Carnival of the Mobilists #82

Now that I am (almost) done with my move to WordPress, I’m ready to host the Carnival of the Mobilists #82… Woohoo! My apologies for the delay (and for not including an entry this week)…

It has been a while since the last time that I hosted a Carnival of the Mobilists, and it is my pleasure to host again… This week we have 12 submissions from Mobilists from around the world, covering topics that include the iPhone, Mobile Web, a wiki for 3G travelers, mobile security, enriched ringback tones, and tips. So let’s get started:

1. Paul Walsh of Segala, writes O2 taking a bite out of the forbidden fruit?. Here Paul writes that “this doesn’t make sense to me because it’ll mean users will have open access to the Web and quickly realise that iMode (premium content which makes up for most of O2’s data revenue) isn’t what they want.” Interesting read.
2. Troy Norcross of the Consumer Preference (or Mobile Marketing & SPAM) blog writes Mobile TV: Look who’s watching now, where he shares with us highlights and interesting tidbits from the Mobile TV event that he attended.
3. Martin Sauter of the Mobile Society Technology Page writes about A Wiki For the 3G Traveler where he provides advice on how to access the Internet in countries to which they intend to travel.
4. Jason Devitt of Skydeck writes Congressional Hearing on Wireless Innovation and Consumer Protection a good read about wireless and the issue of openness and regulation by the government… Jason says “I’m one of those who believes that the mobile phone market ought to work more like the Internet market. I don’t have to ask Verizon DSL for permission to attach a computer to their network; why do I have to ask Verizon Wireless for permission to attach a phone to theirs?”. A very important topic and one with which I totally agree with Jason…
5. Stuart Dredge of Pocket Picks covers Top 5 mobile internet sites that you’ll actually use, a good summary of of tops mobile web-based application.
6. Dennis at the WapReview covers MizPee – Your Mobile Toilet Advisor, a mobile web application that helps you find, given address, the nearest public restroom. Interesting…
7. The folks at Masabi wrote a good article on the Problems with Mobile Security #1… a more technical article that is a good read if you want to understand the issues related to security and mobility.
8. Tomi T Ahonen of Communites Dominate Brands writes an Open Letter to Sprint Nextel where Tomi covers yet another customer relationship debacle at Sprint, in this case the “Sprint Nextel letter to 1,000 customers informing them that because they had called the customer service number too much, their contracts were being terminated.” Definitely not a nice move by Sprint Nextel… not to mention that currently network carriers are over subscribed, meaning that good customer support is one of the few differentiators that remain, and Sprint Nextel is not doing great in that department.
9. Debi Jones (Mobile Jones) writes Mobile Web – Just Say No! where she covers some metrics related to mobile web destinations in the US versus in the UK, and covers examples of excellent and well adopted applications. Debi also makes the important point about of the role of web services on mobile applications (as consumed by thick clients) vs. purely thin web/browsing applications.
10. Xen of Xellular Identity writes Enriched Ringback Tones Offering With Non-Music Content where she covers an interesting concept that Xen calls enriched ringback tones which basically are ringbacks that go beyond simple tones/music by providing ‘enriched information’.
11. Tarek Ghazali of the Sumbiano-Tek blog writes a great tip on Deleting Stuck installer files on Symbian (S60) phones.
12. Last but not least Ajit Jaokar of the Open Gardens blog writes Grand Central: I am not a number – I am a tag, where Ajit goes back to a concept that he covers in his Mobile Web 2.0 book “I am not a number, I am a tag”, in light of Google’s recent acquisition of GrandCentral Communications.