is a fair use policy at Unlimited Drinks.

The Food
I’ve ordered a ton of platters. If you won’t be eating before arriving — if you’re coming straight from work, worry not. There will be loads of this:

- Grilled Pitta Bread with homemade humous
- Garlic Olives with Feta Cheese
- Tomato & Basil Bruschetta
- Spring Rolls (meat / vegetable / seafood)
- Breaded Mushrooms
- Yellow Sole Goujons
- Fries
- Samosas (meat / vegetable)
- Filo Prawn Wraps
- Breaded Prawns
- Mini Pizzas
- Yakitori Chicken
- Satay Chicken
- Vegetable Tempura

The other attendees
Expect to meet people with opinions! Expect to meet mobile entrepreneurs, industry executives, analysts, public relations supremeos and those who work in and around the mobile, wireless and web 2.0 industries.

Other elements
Expect no loud music. I can’t stand that when I’m trying to discuss something with somebody. We might have a bit of background stuff. I was discussing with one mobile operator to see if they’d bring along some wicked devices for us to have a play with, or, even better, a Nokia N82 raffle or similar. It’s still a work in progress.

Come on along!
By default, you’re invited. But please email me so I can control the numbers. I’ve already got a huge list of people confirmed so please email me right-away with your name (and other guest names and job titles). Mail me, ewan@smstextnews.com with the subject ‘UNLIMITED DRINKS = YES’ and I’ll reply to confirm.

After the event
You must be sure to give me your business card on the evening as, next day, I write up a one-liner on every attendee and link to their respective websites. This is one of the highest trafficked elements of the site so do remember this.

I hope to meet you on the night!

Put the date in your diaries! I’ll be writing an overview post shortly. We’ve got a rather wicked partner who’s supporting the event. Standby for more, soon.