What a wonderful MobileMonday Austin we had last night… great content, interactions.
We started with David Gill of Telephia, who covered industry metrics and stats on social networking and content; great stats indeed… I love to have David present, and share what is happening in the industry; the numbers says it all. The mobile youth market is an important demographic (see Going to Market: The Mobile Youth Market), SMS and email still prevail, mobile web usage is increasing, and connecting to others and sharing is at the center of mobility.
David Howard of Helio, presented next on the MVNO, the Ocean handset (what a neat handset, designed from the ground up by Helio), and their approach to mobile social software. I know David from our AGEA days, and today David is one of my mobility heroes, playing a very important role in the vision and realization of Helio (he was part of Helio's founding team and runs Helio's engineering group and other). If you read my blog you know how I think about mobility, and what is important: communication, connecting with people, the mobile user experience… it is about people-centric mobile computing. And Helio is really ahead of everyone else when it comes to mobile social software – they get it. I was very impressed. Why would tier-1 carriers don't get it? Beats me; actually I've an idea of why, but it is inconsequential… bottom-line is they are missing the opportunity.
We ended the night with Professor Dr. Sanjay Shakkottai, University of Texas, who presented talked about his research on social sensor networks, an experiment using sensors to track how people (in this case Electrical and Computer Engineering students) interact; a different spin and angle to social networks that was very interesting and insightful; this research can be extended to other areas, and I will be looking more into this.
Thanks to David Gill, and David Howard (how came all the way from Los Angeles), and Professor Shakkottai. And thanks to Helio for sponsoring the event, and to Marisa Sladek of the Austin Wireless Alliance for helping me put the event together.
ceo