I’m off to a round table event tomorrow featuring:

- Mike Short of the Mobile Data Association and O2
- Glenn Murray VP of NeuStar
- Steve Ives, CEO, Taptu
- Normal Lewis, Chief Strategy Officer, Wireless Grids
- Tomas Kleist, Director of interaction, Native

There’s Q&A afterwards. Would anyone care to guess my first question to (the very well respected) Mike Short of o2?

Cellfire walked away with the Best Consumer Messaging Application Award at the CTIA E-TECH Awards. Good news. Cellfire are doing wicked things with mobile coupons. They’re not just selling the technology, no sir, they’re actually implementing the whole thing. If, for example, you’d like $2 off your next Supercuts haircut, you can text right now and get that coupon on your mobile. Or get a free Quiznos Sub. Or a free cookie/coke from Subway. There are just TONS of cool deals.

Here’s how it works:

It’s particularly neat, the way they’ve implemented it. Download the app and it’s sat there on your phone ready when you’re hunting for a deal. Flick through to find something that takes your fancy and simply show the code at the checkout. Nice.

It’s a pretty straight forward, compelling concept for consumers. The big challenge for Cellfire is persuading consumers to install the service on their handsets in the first place. I doubt many people would object to it, particularly in America, based on the huge coupon-culture here. More people have mobiles than PCs in the States (243 million mobile users, according to Cellfire’s recent blog on mobile grocery coupons. Going to the operators and having them offer the service to their subscribers is a sensible customer acquisition method — one that Cellfire are most certainly pursuing (they just recently signed Cincinnati Bell Wireless).

Deploying applications to hands is always an experience fraught with total arse. However Cellfire have implemented a nice and sensible 1-2-3 easy install approach that should be easily understood by most.

It’s also a straight forward offering for their business to business customers — those who’re actually offering coupons via Cellfire. You get your product/service in front of an audience of potential customers who are (one imagines) keen to act on any incentives you provide. It looks like Cellfire will continue their story of success well into the foreseeable future.

Congratulations to the Cellfire team on the award!

Runners up: Reply with Jott for Blackberry (2nd place) and SnapNow Mobile Visual Search (3rd place).

I didn’t actually make it down to the exhibition floor today. I kept on meeting folk, bumping into people and so on to the point that, rather annoyingly, I had to walk straight past the entrance to the show to hunt for the bus to the Microsoft Mobile party. I’ve got two more days of time to go round the booths and stalls.

This evening I was at three different parties. The first was the Microsoft Pool Party. Nifty. More on that later. Second was the Smaato party at the Star Trek Experience, Las Vegas Hilton. And finally, the MobileFocus event featuring oodles of smart companies, new and old.

Wherever there were stalls, I did a lot of browsing and offered interesting companies the opportunity to give me five sentences worth of news that I could publish. In some cases I got good results, in other cases, I sometimes had trauma getting anything out of them.

One company I stopped at was dumbfounded by my enquiry.

“Er, news?”

“Yeah!” I said, “What have you guys been up to recently, is there anything I can tell the readers of SMS Text News?”

“Er….,” PR girl looks to PR girl who looks to Marketing Manager.

More silence. I’ve got my laptop poised, ready to write if it’s good news.

“Well, er, you could take our press kit.”

“No,” I started, “That’s not quite what I had in mind. I popped over because I thought you might have some news, you know, client news, product updates — anything — that might be worth reporting? Anything come to mind?”

There is, I reckon, a limited amount of effort one should expend trying to extract information from such companies. Luckily this experience was generally an exception. I’ve got a whole host of posts coming from Microsoft to SoundID, to V-ENABLE, Smaato and more.

To aid with my real time event blogging, I got myself a new Apple MacBook Air. The problem with the MacBook Pro is one that I experienced with the MX Telecom chaps on the first day. The Pro is just too big and unwieldy to walk about the show floor with — and more so, it’s a little bit distracting for people when you’re trying to talk to them. There’s also hardly anywhere to put it. The Air changes that. A 4/5 hour battery (if you’ve got wireless and bluetooth off, generally) is exactly what I need for canvassing the halls.

Here’s a picture of me and the new Air that Michael from VSC captured on his Apple (naturally) iPhone:

Sir Richard is giving one of the keynotes at CTIA Wireless this morning. I’m heading off early to make sure I get some sort of seat. I hope there’s power for the laptop

I wonder what he’ll be saying? If there’s a chance for questions at the end, I am definitely going to try and ask him what mobile phone he uses.

Maybe he’s like the President or Prime Minister and doesn’t actually bother? (Tony Blair only got his first mobile after leaving 10 Downing Street).

Sniff goes live officially in the United Kingdom next month. It’s available on mobile operator o2, so anyone with an o2 handset reading, I’d appreciate you trying it out. I’ve got an o2 Blackberry, so theoretically I can try it out when I’m back in the UK. (I’d be dead impressed if you were able to ‘locate me’ with Sniff and you were sent a map of my Las Vegas location)

That’s what Sniff is all about. Friend Finder. You can, via text message, look up where your friends are in some detail.

Here’s what the release says:

sniff is a permission-based application that lets consumers locate their close friends in real-time, automatically, anytime and anywhere with their mobile phone or from Facebook. Additionally, sniff is the first ever Facebook application to automatically locate friends in real-time using mobile location technology. With seamless Facebook integration, finding friends is just a few clicks away.

Once consumers receive permission from their friends, using sniff is as simple as sending an SMS text message. sniff provides consumers with a detailed map view of their friends’ locations - making meeting up easier than ever before. sniff is already wildly popular in Sweden with over 80,000 users since its recent launch and growing rapidly.

Obviously privacy is a key issue. Every single one of those 80,000 users would have switched off right away if you weren’t able to completely configure your privacy settings. The ‘er, I’m at the office’ explanation won’t work too well when your girlfriend can see you’re at the pub with one text message.

CEO Brian Levin has a handle on it though, commenting:

“We are very mindful of our users’ privacy, with varying permission levels, sniff allows consumers to manage if, when and how their location information is shared with other parties. In addition, users have the ability to set-up notifications via SMS of key events such as being located or invited by another user to be part of the sniff network.”

It’s not a free application. You have to pay for it via a premium rate text message. Fair enough. If Sniff are using location based services, they’ll be paying THROUGH THE NOSE to the UK carriers for this. Off the street, your average LBS lookup costs 10p. Buy in bulk and you’ll get some discount. (But the idiot operators don’t quite get proper pricing strategies, we know this.)

It won’t just be o2 in the UK. They’ll have all major networks live soon — and they’ll be expanding to the States, Canada and France in due course.

I’ve been waiting for a decent location based friend finder style service for a while. Something like Dodgeball but that doesn’t need you to specifically update your location all the time.

Here’s how it works:

50p per sniff, eh? Hmm. I think that might be a leeetle bit too expensive when you factor in the ’standard network message rate’ which may well bring the total consumer cost to near 60/65p per ’sniff’. That would be positively annoying. But it’s the idiot operators charging per lookup that is the problem.

Or it’s a really stupid model. Someone told me you can get ‘unlimited lookup’ queries from the UK networks for a flat 2 grand a month. If that’s the case, charging nearly 60p a go for a lookup is highly, highly silly.

But, let me step back down off my pricing high-horse and see how it gets on.

More at www.sniffu.com.

I was popping in and out of the media room at CTIA this afternoon when I spotted Michael Selvidge, PR Dude (that’s what his job title says on his card) of VSC Consulting. They do a lot of mobile related public relations and I regularly connect with Michael to find out what’s happening with his roster of clients. It was a surprise to bump into him — he was with client Cellufun — manifested, in this case, by Arthur Goikhman, Chief Executive.

Cellufun has been operating ad-supported mobile games since April 2006 — positively eons in the context of the US mobile industry — and in that time they’ve delivered downloads to over 4 million consumers across the planet. They offer a whole load of games (single, multiplayer, Chess, Sudoku, Casino games and so on) and if you’ve got a wap enabled phone… well, let’s face it, who hasn’t — you can get games at http://wap.cellufun.com.

Arthur was looking pretty happy about today’s news — AOL came a-knocking and Arthur and his team will be providing games for AOL’s burgeoning mobile portal (check it at http://wap.aol.com/games). Good news. Although Cellufun are no stranger to good news. (They won Best Mobile Game at Mobile World Congress recently for their Call of the Pharaoh game).

Congratulations Cellufun!

Hello and welcome to CTIA. Thus, it begins.

Tonight I’m off to Showstoppers:

ShowStoppers at CTIA Wireless is where hot companies with cool products meet reporters and analysts covering all things wireless for work, for home, for play.

CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment is where the innovative world of wireless data plugs into the dynamic world of entertainment.

These invitation-only events showcase wireless, mobile computing and cellular companies, wireless services, the wireless Internet; home networks and the wireless home; multimedia, music, information and network convergence; content providers and carriers; devices, gadgets and PDAs; email systems and software tools; WiFi, WiMAX, and all other things wireless.

Bodes well, eh? I’m going to pop by the event and see what catches my attention.

And then later on I’m popping over to James Whatley’s Mobile Geeks of London Las Vegas event.

If you’re heading to CTIA this weekend, there’s obviously a plethora of events taking place across the ‘CTIA week’. One that I’ll be dropping into is Mobile Geeks of London on Tour — organised by our very own Whatley on Wednesday columnist, James Whatley.   There’s a few other events going on that evening, I know, but if you’ve got time to drop in, I may well see you there!

- Facebook link.

I’ve been talking with the chaps behind Technology of Tomorrow, an event that is happening one day after my birthday this coming September (30th). I’ve been hearing folk talking about it for a good few months. I’m going to see if I can liveblog it and maybe even do some interviews with some of the main protagonists. And quite a line up they’ve got.

Branson, Wozniak, Wales (that is, Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia), Carly Fiorina, Ben Verwaayen and more. All going along to talk about how we consume and apply technology in our lives and business. Obviously I’ve got a particular interest in this subject because the field of mobile communications is increasingly becoming a central pillar of our existence.

You can see a load of interviews on the site already. It’s taking place at the Royal Albert Hall — and circle ticket can be yours for £520… until, that is, the end of March, when the early bird 20% discount ends.

Anyone else planning on going? Perhaps we could do a meet up there…

Remember I went off to the SDForum Virtual Worlds Go Mobile conference recently? I had a super time there — and moderated one of the panels toward the end of the day. Well, I talked with Jennifer Lankford, one of the people behind the event and asked her if she’d fancy writing an overview of the day. She did! And here it is.

- - -

We’ve come a long way in wireless technology over the past few years. It seems like just yesterday I was using a bulky black beeper for all my mobile communications… and today I couldn’t imagine not having my cell on me at all times. Now that I’ve upgraded to the iPhone, god forbid not having instant access to email, the Internet and Google Maps! Just the thought of it makes me a little nervous.

At the SDForum “Virtual Worlds Go Mobile” forum on February 26, today’s wireless successes were dwarfed by images of tomorrow’s possibilities. We’re talking actual engagement in Second Life-like virtual worlds on your phone, interactive mobile gaming with top-notch graphics, mobile social networking, mobile payments and purchasing power, and onscreen, animated avatars that fetch your voicemail from the corner of a virtual room. Oddly enough, these are already popular current mobile offerings in Europe, Japan and Korea. It seems the materialization of mobile innovation for the US lives not only in the future, but across the ocean, as well. But who’s to blame? As the conversation progressed into the final “Paths to the Future” panel that Ewan moderated, our archaic and inhibiting mobile carriers in this country emerged as highly suspicious characters, and not too surprisingly.

On the bright side, this forum was chalk full of innovative companies doing amazing things to make mobile virtual worlds, and everything this broad term encompasses, a reality. Soon mobile users in the US will be interacting with one another in all sorts of colorful, interactive ways, some of which we can only just begin to imagine.

Here’s an overview of the market shakers from the event:

* Smith Micro: A leading developer and marketer of software solutions and services for the wireless market, the company has expanded its consumer division to include popular graphics solutions like Poser and Anime Studio, and has a wide array of enabling wireless technologies in its stable. This graphics software is already used in video games and movies today. Combined with its knack for wireless, Smith Micro brings together a promising combo of offerings for the future of mobile virtual worlds.

* Nokia: With its service Point & Find, people can find out more about an object - even purchase it - by simply scanning it with the phone’s camera. Its name and details show up on your screen!

* SKTelecom: Joe Jasin has already witnessed a major shift in mobile connectivity in Korea and China. SK Telecom already has already made mobile payments, mobile music downloading and virtual worlds the norm throughout both countries.

* Vollee: Vollee streams real-time PC games to 3G mobile handsets. They’ve even launched a beta version of Second Life for your cell phone.

* MBlox: MBlox is doing big things with mobile transactions. Soon we’ll be able to pay for anything and everything through our cell phones – even our morning coffee.

* Veepers: Why listen to just a voicemail? With Veepers, an image of your friend, or a monkey for that matter, will recite it for you as an animated avatar or photo on your phone’s screen.

* Gemini Mobile Technologies: Gemini is making waves in multimedia messaging. Their customizable eXplo offering allows operators and content providers to create story, community and discovery-based mobile virtual worlds.

* WiFi Army: Wifi Army is like laser tag with your phone. With the camera acting as the barrel of the gun, shoot your opponents in a game of virtual battle. Junior high-school teachers will just love this one, I’m sure.

Of course, money makes the world go ‘round, and it doesn’t discriminate between real and virtual. Speakers from Velocity Interactive Group, Rustic Canyon, Scale Venture Partners and Accel answered our questions around what types of companies in this space catch their eye for making investments.

SDForum once again brought together some of the best and brightest minds and companies in Silicon Valley. The virtual world is a big one to explore with unlimited possibilities for innovation, new technologies, investments opportunities and new consumer experiences, and some of the folks in that room on Tuesday will be major contributors to the future of interactive wireless experience.

- - -

Thanks for taking the time to write that overview Jennifer. I’ll hopefully see you at the next mobile-related SDForum event!

I’ve only just got back into the UK and the prospect of leaving is, once again, nearing. I haven’t yet booked my flight. Another 16 or 17 hours worth of flying isn’t immediately attractive.

Anyway I am heading out to plastic Las Vegas to pound the floors of the CTIA Wireless convention centre in search of interesting mobile related things that I can cover here on SMS Text News. Gonna be in Las Vegas for the week. If you’re heading out there, do drop me a note and let’s arrange to meet there.

I was at the Media Guardian Innovation Awards tonight. Very meejia. Very… ‘print’, very ‘mainstream’.

The SpinVox team were out in force with their own table having been shortlisted in the ‘digital innovation’ category. I took a look at the judging panel this morning and thought SpinVox would have quite a challenge winning anything.

As it turns out, I was correct. The judges knew nuffink. The other two shortlisted companies were smart; but none, in my opinion, had the widespread potential to change and improve the way we interact day by day. I didn’t expect the panel to get this though. I wonder how many of them actually use text messaging.

The ever delightful Sarah McVittie surprised the hell out of me by tapping on my shoulder and saying ‘hi’ just before we sat down for dinner. She’s got a lot of gossip — Texperts are moving at lightspeed at the moment — but, I wasn’t able to extract enough from her. She was shortlisted for the Rising Star award. Alas she was pipped to the post, according to another panel of judges, but, again, like SpinVox, it wasn’t as if Sarah or Texperts actually needed an award. Sarah doesn’t need the validation — her success, and the continued success of Texperts, speaks for itself.

The know-nothing judges managed to get one category accurate. Alfie Dennen of MoBlogUK was ecstatic to win the Community Engagement award along with Channel4 for their work on the BigArtMob. I’ve covered it quite a lot here on SMS Text News and it was good to see the judges appeared to get what they’ve achieved. Top work.

I really enjoyed the entertainment — dan le sac VS scroobius pip “Thou Shalt always Kill” rocked. Ever heard it? Here’s the Youtube:

Toward the evening, I was particularly impressed when a bald be-speckled dude stormed the stage and asked to borrow the microphone. He had a beef about the fact that all three independent blogs on the shortlist won. The judges couldn’t decide which should win. The presenter, Hardeep Singh Kohli — the turban-wearing uber-Scotsman, did a brilliant job of drowning out the almost-protest, so I wasn’t able to document the beef in any more detail.

I’m off to support Spinvox tonight at the MediaGuardian Innovation Awards. They’re nominated in the ‘Digital Innovation - Technology’ category. I shall be cheering them!

BigArtMob — the project underpinned by MoBlogUK — is nominated in the Community Engagement category. Super news. I’ll be cheering for them too.

Coming along? 29th April to the 1st of May. I’m heading along, just completed my registration. If you’re going to be there, let me know if we can cover your company there.

If you’re in the area, do pop along to WOM World’s gathering. (Here’s the Facebook link). I’ve not actually interacted in the flesh with the good people there so I’m looking forward to that.

The event is at The Old Crown, which, I imagine is a pub, at 33 New Oxford Street. Be there or be square unavailable.

I took the 101 down from San Francisco this morning in the glorious sun and arrived at the Techmart Centre for today’s Virtual Mobile Worlds conference.

The keynote this morning is from Anders Nancke-Krogh, Head of Development for Nokia’s Point&Find business program. It’s going to be an interesting one, I suspect.

I’m moderating the final panel in the afternoon titled ‘Paths for the Future: Success Stories and Learned Lessons’ and it’s featuring these four:

- Paul Anderson, Veepers
- Rob Osborn, Gemini Mobile Technologies
- Tomasz Wojtowicz, WiFi Army
- Mandar Shinde, Smith Micro

If you’re going to be in the San Francisco area this week — on Friday evening to be more precise — then check out the details here and get yourself to the SMS Text News Unlimited Drinks evening.

We kick off from 6pm at my place in Nob Hill. I’ve had to guest-list-it to make sure the place doesn’t get overrun so if you’re up for coming along, drop me a mail with the subject ‘SF drinks=yes‘ and I’ll add you to the list.

On the 26th of February I’m moderating a panel discussion at SDForum’s Virtual Worlds Go Mobile conference in Santa Clara.

Anders Nancke-Krogh (formerly Mr N-Gage North America) and now Head of Development, Point & Find Business Program at Nokia, is giving the keynote.

Velocity Interactive, Rustic Anyon, Scale Venture, Accel, Fish Richrdson, SKT, Vollee, MBlox, Veepers, Gemini Mobile, WiFi Army and Smith Micro are going to be represented.

If you’ve got a spare afternoon and you find yourself in the Bay Area, pop along!

More details. Register here.

Heading to MWC next week? SMS Text News sponsor MAXroam is having a party! See below for the details. And tell them I said hi…!

I had a note in to let me know that Peter Mercier, Head of Mobile for BBC Worldwide (and a top chap) is speaking at this year’s Internet World in London. When I met Peter late last year, I found him very informed about the mobile world — and in particular the mobile content marketplace. I’m going to go along and see what he’s got to say.

The event is taking place at Earls Court between the 29th April and the 1st May. Other speakers at this year’s event will include Managing Director of BBC.com Kym Niblock, Senior Vice President of MySpace.com Travis Katz, Annelies van den Belt, Head of ITV Broadband and Chris Hogg, Director of Marketing for Intel. Right on. I’ll see you there…

More info at www.internetworld.co.uk/.

The next SMS Text News Unlimited Drinks is on Friday 22nd of February 2008 here in San Francisco.

I appreciate that this might be a big ask if you’re currently sat in London, Moscow (Hi everybody at MTS Russia) or Sydney. But you know, it’s a global village. And you could even buy some trees to offset your carbon emissions.

We’re going ultra-personal this time with San Francisco — Unlimited Drinks will be hosted at my rather superb penthouse in Nob Hill. (For the avoidance of doubt, I’d like to point out that I am, alas, not a yet a trillionaire with an apartment in every timezone — this is, alas, just the one I rented for the time I’m here).

Although it sports excellent views of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay, it won’t, I don’t think, hold the standard Unlimited Drinks capacity of 150 people so do email me quickly if you’d like to come along. Think fridges stuffed with unlimited drinks and some brilliant catering. (For those a little bit more at home with comfort food, I will, in true mobile blogger fashion, be proving the concept of mobile ordering by ordering a pizza from Pizza Hut via mobile — and possibly something from that Taco place via Gomobo.com)

If you’d like to join me for a relaxed evening of mobile related discussion (and to poke around with a lot of different devices), then whack me an email with ‘SF drinks = yes‘ in the subject line.

We’ll be operational from 6pm — you’re most welcome to pop by for a drink to say hi or pop by for longer. Expect a mix of friendly mobile and media related people. A critical point: There will be food. Tons of food. I’ve just done the catering order so if you’re coming straight from work, have no fear, there will be lots of stuff to eat (and obviously drink).

What is Unlimited Drinks?
It’s an opportunity to meet people from the mobile industry and related areas in relaxed surroundings. It’s also a personal thank you to you for reading. There are no badges, no feedback forms, no thumping music, no ‘one glass of wine’ rules. The guest list is strictly controlled, generally by huge hulks in dark coats with bad attitudes. I don’t tolerate arses (see the ‘attendee criteria’ below) because I don’t want to waste time talking to people without spark, enthusiasm or a bit of vitality. I don’t like going along to ‘networking’ events that aren’t managed. I like there to be a visible host to act as a central focal point (just in case you can’t find someone to talk to, you know how it is). Therefore at an Unlimited Drinks event, you’ll be met at the door by me — and I’ll most probably politely demand a business card (I know, old world) so I can remember to put you in my write-up of the event the next day (helps with the memory). I’ll then point you to the bar — or in the case of this upcoming event, steer you to the bar and the food and introduce you to some other attendees.

I host these events in different cities (watch out for Cape Town, Moscow and Sydney coming soon). The name of the event is related to the ‘unlimited data’ plans that many network operators have introduced — and they obviously all come with fair use policies. Ditto Unlimited Drinks — the fair use policy is heavily governed by my ability to pay the bill!

How are they funded?
It’s me who pays for the events — sometimes with some assistance from sponsors. Often Nokia are good enough to send us out some of their latest handsets to play around with during the evening and I try to bring along some other technology too (at the upcoming event, I’ll give you the opportunity to try and break one of the new JCB phones).

Attendee Criteria
My job is quality control. I manage the guest list because I don’t want to spend the evening surrounded by weirdos — and the other attendees don’t want that either. So, if you’re simply looking for a job and have no capacity for independent thought and zero passion for mobile, don’t email me — try out a ‘mixer’ or the like, because Unlimited Drinks is not for you.

If, however, you work in or around the mobile industry and you’ve got something to say — good or bad, or both — about what’s going on with mobile, good. Come on in! You needn’t work for a mobile operator — in fact, we often have attendees from all sorts of professions — PR, legal, accounting, marketing — the glue, the commonality, is a degree of passion for mobile.

Get on the list
Just knock me an email (ewan@smstextnews.com) with a one-liner about yourself and anyone else you’d like to bring and I’ll get you on the list. In order that your email doesn’t disappear into the vast void, you can help me out by using the subject ‘SF drinks = yes‘.

See you there?

Over at the MyStrands blog, they’ve announced the cool news that they’ve hooked it up with MTV for the New Years 2007 celebration in Times Square, New York City. Partiers in Times Square will be able to use their handsets to send messages, answer trivia, and vote on music and videos on MTV’s massive 44.5 foot screen in front of MTV Studios.

MyStrands is one of the leaders in music recommendation software and social music. With PartyStrands, they’re all about keeping music social. You can get more information on the MTV/Times Square party at www.mystrands.com/mtv

This is really a killer idea. There’s crazy amounts of people down in Times Square for New Years, and it’ll be even cooler with this social aspect added to the mix.

Enede.com has announced that they will be the first mobile media company to broadcast the Race of Champions directly into your pocket, onto your handset.

The Race of Champions will be held in London for the first time ever this year, at Wembley Stadium, which will be converted into a tarmac race track for the occasion. The event is on December 16th, and for 7.50 EUR, you can get all the action right on your mobile.

Enede.com will be using a combination of SMS shortcodes and a mobile site to bring the heat. UK fans can send a text to 80225, while the Irish networks should use 57500. Texting ‘ROC’ will bring the latest news from pit lane, while ‘ENEDE’ brings the rest of the excitement. International fans can send the text to +447786209140, or log on to msend.mobi/enede on your handset for the same 7.50 EUR (or your currency’s equivalent).

The Race of Champions brings the world’s best drivers from all motorsports together on one track for head to head races. Celebrities from Formula One, NASCAR, World Rally, and others will be competing to be dubbed the Champion of Champions.

At 5.55pm I arrived at the Number3Bar to setup for SMS Text News Unlimited Drinks December - this time held in the site’s spiritual home of the city of London, centre of Her Majesty’s Empire.

“You can’t come in yet, we’re still setting up,” the huge, tall bouncer blurted out when I walked up to the bar.

“Er,” I said, momentarily taken off guard, “I’ve paid for it, I’m Ewan?” I said.

“Oh, right, come on in,” replied the chap, simultaneously changing from double-hard-bastard bouncer status to friendly giant.

It was a relief to get into the warmth of the bar. I got the ubiquitous Unlimited Drinks banner set up and proceeded to the bar and relaxed when I saw fridges filled to the brim with chilled Carlsberg. Right on. Ready for the onslaught!

First in through the door was Rax Lakhani, social media expert and digital PR genius, from Splendid Communications. Rax has been helping me understand what Blyk are up to (he arranged for me to ‘become Antonio‘).

Rax and I headed to the bar whilst I explained how delighted I was to get a picture message from Blyk suggesting I might want a McChicken sandwich. The message was sent to my handset at midday yesterday.. just when I was thinking about getting something to eat. Unfortunately my 30-year old metabolic rate doesn’t quite compete with that of a 22 year old; so I’m being careful about what exactly I eat nowadays. But… mmm… a McChicken sandwich…

Whilst I was giving a bit of thought to the food I’d arranged for the evening, Oleg Podsechin of technology services company Ionsquare arrived. Ionsquare specialise in providing IT consultancy services for start-up companies and spin-off ventures — they do quite a bit in the mobile sphere. Definitely worth talking to them if you’re on the hunt for some tech assistance.

Dean Elwood, newly appointed Platform Director of Truphone (congratulations Dean) arrived along with, if memory serves, Andy Abramson, CEO of Comunicano — also very well known as Mr VOIP Watch. It was excellent to connect with them both as I’ve been reading their posts for some time.

James Body, Research Director at Truphone arrived in good form. I pointed him out to another attendee just as he was (I kid you not) shuffling his iPhones looking for one of them. I think he had three or four of them, as well as a whole host of other devices. It’s nice to see someone definitely living the dream, eh? I suspect that we should see some announcements from Truphone related to the Apple device soon.

Nick Booth of Late4work arrived. I didn’t get a chance to congratulate him on the Late4work concept. It’s brilliant! You can have a rant about being late for work thanks to Nick’s service. You call +44 151 266 9513 and you record your rant (e.g. “The sodding Victoria Line has stopped working again…”) and Spinvox’s Spin-my-Blog-Post service converts the voicemail to text and posts the rant on www.late4work.co.uk. Smart.

Mark Tynan, bursting with energy, arrived. Mark runs ShopQwik, one of the most innovative and most valuable mobile services I’ve seen, ever. You can book a flight, a hotel room (or car hire) anywhere in the world within 60 seconds, from your mobile phone. It’s utter genius. Think Expedia on your mobile. Mark was excited because they’ve almost finished adding nearly every single airline on the planet to their service. They have also built one of the world’s most ubiquitous mobile payment gateways by dint of developing ShopQwik. They will no doubt be snapped up shortly. I’m going to be using ShopQwik a lot when I’m in the States.

Ken Young, Managing Editor of The UK Mobile Report swept in to say hi shortly afterwards. I’ve been reading Ken’s work at theukmobilereport.com for a long time and it was excellent to actually connect with him in person. Do check out his site and to your feeds if you haven’t already.

Jayant Pimple, Senior Biz Dev for Aztecsoft popped by to say hi. They do quite a lot of mobile related development services, in particular application development and testing. Just as I was talking to Jayant, the doctor arrived. In the form of Dr Tim Snaith, Research Direcrtor for OnePoint SMS Surveys. Tim was accompanied by Managing Director, Neil Jessop (who was sporting an ultra sharp pinstripe suit — kudos). I’ve been going nuts over OnePoint’s services for a month or so now ever since they came across my radar. Try out their demo. Text surveys done right. Think Surveymonkey for mobile. In fact, Surveymonkey should acquire them quickly and start offering mobile services to all their clients. I pointed Tim and Neil to Hetty from event networking service Eventscope — via the bar.

The Blyk chaps arrived shortly afterwards — Adam Levene, Interactive Designer, Geoff Wright, Campaign Producer and Tom Gutteridge, Head of Creative. I demanded cards from them all whilst I regaled them with my experience over the weekend of Blyk. I’ve had exclusive short videos from Ratatouille to messages encouraging me to think McChicken sandwiches. They’re definitely doing their jobs well — and I congratulated them accordingly and pointed them to the bar.

Stephen Wadeley from mobile messaging service provider AQL came bounding in to say hi, (Stephen handles wholesale telecoms sales for them) closely followed by another Doctor in the form of Dr Adam Beaumont, Managing Director. I welcomed both and then went quickly to find Michael Day, a Corporate Life Coach to get his card who’d popped along for a drink.

Just then, the Regulator turned up.

A ripple of awareness flew across the crowd as Sam Morris, Head of Communications and Mark Collins, Policy Executive, arrived from PhonepayPlus (the new name of UK premium rate regulator, ICSTIS). Whilst everyone has an opinion on their new name, I think we’re all agreed that it’s a lot better than ‘ICSTIS’. Sam and Mark came along to learn as much as they could about what the mobile industry in the UK is thinking — and how they can structure the regulations for best results for both the industry and the consumer.

“You’ve come to the right place, then,” I said, waving my hand toward the crowd gathering by the bar, “Most people here are either mobile industry executives, mobile applications developers or have a direct interest in the industry.” Sam’s eyes lit up!

I pointed them both to the bar as I welcomed Terence Eden from Vodafone. Terence was sporting a 2-D barcode business card badge that contained his details. Very smart. He got out his N95, flicked on his QR scanner (”It’s big in Japan, this!”) and proceeded to demonstrate it working really well. Genius. I’ll need to look more closely at these QR codes. Although there in an unofficial capacity, Terence was fantastic with the assembled masses who were firing Vodafone related technical questions at him — to which Terence had no shortage of answers. Right on Terence. It’s good to see Vodafone fielding such smart cookies.

Ben Smith, Principal Consultant for Detica waltzed in with software integration engineer colleague Julian Cooling. Julian’s been behind quite a lot of iPhone related opinion comments posted here on SMS Text News - although he sports one of the old reliable P800 Sony Ericssons. Ben, you may remember, has contributed some excellent pieces to SMS Text News about 3UK X-Series (he also runs a blog on X-Series).

A lady came round with some really nice pizza slices at that point. I helped myself to one and was pleased to note other delicious food trays being handed out across the venue. Good news. I wanted to make sure everyone was fed properly!

Kersti Klami and colleague Elissa Fry arrived from Racepoint Group (the new name for Fuse PR, by the way). Racepoint work for some rather cool mobile related clients so I fired questions at them for a little while asking all about the client activities. I’ll hopefully have some news to publish shortly along with some Q&As.

Stephen Holmes of BloodyBigSpider came bounding in. Stephen’s done the branding and image for almost every one of my companies and has some particularly direct opinions on the mobile industry that I always enjoy hearing. As I was chatting to Stephen, Nicholas Shaw, Director of BlinkSystems arrived. BlinkSystems specialises in providing easy to implement Bluetooth based solutions — so if you’ve got a requirement, particularly when it comes to Bluetooth marketing, do give Nicholas a call and tell him I sent you.

Tee Banwait of web based streaming audio service, meTracks, arrived bearing wickedly good quality meTracks headphones for a few select attendees (he’d run out so only had a few to hand out — lucky for you if you got one). Tee’s busy overseeing the first round of finance for meTracks and I’ve been thoroughly approving of their mobile service that enables you to stream your MP3s from anywhere on the planet to your mobile. Smart.

Speaking of streaming, Caroline Teunissen of video streaming services company, Groovy Gecko, arrived. It’s been a while since I caught up with Caroline so it was super to see her — she’s responsible for business development there at Groovy so if you’ve got a requirement, drop her a note. Caroline arrived with other half, Simon Wilcox of Digital Craftsmen. Although specialist in the provision of website design and management services, Simon’s been doing a ton, a veritable ton, in the mobile industry of late. Alas it’s not yet public but when it is, I’ll be posting about it.

Simon Maddox of Spoken Group came bounding in to say hi. He left me with a funky business card showing him and the Simpsons family sat at what looks like a very cheesy American restaurant. Heh. Brilliant! Simon’s companyy, Spoken Group, have been doing some super things with mobile and books. They work with authors to provide them with a mobile platform — something I think is a terrific way of connecting with interested readers. (e.g. You see a call to action on a billboard at a station, text the keyword and get sent back an audio preview. Brilliance. I’m going to do a post on them shortly).

It was good to see Ben Whitaker of secure mobile developer, Masabi. I’m not sure if they’ve got anything I’m able to talk about yet — but from what he was describing the last time we met, it’s all very smart.

Stuart Brown, Sales & Marketing Director of Mediaburst arrived to say hi. I congratulated their publicity campaign. I firmly believe it’s critical for mobile service providers such as Mediaburst to continually tell the marketplace what they’re doing and with what clients. There’s no need to give away trade secrets, but the more and more providers who actually talk about the brilliant work they’re doing, the better.

Speaking of better industry relations, MX Telecom arrived in the form of Mark Hawkins, Communications Manager and Chris Wilson, Head of Systems Development. Every time I meet someone from MX Telecom, I learn about another market moving service addition or improvement. I can still remember when, back in the day, they were amongst the first to deliver a working picture messaging API. We made great use of that. Mark was telling me that MX have been working heavily on their hugely flexible content management system, CMX2.

I was delighted when WebitPR’s social media manager Stephen Davies walked in. Also known as Mr PR Blogger, Stephen is a wickedly nice chap and has just discovered Twitter. He, like me, isn’t entirely impressed with EAT in the context of Pret A Manger.

The real journalists arrived at this point. Jon Corke, Editor of What Mobile, Jonathan Morris, What Mobile Technology Editor, arrived together with Paul Withers and MaryLou Costa, both reporters at Mobile News. It was excellent to welcome them as I read their stuff regularly — I pointed them directly to the bar then proceeded to fire mobile industry questions at them.

Darryl Ashings of Ashings chartered accountants was in good form — he’s been doing my accounts for years and is an excellent chap to talk to if you’re planning on raising any funding or you need some assistance with your financial matters. Darryl had quite a few clients in the room, if I recall correctly! I bumped into Martyn Davies and had a brief chat with him — far too brief — before I had to welcome a load of people who’s just arrived fresh from MoMo London. Martyn, amongst other things, blogs on Mobile for Blognation. Best that I link you to his LinkedIn page as he’s got a lot going on!

Ladi Sansui and Herve Parrin from mobile service provider TynTec presented themselves to say hi although unfortunately I didn’t get much of a chance to talk to them as Jason Sharpe, head of software development for Consult Hyperion arrived. Again I was just talking to Jason when Nick Hancock of TagText arrived and shortly after Nick came Dave Bush, S40 Java Sub-Project Leader at Nokia. Before I could grab Dave to find out if he knew anyone I could get to help build me a Symbian wordpress editor, the delightful Vero Pepperrell, head of Blog Marketing for Taptu arrived with Ed Hodges, Dan Lane and Jay Fenton of Howler Tech (the company behind ROK Talk). The chaps were fresh from delivering a stonking presentation on their service to the assembled masses at Mo Mo London earlier in the evening. Joining them was James Whatley representing Spinvox and the always-informed Mike Stead of Hutchison.

As I was talking away to Mike I spotted Patrick Smith of Sonus PR at the bar chatting away animatedly to Ed from ROK Talk. They stopped chatting as Dan and Jay got out their phones ready to participate in another ‘Type Off’ — this is an exercise designed to test user interfaces. Now while it’s far from scientific, it’s always interesting to see what device is able to type the sentence ‘testing testing one two three’ quick enough (remembering that each chap is classed as an ultra-geek and therefore expert at using them).

If you’d like to see the results of the Type Off (including the winner), check out this (rather dark) YouTube video filmed by Dan Lane:

Right. Now for some pictures.

First, you can get the Flickr gallery here. I’m going to pull out a few here:

James Whatley of Spinvox, Abul Hussain of Mobile9, Dan Lane of ROK Talk and Vero of Taptu.

Me. Ewan. The usual stand-in-front-of-the-banner picture.

Ed & Dan from ROK Talk

The well stocked fridges behind the unlimited bar

Trying to type as fast as possible on a N95

Ed of ROK, Patrick from Sonus PR and Me

Dan from ROK demonstrates some Vuzix eyewear that plugged into his Nokia N95 camera enabling him to view the back of his head in real time. Nice.

The AQL chaps

Me, Dr Tim and Neil from OnePoint Surveys

Right!

Thank you everyone who took the time to come along. I had a super time. Lots more follow-up to do. Please do send me your news and I’ll be back in London soon for another event in 2008.

Gosh it’s come round quick! I’m really looking forward to meeting everyone at the Number3Bar this Monday coming for Unlimited Drinks London.

Just as a reminder — the Key points:
The date: December 3rd 2007 (Monday)
The venue: Number3 Bar, New Burlington Street, just off Regent Street, London (Google Map)
The time: 6pm onwards

Get on the list
Would you like to come along? Email me at ewan@smstextnews.com with the subject UNLIMITED DRINKS = YES and I’ll add you to the list.

If you’re heading to MoMo, don’t worry about popping along later on — and if you don’t have much time, you’re still welcome to pop your head in and say hi. You’ll generally be able to spot me by the pinstripe suit.

I’ll be there from 6pm and we’ve booked out the whole ground floor venue (not to be confused with the basement nightclub) and if you say ‘Unlimited Drinks’ or ‘SMS Text News’ to the bouncers on the door, you’ll be pointed in the right direction.

I do try and hang around the front of the venue to welcome everybody but now and again I might be mingling so don’t hesitate to hunt for me and come and say hi. I thoroughly enjoy meeting people from the industry. Be sure to give me a business card as well — THRUST it into my hand! That’s very useful so I can write a bit about you/your company and get the web addresses correct.

We’re not doing labels either. No sticky labels with names. But we are doing food. Lots of food (as well as the unlimited drinks bar — well staffed, by the way). We’re doing food differently than last time. You see the majority of folk had left by 11pm when the serving team came flying out with mini pots of vanilla ice cream. So I’ve sorted that. More food will be circulating during the peak hours between 6-9pm.

Let me know if you’re coming — see you then.