Barcelona Redux aka MWC 2008

I returned from Spain last Thursday. I was very impressed by the scale and quality of the conference. It was amazing to see how many people they could get to pay 600 Euro compared to a similar number of CTIA attendees at $50 a pop. There is probably a lesson in there for the CTIA.

I didn't have a whole lot of serious takeaways other than one over arching thing that I couldn't shake. The overarching thing was that the music is playing and everyone is looking for a chair and this is making for some strange bed fellows. Witness Microsoft buying Danger, Sony releasing a Windows Mobile device, etc. I think there is a lot more of that sort of thing to come.

For our part we announced a partnership with Bebo, one of the largest social sites in Europe, that you can see here as well as a with Moko which is a leading mobile only community in the UK which is here.

Travels and Talks

I am in Los Angeles for most of this week for a variety of meetings and am hoping to catch up with some friends. After the LA stop, I will be heading to Spain this weekend for 3GSM. If you want to grab a nice cold cava in Spain let me know.

At the end of the month, I will be speaking at the Wharton Business Technology Conference. Details here. Shortly after that we were invited to speak at the Microsoft sponsored Mix08 conference in Las Vegas. Link here. Details pending.

The Industry Standard Lives!

Holy Bubble Batman! The Industry Standard has relaunched. It is now more of a game theory / marketplace of people speculating on Internet happenings. Do check it out. My sense is that this one is gonna last longer than the previous one. Don't get me wrong, I am/was a huge fan of the original.

The Rabble Tribe

Two weeks ago at a conference I spoke about the different consumer archetypes in the Rabble community. Anastasia from Ypulse graciously reposted some excerpts. If you are interested the whole deck I used can be found here.