Mobile Messaging 2.0 followed the many events and releases coming out of the Mobile World Congress last week. There are
advantages in assessing conferences both from attending the event and also from outside of it. Like sporting events attendance reveals the reaction of the live audience - sometimes emotional - and provides interaction with other attendees which colors our experience. Real time feed back provides one perspective and the remote viewing through TV for sports provides a different level of detail and a different experience. So is the case, with reading the releases of participating companies and the reactions of journalists, bloggers and competitors. The mitigating factor is time. Participating in an event limits time to consume the firehouse of detail reported out of and around large industry events like the Mobile World Congress.

Mobile Messaging 2.0 (MM2) provided both perspectives. Paul Ruppert attended the event and launched the coverage with a prognostication on 2008’s hot topics and industry cold spots. His article, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, outlined 9 topics or topic areas that would be significant coming out of the conference.

1. Mobile Advertising
2. Africa
3. Mobile Payments
4. Mobile User Generated Content
5. Mobile Social Networking
6. Mobile TV
7. LTE - Long-term-evolution (network technology)
8. Cost savings and Efficiencies

Check out Paul’s take to find out what he predicted would be the cold spots and decide if his predictions were on target, or off base.

As one would expect, Ewan Spence had an ear to ground on developments coming out of the handset/OS sector. His article highlights the Sony Ericsson announcement of a Windows Mobile device including analysis of SE’s possible strategy. Ewan posits that the US market doesn’t “get” the Symbian OS. Certainly, this position creates an opportunity for discussion.

The Mobile Monday Peer Awards are always on my radar. It is truly special to be recognized by your peers for accomplishment in mobile applications and services. Of course, the ultimate recognition comes from sales and/or adoption, but those who have performed well in these awards have also been recognized in the marketplace. This year was unique as one company captured the attention of the jurors, the audience and the MoMo chapter leaders from around the world. Buzzd, local party search company, received all three Awards in their category of Early Startups. Buzzd also announced a deal with Helio, US MVNO. Check out the article for what other companies to watch in the Emerging Startups category.

Imran Ali introduces a company called modu in his article. A company that Imran points out is creating flexibility through experience versus technology as advocated by open API evangelists. Is the market ready for an infinitely upgradeable device? Imran offers some critical aspects of execution that will either spur modu forward or trip them up.

Additional observations on innovations from Paul feature encryption for SMS from CellTrust, and Gesture-Tek turning your phone camera into an eye on the world around you. Using the camera as a sensor, instead of a media capture device is truly creative. Read about these innovative technologies in Paul’s articles on CellTrust and Gesture-Tek.

Mobile World Congress resulted in thousands of press releases some of the larger companies were well reported in the corporate press, many bloggers featured new handset releases, and startups were well covered by the usual news sites: MoCo News, TechCrunch, Mashable, etc.

At MM2, the discovery of unique developments, as featured from this year’s MWC, and messaging trends draw our attention. Many of our readers have long-term direct involvement or long-term observation of the mobile industry. It is no surprise that what results in our coverage of an event like Mobile World Congress would be off the beaten track of the world’s largest mobile players or the new efforts from Internet companies. These announcements and pre-announcements were well documented elsewhere.