SIME2008 - Trends you can take to the bank, views from GP Bullhound

Per Roman presented "Trends you can take to the bank". Per is CEO for the investment bank, GP Bullhound.

Per outlined his opinions and views about the present market conditions. We have got a 38% on average down on any market index you can follow. It is tough for any company that needs funding right now.

If you meet investors, be direct, in many cases, investment companies do not want to say no, they say let's schedule another meeting. Be direct, ask for term sheets, either you get them or if not move on.

The IPO market is practically dead. But, the M&A market is still alive even if the market for acquisitions on VC backed companies is down to 2001-2002 levels. About 140 deals this year.

The overall advice;

• Be in a niche market that is an expanding market
• Have strong distribution and sales capacity
• Be in a business that scales internationally
• Have domain expertise

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Mirror's Edge promo by Telia - SIME2008

A big splash was made by Telia and the Mirror's Edge, the first person action-adventure game developed by EA Digital Illusions CE during the SIME2008 event. On the big display on one of the high-rise buildings at Stureplan in Stockholm, you could play the game.

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Gapminder - What is left of the Western World?

If you think you understand what is going on in the world, think again and visit Gapminder and take a look the very entertaining and educational animated presentations by Hans Rosling, Professor of Public Health and an excellent presenter using international and UN organizations' statistics to analyze and above all visualize what the world looks like today and into the future.

Hans stated that what kids in school learn is actually based on knowledge and information that is as old as from the year the teacher was born. And since a lot of teachers were born in the 50s, 60s and 70s, what kids learn is what the world looked like back then. As a result most people think of the world as the Western world, orient and developing world.

Play with the animated statistics on the Gapminder site and you will be able to see things Hans highlighted that the Asian boom the last 20 years has meant that countries such as Vietnam has surpassed USA growth and standards in many areas.

The new Global World means

• Convergence between different continents
• But not for the last billion people below poverty level
• And the growth is not based on sustainable technologies

We still have got time to do something for a positive future if we act now. Hans is a very entertaining presenter, he also got stuck with two random events, the first one Microsoft Windows automatic update kicking in during his presentation and the second one, the controller for the big screen at the movie theater quit working leaving the giant screen dark for awhile...

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MoYuMe - More of you and Me, mobile picture lifestream service

MoYuMe (More of You and Me) is a mobile picture lifestream style sharing service. A good friend of mine, Peter Sandberg launched this business. I ran into Peter at the SIME event in Stockholm earlier this week. I like the MoYuMe services, to see a live example, check out Peter's own photo lifestream on the Disruptive blog.

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Bloggers meetup at SIME2008 - Blogging the bloggers

I attended the bloggers meetup at SIME2008. Dave Sifry (Technorati), Kris Hoet (Microsoft) and Joi Ito (Creative Commons) presenting.

Kris Hoet, Microsoft EMEA market. Kris talked about his blog about working and Microsoft vs. his private Mustang blog ( http://crossthebreeze.com/ and http://iblogmustang.com/). Microsoft has no corporate blog yet, they do have about 5000 employees that blog and so far the company has decided this is good enough. He also stays away from topics such as being dragged into endless discussions about Microsoft vs. Apple, as he put it you don't want to start something that will result in endless comments.

Joi Ito, CEO Creative Commons. Joi (http://joi.ito.com/) talked about his ups and downs blogging. He is a very frequent blogger but has recently toned down his approach, taking up too much time and getting him involved too much. A long time ago, he wondered, how come, I don't get that much traffic and people he asked said, you are writing too good or complete articles, there is no reason to comment on anything and come back to the blog.

Dave Sifry, Founder & Chairman of the Board, Technorati, Inc. Dave (http://www.sifry.com/alerts/) talked about his experience coming out of his Technorati company. He outlined tips for how to get read by many;blog often, be personal, update regularly (more important than number of posts), think SEO, be like a creative copywriter when you come up with the title for a post. He also pitched Technorati new ad service, Engage which has passed 1Billion ads per month. http://technoratimedia.com/publishers/

Tom Crampton, moderated the discussion. http://www.thomascrampton.com/

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Hasta la vista baby! - Meet three entrepreneurs from SIME2008

The Scandinavian Interactive Media Event (SIME) for 2008 took place in Stockholm, Nov. 12-13 at the movie theater, Rigoletto. Cool place, when you have a giant sized movie screen and movie theater surround sound system, your presentations get a bigger bang for your bucks. Here are three of the presenters posted on movie theater posters.

Meet Andie Nordgren, pro blogger from http://www.sime.nu , Pelle Tornberg ex-CEO Metro International magazine and Norbert Teufelberger, co-CEO from the successful bWin betting company.

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Internetworld Magazine - Top 100 awards event at Sturecompaniet in Stockholm

The awards countdown started with a presentation of websites that inspired people during 2008, amog them, PolyCola (aka. GahooYoogle) the mashup of Google and Yahoo, Twitter, Ebay (still after all these years) and others before going to the list. Here's the result of the 2008 list;

1. VisitSweden.com (new) – Sweden's best site 2008
2. SVT – best media site
3. Ving – best travel site
4. Travelstart
5. DN.se – best daily newspaper site
6. Prisjakt
7. Coolstuff (new) – best e-commerce site
8. Eniro – best search site
9. Stardoll – best idea site
10. Svd
11. Tasteline
12. Sweden.se (new)
13. Webaidshop.se (new) – best creative thoughts site
14. Lindex – the blog friendly site
15. Tretti.se
16. Fokus (new)
17. Ikea – best inspirational site (new)
18. Hitta.se
19. VA.se (new)
20. Onoff (new)
21. Pricerunner
22. Utsidan.se
23. Veckorevyn
24. Länsförsäkringar - best bank and insurance site
25. Nordnet
26. Aftonbladet
27. Kanal 5
28. Mr Green (new)
29. Dagen
30. Sesam.se
31. Stadium
32. Stallet.se (new)
33. Redeye.se (new)
34. Barnsemester.se
35. Familjeliv
36. Zoovillage.com
37. Knuff.se
38. CDON.com
39. Garaget.org
40. SR
41. Fritidsresor
42. Skatteverket – best government site (hmm.. Swedish IRS)
43. ShakeMyWorld (new)
44. Mötesplatsen
45. Newsmill – best site for opnions and views
46. Ikanobanken
47. Viktklubb.se
48. Allabolag.se
49. Booli (new)
50. Mintur.se (new)
51. SBAB
52. Wikipedia
53. TV4
54. Tradera.com
55. Grandshoes (new)
56. Swedbank
57. Modette.se (new) - best community site for fashion
58. Dustin Home (new) – best site for easy checkout
59. Taffel.se (new)
60. Haléns (new)
61. Funbeat
62. Svenskaspel.se
63. Rädda Barnen (new)
64. Manolo.se
65. Bloggkoll.com (new)
66. Unibet
67. Icabanken
68. Tappa.se (new)
69. Skistar.com
70. Tailorstore
71. Fondmarknaden (new)
72. MTV
73. Folksam
74. Sveriges riksdag
75. Playahead.com
76. Café (new)
77. Freeride
78. Aktiespararna (new)
79. Canalplus (new)
80. Bilddagboken
81. Bris
82. ATG
83. Jaycut
84. Fass.se
85. Reseguiden.se
86. DO (new)
87. Avanza Bank
88. Regeringen
89. Skandiabanken
90. Vägverket
91. Trygg-Hansa
92. Bokhora (new)
93. Bwin
94. Svenskafans.com
95. Discshop.se
96. Laget.se
97. SEB
98. Expressen
99. MUF (new)
100. Resfeber.se

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Mobil Magazine awards for 2008 - "guldmobiler"

The results of the mobil magazine awards for best product and services for 2008;

Products of the year 2008

• Best music mobile phone - SonyEricsson W902
• Best camera mobile phone - SonyEricsson C905
• Best smartphone - Nokia E71
• Best media mobile phone - Apple iPhone 3G
• Best design mobile phone - Apple iPhone 3G
• Best GPS device - TomTom Go 930

Services of the year 2008

• Best mobile news service - Aftonbladet Tagga
• Best mobile sports service - SR Radiosporten
• Best mobile useful service - Quedro: Noplace SvD magazine mobil
• Best mobile entertainment service - Polarbit new games for iPhone and Symbian

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MobileFocus2008 - Pictures from Exhibitor area of Mobile Media Companies

Stay tuned for more updates about select exhibitor companies from Thomas Lidforss International about this Mobile Focus 2008 Mobile Media event.

MobileFocus2008 - LociLoci does mobile social networking without the need for GPS

The Swedish startup Lociloci has started with an interesting twist, do mobile social networking with location services without the need for using GPS. Their philosophy is that a lot people have or may have concerns about having GPS set to enabled in their phones all the time. So, they have started offering location based networking where you can leave GPS set to off. Since keeping track of where your friends are when you need to know precisely where works well in particular in cities where the cell sites are small, I think the quality of this social networking site is OK.

Lociloci will also soon integrate with Blogger, tumblr, facebook and twitter.

The company behind Lociloci, is XYZ Technology AB has offices in Stockholm and Boston and works as a technology and services provider to any company that wants to use and get a neworking and location services platform.

I also met with a good friend of mine, Mary Larson who works for this company now.

More from this event will come in newer blog posts from Thomas Lidforss International

MobileFocus2008 - Learn about new rules for your media rights by Twobirds

”New rules for media rights” by Helene Miksche, Senior Legal Counsel, Bird&Bird http://www.twobirds.com/

Helene gave an overview of different activities going with the EU countries to harmonize the media rights' rules across the borders. As an example STIM the old community which collectively distributes based on rights can no longer work exclusively in Sweden, againt EU rules.

International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies, CISAC, http://www.cisac.org/ has recently come up with a new agreement from July 2008 which you have to follow. Not very entusiastic readings unless you are a lawyer. Bird & Bird has good information on the company website, so help yourself to a better understanding of media rights.

More from this event will come in newer blog posts from Thomas Lidforss International

MobileFocus2008 - 4G will make media providers the new mobile operators

“4G enables media providers to become mobile operators” by Reidar Mouhleb, ZTE

Reidar emphasized ZTE's deep involvement in all infrastructure technology areas and their end-to-end solutions for an all-IP network with Software Defined Radios (SDR) for LTE.

He also believes the rollout and deployment for LTE will be easier than people think, reflecting back to mid 90s with GSM/GPRS data access where the big differences in network existed between circuit switched telephony equipment and packet data IP products made everything a lot more difficult. GPRS once
deployed became obsolete and upgraded to EDGE and then in parallel 3G was deployed. HSDPA as add-on, then quickly HSUPA, the now being deployed HSPA infrastructure. So conclusion was LTE will come faster than people think. LTE chipsets in 2009 and later next year the first mobile devices with new LTE chipsets.

It is interesting to see both ZTE and Huawei have such a big presence in the "Silicon Valley of Sweden", Kista more or less across the street from Ericsson.

More from this event will come in newer blog posts from Thomas Lidforss International

MobileFocus2008 - The LTE revolution, mobile multi-media nirvana

“The LTE-revolution” by Mr. X (oops, forgot to write down his name)

Ericsson presented their views on LTE (Long Term Evolution standard):

• Wider pipe
• Flat architecture
• Focus on self optimization and self configuration services in network

Overall goal: Lower the TCO and better radio spectrum flexibility

Converge the LTE/HSPA and LTE/CDMA paths to provide infrastructure that works anywhere in the world. This is a requirement in the present standardization work for release of 3GPP R8

Major operators around the world on board for this strategy; Verizon Wireless, China Mobile, NTT DoCoMo and Vodafone

For those readers that need a technology update, see the Agilent presentation.

LTE Protocol Primer

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: protocol agilent)

Ericsson did not say one word about WiMax, they are clearly pushing for LTE as soon as possible. They are also targeting mobile 150 Mbit/s as a technical goal. I cannot wait until I can get my hands on such a mobile phone.

More from this event will come in newer blog posts from Thomas Lidforss International

MobileFocus2008 - Mobile phone, your personal media center

“Mobilen, det personliga navet i mediavärlden” by SonyEricsson.

I missed this presentation also, heard they presented your mobile phone (or as some people say here in Sweden "nallen" Swedish for your presented the mobile as the driver andlittle "teddy bear") as the king for your personal media. I know after some discussions that SonyEricsson likes a lot the Adobe Open Screen Project and they are also working a lot on Android, so I would not be surprised to see next year some drastically new mobile phones coming out, if SonyEricsson just can improve their financial results. I have also got the impression that SonyEricsson is kind of losing its interest in Symbian as a platform. My bet is we will see more Windows Mobile and new Android phones and support for Adobe services.

The flagship model X1 has already been sold out in Sweden.

SonyEricsson has also an interesting concept with the Xperia panels open developers, you can customize Xperia phone models by designing your own panels. Will be interesting to see how well this concept will be picked up.

More from this event will come in newer blog posts from Thomas Lidforss International

MobileFocus2008 - Simplifying the mobile internet media

“Simplifying the mobile internet media” by James Pearce, Vice President, CTO DotMobi, http://mtld.mobi/



I missed this presentation, got stuck discussing with several vendors in the exhibition area. I know all the important companies are sponsoring dotMobi, primarily to simplify the creation of mobile friendly sites and the awareness for everybody with a website what it meas to deliver the best possible user experience on a mobile phone. The best information about dotMobi is the following TypePad blog;

http://dotmobi.typepad.com/






I myself use MoFuse, they make it extremely easy to create a dotmobi website. See, http://tlidforss.mofuse.mobi





More from this event will come in newer blog posts from Thomas Lidforss International

MobileFocus2008 - Get Flashy with Flash and new channels for rich mobile multi-media

”Flash in your mobile - channel for a rich multi-media massmarket” by Michael Berman Telenor/Mobilstart and Patrik Nilsson, Adobe

They presented launch of new Rich Internet Applications (RIA) applications and quick snapshot of the history, how we got here;

PS -> PDF -> Flash -> Air (flash/XML/HTML)

Adobe has created an Open Screen Project to promote Adobe Air among other tools (the Creative Suite, CS4 Master Collection is the "Gold" standard to go for). The open Screen Project includes most chip vendors, Verizon Wireless and SonyEricsson among other companies.

Mobilstart is heavily using Adobe applications and together Michael and Patrik showed a really good live demo of verious news (http://www.svd.se http://www.dn.se), weather and sports sites displayed on a mobile phone. Adobe is pushing hard to get away from todays environment where you have to develop mobile phone applications (very time consuming and expensive in the mobile phone developer environment today, with too many phones and too many OS environments). You should also not having to think like a computer user navigating between applications all the time.

Mobilstart by Telenor is offering gateway services for content providers that work with all mobile operators in Sweden, free to sign up and test drive.

More from this event will come in newer blog posts from Thomas Lidforss International

MobileFocus2008 - iPhone changed the rules for mobile internet

”iPhone and the changed rules of the game for mobile internet” by Ulrika Steg, Product Manager Consumer markets, TeliaSonera

Ulrika presented the impact from the Launch of the iPhone.

• 28% more data traffic in their 3G network after 1 week, since 160% more data traffic
• Most iPhone users browse outside their portal (the way it should have been everywhere from day 1 when internet access was possible on a mobile phone!) vs. non-iPhone users
• User cost control important
• iPhone users feel they have internet in a pocket
• 80% of buyers men under age 35 and half live in big cities (I think this also depends on the fact that in big cities you do have 3G coverage, I know a friend of mine living out in the country in northern Sweden and as he put it, "you have to climb up in a f%%%ing tree to get phone access")

The good thing about the iPhone launch, it forced the mobile operators to start thinking about how to offer value priced "flat-fee like" data plans. Telia has come up with pretty good plans so far, at the expense of higher price for the phone. The Metro daily paper actually made up a plan, buy cheap Ryan Air tickets, fly to Rome Italy in the morning, buy the iPhone, fly back home and you save a lot of money. But this is just the beginning of smart touch phones with turbo 3G access, more phones have just been introduced and more competition from Tele2, Telenor and 3 will mean better and better data plans. It will be interesting to see what happens here in Sweden when the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone starts selling at the 279 Euro price for an unlocked phone.

More from this event will come in newer blog posts from Thomas Lidforss International

MobileFocus2008 - Future of Mobile Applications according to Nokia

“The future of mobile applications” by Eric Hugo Ovi by Nokia

Eric gave a brief introduction of Ovi by Nokia, the software approach to the Nokia. He showed a professional video presentation that did not actually say very much about Ovi, more giving a quick history lesson (I do remember when Nokia used to sell winter tires for cars that all taxi liked during the winter season) and emotional connection to the future. It was very much like Obama - "Nokia, Yes We Can"

Eric used himself, a south african living in Sweden with family relatives in Italy and South Africa as an example of how international a mobile world has become. A funny little thing, while Eric let the video present itself, I clicked on the Nokia Ovi website and got error on home page, don't know if you so far only can access service in UK where it is being introduced.

Ovi by Nokia is the brand

Context is the differentiator for Ovi

• Maps on Ovi
• With social networking
• Open for all developers
• Files on Ovi for your web information
• Comes with music
• Share on Ovi

Ovi by Nokia is being introduced by Orange in UK.

• 130 pounds with pay as you go
• 40 pounds per month

I think this the correct approach but as they say "the devil is in the details". I think Nokia's positioning of Ovi and attempts to "open source" the Symbian environment will determine if this is going to be a success. Now when more and more mobile phone companies seem to give up on using Symbian, I have some doubts about Nokia's attempt to become the number one against Microsoft, Apple and Google. I think Nokia feels the "heat" though from the Apple iPhone success and recent Google G1 phones with Open Handset Alliance and Android not to ever forget Microsoft with big muscles. Nokia does really understand the consumer mobile phone and lifestyle market, so from that point of view, the odds look good.

More from this event will come in newer blog posts from Thomas Lidforss International

MobileFocus2008 event - Social networking goes mobile, here's comes the ink, INQ Mobile

“Social networking goes mobile” by Ashley Benigno, INQ Mobile and Hutchison, Mobile Futures Strategist

Ashley presented the new company INQ Mobile http://www.inqmobile.com/ sponsored by 3, http://www.three.co.uk/

They have a "INQ OS" kind of platform which is Qualcomm Brew based with a simple but efficient UI for the new INQ phones. Speed and simplicity of pre-integrated apps into the new device makes the use almost instant. They have followed the concept, press a button or one click and the service in question should work right away without delay.

The INQ phone is based on the previously developed SkypePhone S2. The phone has one click access to Facebook, MySpace, Skype and 3's portal.

"Internet communicators that anyone can use" is their slogan. I like this concept with a model for a "cheap" phone, easy one touch access to the most commonly used services. INQ mobile's approach is not to compete with smartphones which they consider too expensive for a big mass market but still provide "cheap" easy access to internet services.

More from this event will come in newer blog posts from Thomas Lidforss International

MobileFocus2008 event - Media goes mobile, views from Yankee Group

"Media goes mobile” presented by Declan Lonergan, Yankee Group, Vice President, Head of research
YankeeGroup (YG)

Declan used statistics and experiences from Vodafone in UK.

Voda UK most searched;

1. Facebook
2. Bebo
3. eBay
4. Windows Live

Voda UK most visited;

1. Facebook
2. Google
3. BBC
4. MSN
5. Bebo
6. SonyEricsson
7. Yahoo
8. MySpace
9. Windows Live

Mobile universe vs. Advertising universe? - complementary values and crossover activities, mobile greatest attribute is combo of personalization and ubiquity.

More from this event will come in newer blog posts from Thomas Lidforss International