MEGA - Growing Australia’s Digital Economy

MEGA is an Entrepreneurial Masterclass delivered by digital industry leaders running in parallel in Melbourne and Sydney from Aug - Nov 2009. MEGA gives digital creatives, mobile experts, technologists, developers, the tools, networks, personal insights and street wisdom to launch new products, build support networks, raise finance, and start new businesses in digital, online, mobile and greenIT.

Checkout the video :-

There’s also more info in the slideshare :-

We’ve got a world-class line-up of mentors, and places are filling fast. Applications for the Sydney program close this Friday 31st July 2009 - checkout MEGA.org.au for application forms.

MEGA NSW is supported by AIMIA, Telstra, News Digital Media, The Australia Council, the NSW Dept. of State and Regional Development, the University of Technology, Metro Screen, Design Centre Enmore, The Project Factory, TigerSpike, mogeneration, Digital Ministry, mHits, Ideal Interfaces, and of course Mobile Monday Sydney.

Thanks to all who enjoyed our N97 + Ovi and Palm Pre reviews ! Some resources from Rob Manson and Oliver Weidlich for you budding Palm Pre developers:-

• The first use video
  
• The collection of video’s from CES - some interesting stuff here
  (Rob showed part of Chapter 6 at MoMoSyd)
• And definitely checkout the webOS book
  
• The developer blog
  
• And their new opensource portal (which is just really a busybox repos)
  http://opensource.palm.com/
  
• AND last but not least, Palm Developer Central
  http://developer.palm.com/

Plus, Michael Stone from Amethon also posted his fascinating mobile analytics presentation online as promised - see below:

Finally, technical snags and presenting this during intermission meant we really didn’t do justice to Chris Simon of Bracketboys’ short N95 video and remixed music - so here it is again. Enjoy!

Wide Open Space2: 2nd Vimeo Weekend Project:Independence from Chris Simon on Vimeo.

See you on the 3rd of August 2009 at our next Mobile Monday Sydney event!

The Mobile Monday Crew

:: 6.30pm for 7pm start, Mon 6th July 2009
:: Level 3 @ The Blacket Hotel
:: Entry on King Street via the Blacket Hotel. (Here’s a map)

FY 2010 kicks off possibly at the mid point - or is it just the end of the beginning? - of the biggest financial crisis in a generation. And yet Apple just announced it has already sold over 1 million iPhone 3GS smartphones.

What better way to catch the first glimmers of economic recovery than diving straight into the world of Mobile with the Mobile Monday Sydney crew !!

Proudly Presenting :-

	First up, a live demo of the new Nokia N97 smartphone and Australian Ovi store, launched yesterday with much hoopla, thanks to MoMo Co-founder Shane Williamson.
Next we’ll have some developer’s insights into the Palm Pre, thanks to MoMo Co-founder and usability expert Oliver Weidlich (Ideal Interfaces) and veteran online and mobile guru, Rob Manson (MOBusiness.com.au).
	Michael Stone from Amethon Solutions will also give us some personal insights into their recent Mobile Internet Insights report “Mobile Advertising - Beyond the Click Thru“. (Request your copy ahead of time here.)

Promises to be a great night - and who knows, we might even induct you into an impromptu innovation panel like the one in May that ended up on TelecomTV !

See you there ! RSVP here.

Don’t forget your business cards, and RSVP now to secure your place. Mobile Monday Sydney is a FREE event. And DON’T FORGET - It’s at LEVEL 3 upstairs at the Blacket Hotel

> RSVP NOW

:: 6.30pm for 7pm start, Mon 1st June 2009
:: Level 3 @ The Blacket Hotel
:: Entry on King Street via the Blacket Hotel. (Here’s a map)

And

Here at Mobile Monday Sydney, we try and keep our eyes peeled so we’re across smarter, deeper, and more engaging mobile marketing campaigns - something that most of our community can deliver, but perhaps clients are still a little scared of. (Yep even in 2009!)

To give us piles of ammunition to continue fighting the good fight, we’re very happy to be able to share the journeys and insights of two highly innovative mobile and online marketing companies.

• M-Vouch, with Todd Graham (Founder and CEO), and
• The Hyperfactory, with Geoffrey Handley (Global Co-Founder) and Jennifer Hiley (Mobile Integration Specialist), who’ll be covering the Webby’s for us!

Promises to be a great night ! RSVP here

More about M-Vouch

M-Vouch has ‘closed the loop’ in providing comprehensive point of sale campaign redemption, whether using: 1D bar-codes, 2D bar codes (QR codes), alpha-numeric codes, numeric codes and our own proprietary ‘live on handset’ reverse redemption methods.

M-Vouch now has Australia’s only ‘on-deck’ mobile advertising Store, providing: Advertising, Marketing, Promotions and Vouchering campaigns direct to the customers of Hutchison’s Planet 3.

Todd Graham (Founder and CEO, M-Vouch)

Todd has 24 years of senior advertising experience and knowledge through both working in multi-national advertising agencies to owning and operating his own agencies. In addition Todd has been an advertising Director at Newspapers, Radio Networks and Television Networks. Todd has owned an International mobile content company for seven years and is now the founder and CEO of M-Vouch Digital Advertising Networks.

The Hyperfactory covers The Webby’s!

With the Webby 2009 Winners announced last week and the fantastic showing for the mobile channel in the ”Oscars or the internet world”. The Hyperfactory team will be walking through some of the campaigns that took home the awards, including the coveted People’s Choice winners.

The categories ranged from vertical specific brand campaigns to mobile applications, gaming, location based services and integrated mobile advertising  – Geoff & Jen will showcase some of their favorites from the nominees and winners – No doubt sparking debate on the difference between what makes a great campaign or application vs what wins awards!

Established in mid 2000, The Hyperfactory’s goal has been to actively explore and lead the field in the wireless application development and wireless marketing space, and nearly a decade later is now “…the most awarded full-service mobile ideas, strategy and execution specialist in the world.”

More about Geoffrey Handley (The Hyperfactory Worldwide Co-Founder)

Geoffrey Handley is co-founder and architect behind international, multi-award winning mobile marketers, The Hyperfactory. Geoffrey has been at the helm of this world-class mobile ideas factory since its inception and has been a driver of its successful foundation and phenomenal growth in the Asia Pacific region.

See you there !

Definitely bring your mobile phone on Monday as a surprise is in store for everyone! Don’t forget your business cards, and RSVP now to secure your place. Mobile Monday Sydney is a FREE event.

DON’T FORGET - It’s at LEVEL 3 upstairs at the Blacket Hotel

> RSVP NOW

We’ve got another huge Mobile Monday lined up for you next week.  The theme is iPhone applications and we’re getting presentations from a couple of different perspectives:

1. From the client side: The infamous Chris Winter is coming to talk about why the ABC decided to build an iPhone application and how it fits into their mobile strategy.

2. From the smaller mobile developers (& the amazing TigerSpike): We’re going to have quick 2 minute interviews with some local iPhone developers who have native apps on the App Store.  These include: iceTV, Check My Tubes, Optus Mobile Usage Meter, VFest, Xiao CiDian and Pocket Weather AU (Download them all from iTunes App Store before the night

3. From the iPhone/Mobile 2.0 specific developers: Keith Ahern from MoGeneration (see post below for more details)

Look forward to seeing you Monday night!

> RSVP NOW!

:: 6.30pm for 7pm, Mon 4th May 2009
:: Level 3 @ The Blacket Hotel
:: Entry on King Street via the Blacket Hotel. (Here’s a map)

App-Tastic!

Apple recently announced 1 billion iPhone apps had been downloaded from their App Store. How can your app get discovered amongst the 25,000 already there !?

To answer this question, we’re very happy to welcome Keith Ahern of mogeneration who will show us  what it takes to get a viable presence on the App Store and get noticed. Keith will also talk about when to do a mobile web site, when to do an app and when to take a hybrid approach.

Keith Ahern (Founder and CEO, mogeneration)

Keith has over 13 years of innovative software and service development, five of which has been in mobile. Keith was previously Mobile Technology Manager for News Digital Media (online division of News Ltd), where he helped grow NDM’s mobile channel from simple SMS services to engaging mobile websites with millions of page views each month. Keith’s career began  with web pioneer Netscape in Silicon Valley working on the Navigator browser and later worked for Philips Research and Development Palo Alto where he was granted two US patents. Keith has a BInfTech & Telecom (Hons) from the University of Limerick, Ireland.

MoGeneration has the following web apps and native apps for iPhone:

• Lingopal - Chat, flirt and insult in 42 languages on your iPhone
• Xumii - One iPhone Social Networking app - all social networks: Facebook, MySpace, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Flickr etc.
• OzWeather - the best weather app for Australian iPhone users - #1 in the Australian App Store (co-dev with OzPDA)
• Moo Shake! - a fun educational iPhone game for kids - #2 Kids game in the Australian & US App Store
• The Australian Business Edition for iPhone - The Australian on iPhone
• TrueLocal - Find, Plan and Share Australian businesses while on the go.

As ever, promises to be a fun + entertaining night. Bring your mobiles and business cards, and RSVP now to secure your place. Mobile Monday Sydney is a free event.

DON’T FORGET - It’s at LEVEL 3 upstairs at the Blacket Hotel

> RSVP NOW!

April’s Mobile Monday Sydney was a bit of record for Mobile industry event announcements. Great stuff !

See the Slideshare embed below for all the details - including some great discounts…

See you at the next Mobile Monday Sydney, first Monday in May 2009

:: 6.30pm for 7pm, Mon 6th April 2009
:: Sky Room @ The Blacket Hotel
:: Entry on King Street via the Blacket Hotel. (Here’s a map)

Mobile : Its all about location, location, location!

With most new smartphone devices - and even websites - offering a combination of GPS- and cell-strength-based Location Based Services (LBS), and with serious carrier support for LBS-based value added services too, many feel that all the components are in place to allow the commercial potential of LBS to finally begin to be realised. Navigation is an obvious application, but increasingly sophisticated service location, social and marketing services are blossoming with a plethora of location-aware web and smartphone apps already released and out there.

[There's even a service for the Blackberry called Citysense that goes the other way - combining realtime and historical GPS and WiFi access data to give you a real-time map of social activity in San Francisco - very useful for finding the latest hotspots.]

In this Mobile Monday Sydney LBS + WEB 2.0 special, we ask

• Are location based services finally growing up? What are the leading business models ?
• What are mobile operators doing to seed the opportunities provided through LBS-enabled mobile marketing and services?
• How important will mobile social networking be to the growth of LBS? And vice versa ?
• What is happening in the LBS & Mobile Marketing space in other markets ?

To answer these questions and more, we’ve got

• Vodafone’s Pocket Life trial team - www.pocketlife.com
• Adam Dunne reviewing the latest location-based campaigns around the world, and
• Our speakers in a panel discuss developments and directions.

More on Vodafone’s Pocket Life Trial

A major international carrier closely collaborating with a team of much smaller, local developers to innovate on a new product ? Wow sounds fantastic ! We’re very excited to have the cross-disciplinary / cross-functional team behind Pocket Life :

• Hanno Blankenstein, Head of Innovation at Vodafone Australia and team lead of Pocket Life, together with his colleagues
• Alexander Koeppen, CMO of Pocketweb and cross platform coordinator for Pocket Life, and
  
• Aaron Hoye, CTO of Mokoki and head of the mobile development team behind Pocket Life

to discuss their innovation strategy, approach and experiences developing the new Pocket Life LBS-aware Web and Mobile Social Networking service - and the opportunities and challenges of collaborating together to drive a commercial outcome.

More about Adam Dunne and Aura Interactive

Adam Dunne from Aura Interactive is one of Australia’s most awarded mobile marketers and a renowned expert on proximity and location-based marketing. He’s been on the road in the US and South-East Asia and is going to share some of the LBS + Mobile Web 2.0 work going on in these markets with us.

LBS & Web 2.0 Panel

These presentations will be followed by an LBS panel where you’ll get your chance to debate the questions above - and examine the Web 2.0 / LBS mashups we’re currently seeing sprining up online and via the latest smartphone devices.

DON’T FORGET - It’s at the SKY ROOM upstairs at the Blacket Hotel

As ever, promises to be a fun + entertaining night. Bring your mobiles and business cards, and RSVP now to secure your place. Mobile Monday Sydney is a free event.

:: 6.30pm for 7pm start, Mon 2nd March 2009
:: @ The Privilege Bar (part of the Blacket Hotel)
:: Entry on King Street via the Blacket Hotel. Map here.

Its a 3G Mobile World

This month, we’re going to cover a lot of ground - as befits a country now boasting over 8 million 3G subscribers with growth rates on track to hit 10 million+ this year.

Mobile TV & Video :-

• Carriers continue to heavily promote on-deck video content services instore,
• So-called smartphone devices like the iPhone and Android now boast deep integration with internet video giant Youtube,
• End-customers are increasingly savvy about off- and on-deck data charge regimes - and more of them are equipped with data plans
• and mobile video and marketing specialists like Gravity, Hyperfactory, TigerSpike, Streamezzo, and QMCodes continue to drive advertisers and publishers to take the plunge.

With mobile video becoming increasingly mainstreamed in this way, what does this year hold !?

• Hear from Ben Haylock, Manager of Mobile TV and Video at Telstra Media who will be focusing on Mobile Experience,

followed by our panellists

• Tamzin Taylor, Category Manager, Mobile TV & Entertainment at Hutchison 3G
• Geoffrey Handley, Co-Founder & New Business Director Asia-Pacific, The Hyperfactory
• Manny Christophidis, APAC Sales Manager for Streamezzo,
• Ben Rolleston, Manager Optus Mobile TV, and of course
• Ben Haylock, Manager Mobile TV and Video at Telstra Media.

Also, Medicine :-

• Philip May from Wave Medical who’ll be talking about Mobile Applications in Medicine. What’s that got to do with Mobile TV ? Nothing. But we like to keep you on your toes here at Mobile Monday Sydney!

PLUS a Great lucky door prize

… from Web Directions South - one FREE PASS worth $550 to their Creating Mobile 2.0 Web Apps workshop, valid in either of their Sydney (April 24th) or Melbourne (Tues 21st) legs of their 2009 Roadshow, (thanks Maxine!).

RSVP here to secure your place.
Come along and find out more with your peers in the Sydney Mobile and Wireless industry.

Mobile Monday Sydney is a free Monthly networking event organised by Shane Williamson, Oliver Weidlich, Gia Villondo and Tim Parsons, part of the global Mobile Monday family. E-mail <firstname> @ mobilemondaysydney.com to get in touch with project presentation requests, sponsorship offers and speaking engagements.