ACE is again hosting the Carnival of the Mobilists this week, for the second time.
Regular Steve Litchfield from AllAboutSymbian has a post on The Top 5 Phones that aren't actually IN the Top 5, aka "Why choosing a phone in 2009 means choosing the one that sucks the least"! This is a comprehensive review of a big batch of current mobile phones - Nokia N97, Apple iPhone 3GS, HTC Touch Pro 2, Palm Pre, Nokia N86 8MP, HTC Hero, Nokia E75, Samsung i8910 HD, Nokia E71, Nokia N96, Nokia N95 8GB, Nokia E55, Blackberry Bold, Nokia E90 and the Nokia 5800. Whew! His conclusion is to counsel patience - and wait for the Nokia E72, Nokia N900, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia X6, HTC HD2 or Motorola DEXT and other qwerty Android phones (though not the Sony Ericsson Satio with its dire battery life).
Moving on from hardware to applications, several detailed reports on the Handheld Learning Conference 2009 ("about learning using mobile and inexpensive access technologies") come from Mark van 't Hooft:
- Handheld Learning 2009, Day 1 HHL Festival
- Handheld Learning 2009, Day 2:Where Is the Handheld Learning? Part I ("Funny (or ironic) part, there wasn’t a whole lot of talk about mobile or handheld learning, as the session titles indicate (Reflections on Learning, Creativity and Innovation, Games for Learning, Social Media for Learning). Maybe a sign of things to come??")
- Handheld Learning 2009, Day 2:Where Is the Handheld Learning? Part II
- Handheld Learning 2009, Day 3, Research Strand and Grand Finale
But let's face it, there's less focus on learning and more on lucre: the increase in attempts to monetise mobile is evident from the many posts around this issue.
Mark Jaffe of MobileMandala discusses Ten Reasons Why Mobile Advertising Has Not Reached Its Potential, suggesting 2 marketing approaches for the mobile phone grounded on consumer behaviour and usage, based on the mobile phone being a medium of immediacy and a medium of relationships.
From advertising to m-commerce, in Amazon Raises The Stakes; Making Mobile Shopping Less Hassle, Alfred deRose of MSearchGroove, noting Amazon's recent launch of their Mobile Payments Service (Amazon MPS), points out the importance of easy payments to mobile commerce, providing 3 do's and don'ts for integrating online and mobile businesses.
Appstores are a potential source of revenue that's getting serious attention following the success of Apple's iPhone appstore.
Ajit Jaokar of Open Gardens expands on the opening talk he gave as the chair of the CTIA mobile appstores event in San Diego, entitled From Intel inside to appstore inside and the rise of the Mobile Grandpas.., on what he calls the trend towards the "Appstore inside" which he thinks could be truly disruptive.
Franciso Kattan has 7 recommendations for developers on How to Merchandise Your App 2 Years Ai (after the iPhone), again following CTIA, summarising key lessons shared there for developers wanting to go mobile.
Jose Colucci of Mobile Strategy raises some questions on Mobile Applications and Loyalty, looking at comparative statistics for application downloads and usage of apps by Blackberry and Apple iPhone users - can they be believed, and what do they tell us about the differences between Blackberry and iPhone users?
Finally, a short post by C. Enrique Ortiz from About Mobility On the rise of open mobile takes the view that "the Android market is going to explode globally becoming a predominant mobile platform together with the iPhone".
That's it for this week's Carnival - look out for next week's Carnival, which will be hosted at TamsS60.
