Operators must loosen the data stranglehold; open up traditional media to links; why youth matter

Jan Kuczynski brings us up-to-date on mobile flat-rate data charges and their importance, Nick Wright explains the impact of citizen journalism on traditional media and Savka reiterates the importance of the youth market for mobile in light of Ajit Joakar's recent attack on the need for a "mobile youth" report.

Listen to the podcast here.

3GSM special! World Forum Research podcast interviews

At 3GSM, the World Forum Research team recorded a series of podcast interviews with a wide mix of attendees. In the early part of this week we'll be uploading the podcasts and updating the site with links. Check back frequently to find out who we got talking to!

To help you negotiate these interviews, we've organised them below for you to browse more easily.

Mobile and internet advertising

Opt-in bluetooth mobile marketing
Roger Wood, Amobee, on the future of advertising
Hands-free mobile TV glasses
Digital Video Advertising using IP Video
Advertising with mobile avatars

Consumers and world markets for mobile

Docomo on the Japanese mobile market
IM vs. SMS: who will use which?
The difference between Asian and European markets
Understanding consumers and getting the party going

Latest developments and looking ahead

Mobile train tickets from Mobiqa
The implications of NFC technology in the future
BBC and Digital Media
Live video-blogging on mobile

Accessing mobile content, mobile search and discovery

Mobile content discovery: Don't just let it sit there!
Mobile Search in China
Cameraphone image search
Tsunami alerts and active mobile screensavers
Cameraphones in the future
The evolution of mobile search

3GSM meetings

Helen Keegan, original Technokitten, shares her views on 3GSM
Mobile and console games

Bryan Stockwell from Mobile Commerce on the importance of mobile search

Bryan Stockwell from Mobile Commerce tells us why mobile search is so important to driving mobile content uptake with mainstream consumers.

Listen to the podcast here.

Gabriel from MyStrands on the importance of knowing your consumer

Gabriel Aldamiz-echevarria from MyStrands explained the concept behind his company's offering and talked us through PartyStrands - a party companion for your mobile phone. I got to try out the PartyStrands experience myself at Swedish Beers later on that evening.

Listen to the interview here.

JumpTap talk mobile search

JumpTap's Eric McCabe joined us for an interview and gave us a background of JumpTap's white-label mobile search offering as well as his thoughts on the future evolution of the mobile search market.

Here more at the end of this link.

What's the future for image recognition on mobiles? Mark Wright shares his thoughts

Image recognition offers some exciting possibilities for future mobile services. Mark Wright, Research Director at Mobile Acuity tells us about their company's image recognition technology and his vision for the cameraphone in the future.

Listen to the interview here.

Rani Wellingstein of Celltick on making the idle screen less idle

Celltick is a UK-based company which aims to make the idle screen less idle, working to help consumers discover new mobile content and for marketers to connect with consumers. Rani Wellingstein came by to give us an overview on their company and some interesting info as to how Celltick is being used as a tsunami alert system in Asia.

Hear more by clicking this link.

Peter de Jong on mobile vs console games development

Peter de Jong from Codeglue stopped by for a quick interview on his latest projects including a move away from mobile to console games.

The interview is posted here.

DAEM's Ignacio Mondine on how image recognition can change how consumers access content

Everyone knows that consumers don't like entering URLs on their phones to access content. One of the more elegant solutions to this problem is to use the cameraphone and image recognition as a mobile hyperlink. Ignacio Mondine from DAEM introduces us to their system for providing a more enjoyable consumer mobile internet experience.

Find out more here.

Does IP Video mean the end of commercials? Discussion with Alain Fernando-Santana, Envivio

One of the most illuminating discussions I had during the week was with Alain Fernando-Santana, CMO for Envivio. In this podcast we cover the possibilities for user-generated video, the benefits and drawbacks of viral video and many of the potential ad models that need to be considered now that IP Video is increasingly becoming a reality.

Tables Turned: Mobile live video-blogging with Mike Katz from NMS Communications

I got first-hand experience of vlogging when Mike Katz from NMS Communications arrived at our stand armed with his video phone with which he planned to film our interview. Live video-blogging is really becoming a key feature for many active bloggers and YouTube filmmakers are likely to jump at the chance to combine their phone and video. The benefit of the NMS Communications offering is that the video is uploaded live and it's not done via MMS, which effectively allows far longer videos to be uploaded.

A video of the proceedings should be along in due course but until then, listen to the podcast we caught.

***Update*** Live video blogs uploaded now ***Update***

Karl Weaver on Smartphones in Asia

With China and India becoming increasingly influential players in the global mobile market, it's becoming increasingly important to negotiate Asian markets. Karl Weaver has been working in the field for some time and managed to clarify the situation a little bit. Karl specialises in consultancy and presentations on the Asian mobile market and gives a great summary of his views in this podcast

Alvin Wang Graylin gives us some mobile search insights from Asia

Mobile search is a hot topic at the moment and I interviewed a few different mobile search companies while at 3GSM. Based in Shanghai, mInfo is a natural language mobile search engine which is big in China. CEO Alvin Wang Graylin was at 3GSM and gave me his insights on the mobile search industry including how SMS will play a big part in mobile search in China for the foreseeable future.

The podcast is available here.

Opt-in mobile marketing: Jose Luis Prescado from FuturLink

Not only a great solution for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi marketing but our friendly neighbours at 3GSM, we interviewed Futurlink to find out how their technology really worked. As Jose makes clear, it's essential that mobile marketing in any form has to be consumer-controlled and they've got the right idea by being opt-in.

Although I like the idea of this form of mobile marketing (I got all the Sundance Shorts for free!), I can equally see the problems of Bluetooth spam that Russell Buckley points to in his blog. The solution must lie partway in between: marketers can offer incredible value through this channel (free music, free offers etc.) but there has to be a filtering system in place if it's to remain on the good side of consumers. There's undoubtedly a huge opportunity here but marketers should remain wary of using it outright.

Check out our podcast here.

Not your granddad's Beeb: How is the BBC going into new media?

BBC new media researchers Jennifer Thomson and Jo Bellingham talk to Savka and Josh Dhaliwal about the new directions being taken by the world's oldest broadcasting corporation: QR codes, mobile TV and mobile search are all on the cards in this great discussion.

Get the scoop here

Dan Cui on MyVu

There were plenty of exciting things going on at 3GSM but none were quite so appealing as the MyVu Video Glasses. The pictures should do the apparatus some justice but it's not just the ability to watch films without holding onto a video iPod that signals this bit of equipment as something to watch. What operators and handset manufacturers should be excited about is the MyVu jacket which expands the lifespan of the device to over 4 times the normal battery life. Given the significant increase in media consumption that mobile video is aiming to encourage amongst consumers, this increased time with the device could pay off handsomely for all sides. Despite the space age look of the glasses they're surprisingly simple to use and they would make you the envy of commuters and fellow travellers everywhere.

Check out what Dan has to say about the device.

Aditon's Margaret Gold takes us through idle screen discovery

Aditon is the new kid on the mobile content discovery block and Margaret Gold came to talk us through the Aditon service and give her views on what's holding back consumer uptake of mobile content.

Listen to the podcast here.

Interview with Matt Hooper from Colibria about mobile IM (instant messaging)

Wednesday morning at 3GSM, Savka had a chat with Matt Hooper of Colibria, who gave some interesting insights into the world of mobile messaging, and particularly mobile instant messaging. How does IM stack up against SMS in terms of messaging, how is the market for IM changing and why is IM becoming increasingly popular with older age groups?

Find out here!

Interview with Tal Dagan, Comverse

Savka and Josh Dhaliwal caught up with mobile avatars expert Tal Dagan from Comverse on Tuesday morning (February 13). Tal gave us some interesting insights into the latest incarnation of mobile personalization: mobile avatars. Avatars are sure to be popular with the youth market and Tal predicts we'll soon see a move towards branded mobile avatars and ad-vatars (advertising incorporated into avatars).

Check it out here

Hajo Janse on the latest developments in NFC

Hajo Janse, Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategic Planning at Smartmachine Technologies stopped by for a quick interview on NFC. Hajo gave me his honest views on what's happening in the industry at the moment including some interesting opinions on the importance of security for NFC.

Listen to the interview here.

BeepMarketing's Helen Keegan gives her impressions of 3GSM

Helen Keegan the mobile marketer, blogger and organiser of Swedish Beers stopped by the Wireless World Forum stand to give us her impressions of this year's 3GSM conference.

You can hear the podcast at the end of this link.

Roger Wood of Amobee on Mobile Marketing

It was a balmy Tuesday morning in Barcelona during 3GSM, and Nick Wright and Savka Andic kicked off the day with this fantastic podcast with Roger Wood from mobile marketing company Amobee. The discussion centered on the prospects for consumer-generated content on mobile and consumer-generated mobile advertising before moving onto an analysis of branding's profound role in contemporary society and the "elongation" of the youth market into older demographics.

Have a listen here for this very cool podcast

Don Cameron of Mobiqa on mobile ticketing

Mobiqa is a Scottish company I've had my eye on for a while, especially since they launched mobile ticketing on a train line I frequently use. At 3GSM I caught up with Don Cameron, Sales & Marketing Director of Mobiqa to find out what the company has been up to recently. Hear more by clicking here.

Shinya Yokota of NTT DoCoMo talks about handsets and services in Japan

At 3GSM I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to talk to Shinya Yokota from NTT DoCoMo's international PR team. Shinya gave me some interesting info on the latest handsets and services coming onto the Japanese market and talked about how Japanese consumers are using their mobiles

To listen to extracts from the interview, click here.

The Inaugural Friday Feed Podcast

Welcome to the Friday Feed by the team at World Forum Research. This podcast series will be our way for us to let you know what the latest findings are from our research department. We prefer an informal chat covering the latest stories from around the internet but if you'd like to hear more about a certain area, please contact us at worldforumresearch [at] gmail [dot] com. We'd love to hear from you.

User-generated Superbowl Ads, Vodafone adopting Social Media apps and Mobile Image and Camera Search

Jan Kuczyniski and Nick Wright discuss the success of user-generated advertising at the Superbowl, the benefits of Vodafone introducing prominent Social Media applications onto their network and how Camera Search could revolutionise Mobile Web use for consumers.

We are hosting this feed temporarily on blogger but our company site is here.