iPhone App Development - sponsored by SMSPoll
The final part of our series on Mobile Futures has us taking a close look at an exciting explosion in innovation and opportunity : the iPhone Mobile App Store phenomenon.

With event sponsorship by recent Pitch NSW ‘08 winners SMSPoll - thanks guys !

Mobile App Stores - Critical to Device Success?
Arguably pioneered by Nokia under a different (albeit clumsier guise), the App Store Concept has been a stellar overnight success for Apple via its iPhone+iTunes platform.

“In its first month, Apple’s App Store sold more than 60 million programs, pulling in an average of $1 million per day…” source: WSJ, Mon Aug 11, 2008,

The iPhone App Store let’s you buy everything from humble widget-style services to full-3D haptic-controlled computer games direct from an icon on the iPhone touchscreen (and also lets you pay using your iTunes account details). You can then manage and backup your purchases the next time you sync your music and photos via iTunes. We’ve tried it - its seamless. No wonder its been a roaring success.

Some grumbles have been heard from developers about Apple’s ‘mysterious black box app approvals process’ of course - something Google is already noting is an out-of-the-box advantage of Android and their much anticipated App store. You gotta love competition.

iPhone Web Apps - Design, Code, & Profit
We thought the best way to get up-close to this ‘phenomenon’ is to get some pals from MoMo to share their journey in this exciting space - so to that end we’re excited to welcome the experienced iPhone dev team from Key Options Development, consisting of

Marcus Schappi – Sweeper
Tim Chandler – Coder

who’ll be talking about their experiences with developing iPhone Apps, including the Qantas app available in the iTunes store now, via these themes :
Design
• The Three Rules of Designing iPhone Web Apps

Code (Tim)
• Taking advantage of the iPhone

and Profit (Marcus)
• App Store Top 100 Calculations.

Presentations and discussions will be ably compered by Mobile Monday Sydney’s own Oliver Weidlich, himself something of an iPhone app design guru.

Bring your mobiles & business cards
Should be a fascinating night with demos, stories from the cutting-edge, and fascinating personalities and people to meet. Come along and meet your peers in the Sydney mobile and wireless industry! Entry is free, but to guarantee your place click here to RSVP.

Do you love or hate your mobile?
The second part of our series on Mobile Futures - this time focusing on what we all know to be true : user experience is absolutely vital to humanising technology.

At the very beginning of what may well come to be known as the era of multi-touch, we’re going to be examining some different aspects of the user experience with some of Australia’s stars in the field.

iPhone Usage Analysis
James Cleary from groundbreaking Australian mobile company Amethon will speak to this topic, presenting some of their analysis of iPhone usage.

Defining Perceived Value in Mobile Media
Mobile expert Mac Walker will be discussing a new model for understanding customer perceived value in mobile services, drawing on his years as a manager of 3G mobile portals.

Mobile User Experience
Finally, Sheen Yap - Head of User Experience and Creative Services at 3 Mobile will be talking about the critical elements of the user experience on mobile.

Bring your mobile !
Should be a fascinating night with plenty of real-world insights and lots of opportunities to meet new people, make personal and professional contacts, and be inspired. Come along and meet your peers in the Sydney mobile and wireless industry!

RSVP now, and to see how we roll checkout these pictures from last month’s show. See you there !

What’s coming up next !?
Okay so by now we’re all over the iPhone 3G right ? Hmm maybe not. Looks like we’re at the beginning of something big – and we’re not just talking about the fight brewing over mobile data charges.

This month and over the next few Mobile Monday Sydney events, we’re going to be taking a look at where things are heading in the mobile world - with some of Australia and the World’s best thinkers about connected, mobile digital society.

Introducing Xumii
Founded in San Francisco by Australian entrepreneur Jennifer Zanich, Xumii was an award-winning mobile internet application before it’s beta version was even launched.

One of this year’s VentureBeat DigitalMedia “Mobile Beat” Top 30 picks (along with another early MoMo Sydney guest Mig33), Xumii “gives you a centralized way to aggregate contacts and feeds from your social networks and IM, and stay connected by sharing messages, widgets and photos via IM, threaded chat, groups and mobile walls.”

Come along and hear all about one hottest new mobile apps out there, and hear Jennifer’s story about what its like to get venture funding for a mobile app company in Silicon Valley!

And of course, Google
We’re delighted to have the company of senior product manager Justin Baird from Google Australia, to tell us more about Google’s vision for the mobile internet – and of course remind us of how an Australian team gave birth to the technology that became Google Maps.

He’s promised to “pull some rabbits out of the hat” so we’re guessing there’ll be a fair bit about Google’s ideas for the future mobile web experience. Are you holding onto your seats out there !?

Bring your mobiles and business cards
Should be a fun night with lots of opportunities to meet new people, make personal and professional contacts, and be inspired. Come along and meet your peers in the Sydney mobile and wireless industry. Entry is free, but to guarantee your place click here to RSVP.

This one really caught our eye…

“Ubiquitous augmented reality technology is not far off and mobile phones will be the driving force. As mobile devices advance from 3G to 4G, and because everyone has one, they represent a very attractive business opportunity in distributing augmented reality services and advertising.

“Augmented reality is about to hit Australian shores with QR (quick response) code technology. If you don’t already know about this technology, come along and participate in a live demo of QR codes in action.* Beyond QR codes, you will see how traditional printed ads can deliver rich media content to your mobile phone when they have been augmented with tagless picture recognition technology. For example, you see a movie poster in a magazine that interests you. You target it with your mobile and immediately receive the movie trailer that begins to play. Also, see how you can play video games outdoors with the augmented reality games engine A-Rage and learn how to create your own augmented reality experiences.

“This AIMIA NSW Intimates event ‘Augment yourself!’ is a free event and is held from 6.30pm, Tuesday 29th July at The Privilege Club, 70 King Street, Sydney. Be prepared to be amazed: your physical world is about to be changed forever.

Please register at http://www.aimia.com.au/i-cms?page=4635 to receive your name tag and a complimentary drink on arrival.

* Download the free reader beforehand by going to http://www.i-nigma.mobi with your mobile and following the instructions.

The Road to Damascus
Its been a long, slow road moving beyond the ‘on pack promotion’ or ‘tv-voting’ style thinking typical of the last 10 years of Mobile marketing, but if entries in last year’s ADMA Awards and the frenzy (hype?) around the release of the iPhone are anything to go buy, smart marketers will soon be moving many new “direct, targeted and personal engagement via mobile” ideas out of the ‘experimental’ budget and into the ‘prime channel’ budget.

Or will they ?

Joining us to discuss

• Cliff Rosenberg, Mobile Marketing Awards Chairman
• Adam Dunne, MD of MMA ADMA awards winner Aura Interactive
• Melissa Adameitis, Client Services Director from another MMA ADMA awards winner Tigerspike
• David Hayes, Head of Sales & Marketing at mobile marketing pioneer, IDS.

Exploring these topics
We’ll be covering recent case-studies in successful mobile and mobile-integrated campaigns, recent industry and consumer developments (think iPhone!), and new sponsorship and marketing opportunities opened up by the rapid mobilisation of internet services.

• Is it still an uphill battle getting clients to mainstream mobile in their campaign thinking?
• Are data charges still a barrier to consumer acceptance of creative?
• Global ad agencies talk about being integrated across digital and mobile, is it true ?
• Are new pathways like code readers and Bluetooth transforming customer expectations ?
• What impact would mobile full web browsing have on the types of campaigns digital and mobile marketers can run ?

Asking the questions and sparking debate will be MoMo’s own Tim Parsons.

Bring your mobiles and business cards
Should be an interesting night with some great networking opportunities alongside your peers in the mobile industry. Entry is free, but to guarantee your place click here to RSVP.

Thank you to the great team from iWifi Bondi, and to our expert panellists Marcus (Airspan), Eric (Unwired) and Maurie (TeleResources) - who were able to transform “WiMAX vs 3g+” into “WiMAX PLUS 3g+” (with 80Mbps on its way by 2012, yum).

The iWifi Team L - R: Ranjeet Elkunchwar, Winnie Yang, Urs Kemmann, Joyce Huang, Dave Kaplan and Caroline Chung

For those of you who missed the iWifi Bondi presentation by the UTS student team, check it out via their wonderful presentation thanks to slideshare.com below… puts us “industry professionals” in the shade !

| View | Upload your own

OR “Dumb Pipes vs The Telcos”

:: 6.30pm for 7pm, Mon 2nd June 2008
:: The Privilege Bar on George St.,
(corner George and King.)

The iPhone is coming to our shores at last – and some including Wired’s Bryan Gardiner think emerging chipsets and iPhone user behaviours may give the WiMAX industry a serious boost.

OK true its probably more about price transparency and service simplicity, i.e. just like you get from your ISP, unlike the complex layered pricing most telcos put forward.

That still begs the question: given a simpler consumer offer, low price point and supporting devices, will Metro-wide hotspots begin to offer a real alternative to the existing phone networks ? Will WiMAX create major opportunities for new players (and disruption and lower ARPUs for incumbent mobile operators ?) Why call when you can voice-skype !

We’ve Got the Answers!
To tackle these big questions and more, we’ve got a demo of a WiMAX business model developed by some sharp-looking final year students at UTS called iWiFi Bondi:

We’ve also put together a panel of industry heavyweights to discuss the implications of a raft of new mobile devices with built-in WiMAX support arriving on the market just in time to mobile-enable a host of popular online behaviours.

Bring your mobiles and business cards
Come along and enjoy the show - and take advantage of some great networking opportunities alongside your peers in the mobile industry. Entry is free, but to guarantee your place click here to RSVP.

So its Fashion Week again. The madness, the models, the designers, cameras flashing as who’s in and who’s out hangs in the balance. Unidentifiable pieces of whatever hanging from tall thin po-faced girls. Did we mention cool parties & killer runway shows?

Actually, having not received a single party or show invitation (again!), and being the nexus of fashion movers and shakers that we are, (hey our members look cool and a mobile is THE coolest accessory right!?), we decided to have our own very own fashion-oriented soireé.

And what better way to do that than cover Mobile Social Networks !

Keynote by MoSo Guru Laurel Papworth
First up, we’re going to hear from globe-trotting social media consultant Laurel Papworth on the explosion of mobile social networks around the world. Laurel’s most recent gig took her to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where she discovered how social networks - mobile, online and informal - are transforming the lives and aspirations of Arab Women (e.g. check out imatter.mbc.net). Laurel also teaches social media as part of a Masters of Convergent Media program at the University of Sydney, and still finds time to track around 300 mobile social networks updating her research on her site MyMobilePals.com.

Case Study : Mobile & Fashion
Next up, we’ve got glamazons, fashion mavens and media impresarios Michelle Stevens (Blatherskiter) and Amina Waters (Microsoft) who will be giving us a sneak preview of their Windows Mobile-sponsored collaboration with white hot designer Tina Kalivas (tinakalivas.com). Tina has embraced mobile technology as a key component of her creative process in preparation for her first London show. Come along and find out how Michele and Amina are helping her do it.

Bring your mobiles and business cards
Should be a fun night, dress up and erm, strike a pose ! Come along and enjoy the show - and take advantage of some great networking opportunities alongside your peers in the mobile industry. Entry is free, but to guarantee your place click here to RSVP.

Note: Our lawyers asked us to say for the record that Mobile Monday is in no way affiliated with Rosemount Australia Fashion Week, and this is not an official Fashion Week event. Maybe next year !?�

Mobile Monday Sydney pals mega can help you be a part of one of the world’s fastest growing economic sectors.

“Hear from some of Australia’s leading mobile industry experts about how they’ve succeeded so far, their thoughts about future opportunities and how the mega program can help you. Featuring Shane Williamson (Mobile Monday Sydney), Kelly Ajai, (Communicator Interactive), Michael Stone (Amethon), Alex Hall (TigerSpike) and others.

This free information session will provide specific details about what the mega program offers, how it is delivered, which industry leaders are involved and how you can be a part of it.

When: Tuesday April 22nd,
time: 6-8pm (pls be punctual),
Location: Privilege Bar (Blacket Hotel), 70 King Street, Sydney.

mega is an industry-led, hands-on program in which leading industry experts guide participants through the creation of new business for mobile products and services. Applications welcome from individuals and teams.

To register for this free Info session, go to www.mega.org.au and fill out the online registration form, or
email justin@mega.org.au - ALL WELCOME!“

People sharing their stories:

Tamzin (3), Paul (SoundBuzz), Matthew (5thFinger) (and Tim - MoMo)

People debating the iphone:

L-R iPhone hope: Chris (My247), Oliver W. (MoMo), iPhone hype: Oliver P. (TigerSpike), Shane (MoMo).

Despite an eloquent and passionate attack on the iPhone hype by Oliver P. and Shane, the audience decided in favour of the iPhone:

People enjoying the night:

We even had people voting live !
Checkout the audience survey results here, thanks to Rob Manson of Mobile Online Business for a fantastic live demo - it was fascinating seeing the audience reaction and profile unfold in realtime.