Today many of the world’s mobilists are gathering in Barcelona for the conference formerly known as 3GSM, now called Mobile World Congress (MWC). MWC is the biggest mobile industry event annually and could itself be called The Mobilists Carnivale.

What better way to prepare for swimming through a sea of mobile industry press releases than to read some of the best writing on mobility anywhere in the blogosphere, The Carnival of Mobilists. And away we go.

Paul Ruppert, Mobile Point View and Mobile Messaging 2.0, starts off the CoM with a post of anticipation on the upcoming events in Barcelona this week. Paul provides a summary of his take aways from last year’s 3GSM, and his expectations of this year’s conference in Mobile World Congress - Barcelona. Paul lays out a convincing case for what topics to watch for this week and what factors drive the prominence of those topics.

Dennis Bournique, WAP Review, hits another topic which will receive lots of play in big waves of presentations, demos and obligatory operator/carrier promises. How to Define Open Mobile is the foundational treatise of what an “open” network would look like from the perspective of a subscriber/developer. This list of requirements will sound very familiar to Internet companies. As any good twelve-step program must, the 1st step is to admit you have a problem. Dennis points out that more operators and handset companies are using the word “open” in public. Watch for many references coming from their talks at MWC.

Ofir Leitner, Next Generation Mobile Content, delivers the counterpoint to Dennis’ article on openness. So, You Want to Deploy a J2ME App in the US covers the trail from a startup’s view of the options for coming to market.

On-deck or Off-deck: that is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in the startup to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous marketing budgets,
Or to take aim against a sea of operator’s testing cycles,

Sorry, I couldn’t resist, and my apologies Shakespeare. Anyway, Ofir profiles the 4 top operators in the US and the unique challenges of developing for those networks.

Ajit Joakar, Open Gardens, addresses the issue of how best to deliver video communications over a 3G network. Mobile Multimedia Twitter pulls together rich media with communication immediacy and advocates a technology, IMS and a vendor, Ecrio. Simultaneously building the analogies of Twitter for video and PTT (push-to-talk) video, Ajit contends that network optimization is required for the success of video “communication at the speed of thought.”

Matt Radford, All About iPhone, discusses a topic which will be much discussed at MWC in hallway conversations, if not during the keynotes. A Quiet Launch for the Highest Capacity Music Phone ponders Apple’s low-key announcement of the 16GB iPhone last week. Matt’s reveals important metrics demonstrating the iPhone’s placement against it’s competitors. And where is Apple leading us? Good question.

Ewan Spence, All About Symbian, treats us to a revealing look into MWC’s primary product, the press release. All Those Press Releases from Barcelona provides a humourous peek behind the keyboard into what it’s like to be the recipient of the mobile industries biggest annual marketing event.

Ewan has delivered my favorite post of the week. Both for it’s tongue-in-cheek appraisal of MWC and it’s informative and instructive advice for those with stories to promote, I enjoyed reading All Those Press Releases from Barcelona.

Enjoy your week and swimming through your own sea of announcements, not to mention, all those well stocked parties. Glass held high- enjoy Carnivale!

Next week the CoM will be produced at Vision Mobile. If you would like to submit an article to the CoM, send your link to mobilists AT gmail dot com. Information on hosting the CoM can be found in the CoM FAQs.