SIME Barcelona was beautiful. I use the word beautiful in particular since it packed the best of SIME, combined with the perfect weather in a beautiful city. For me personally, SIME is the ray of hope in the dark winters in Scandinavia, and it adding to the energy in a sunny external was just beautiful. Probably synonyms for beautiful could also be inspiration, and enriching. And this post aims tries to package that inspiration and energy into this post, but as for the beauty of Barcelona and the lovely setting of SIME itself, sorry folks, its SIME magic.
» Continue reading ‘Messages from SIME Barcelona’
Archive for May, 2009
So we are all set here - its a great setting, SIME style, lets call it. A mini lounge on stage, extremely elegant and slick. And what goes on the screen also looks that way. I had the privilege of going through very quickly some of the presentations of the speakers, and they look extremely enriching to say the least. What I will try to do today during the event is to summarize at the end of the every discussion session and post it live to keep all our friends updated. And of course 120 character updates are always on our twitter channel
SIME Stage @ Barcelona
Mr. Granfelt at SIME Barcelona
So again revisiting some of our online channels:
Twitter: (/simeblog) , hashtag #SIME
Flickr: Group - SIME : hashtag #SIME
Facebook Group and Page
Stay radiant, and keep shouting.
I had a chance to catch up with Sixto Arias, Co-founder of Movilisto, Founder of Mobile Marketing Association Spain and Managing Director of Mobext (Havas Digital) and it was quite enriching to see what he has to say on mobile internet and marketing. Excerpts from the quick informal chat:
- Mahesh (M): Hola Sixto. Thanks for the time. You are pioneering the mobile internet. What can we expect to see in the next 5 years?
- Sixto Arias (SA): As I see it, there are 3 important developments in the mobile field. 1. Everything is becoming finger / touch oriented. People want to touch since its more intuitive. The iPhone is leading the way, and all the phones in the future will have something taken from the iPhone’s model. 2. The Applications / Apps are the equivalent to the browser in the mobile world. 3. Obviously its the location that is going to make the phone world win. GPS, triangulation, they all would make the phone in your pocket become more powerful than you can imagine
- M: How about in the developing nations? Do you think they will surf the internet on the mobile first than on a PC ever?
- SA: Yes, truly. Mobile is getting ubiquitous and internet is going to become an extension of the phone. So in countries with infrastructure and cost barriers, adding the internet quotient achieves greater economies of scale than finding them laptops, finding internet connections etc.
- M: Do you think the companies today are using the mobile phone for business enough? As a tool to find more customers, and market new products and services?
- SA: No, not at all. People do not even think of the mobile as much as they think about the traditional TV ads. And they pay millions for something they cannot even measure the output. The web made it easier, but the mobile will make it more personal and relevant than the web, since its the most personal asset and location makes it even more a killer than the PC in the house.
- M: How do you think advertisements on the mobile will look like?
- SA: Its going to be a hybrid model. Apps will have small ad’s next to them / below them / above them etc. But interactive ads which are connected across platforms promoting cross platform interaction will emerge. So when you are watching that ad of BMW, you can also download a Java / AIR app to your phone and interact with it (press 5 for option 1 etc) making it more personal, tailor made. No clear model has been developed but interactivity and cross media platform seamless communication is going to be the key.
- M: Thank you so much for the time. Looking forward to your time tomorrow on stage.
- SA: Yes, the pleasure is mutual. Its been long since I went for a SIME (3 years I think), but I love the people, energy around the event. And Barcelona is going to be great. I go up on stage at around 11:20 to talk about mobile marketing, mobile internet - an extension to what we spoke today. So yes, thank you.
I felt quite good after the interview and I could totally relate to what he was saying. Mobile is truly a revolution in India with 350M mobile subscribers (7M new subscribers per month being added), and internet being accessed from the mobile (despite lack of good 3G, failure of iPhone and infrastructure issues) only increases by the day. And its awesome that he has some time on stage tomorrow.
SIME goes south to Barcelona, scanning the digital scene in Spain and taking more learnings into the knowledge ecosystem. And with SIME 2009 slowly getting traction, we thought we should do more to get closer to the digital world, hear from you guys and give a SIME perfectly tailor made to what the expectations are. So here are some channels for a start that you can follow us in:
1. Twitter - quick 140 character updates for the soul at http://twitter.com/simeblog
Add us: @simeblog
2. Facebook Page a place where all the quick status updates go to (predominantly for the non-twitter-ers). Facebooking, being the world’s favorite passtime, we expect a lot of interesting discussions and traction from the platform.
3. Facebook Group - of course, its like a press corner in Facebook, to connect with members, check the cornerstone of SIME - a good starting point if you are not aware of what SIME is.
4. Dopplr - clearly you see that SIME is tremendously international, and we love what we are seeing already. Hope to speak more with the crowd through Dopplr
Marko Ahtisaari, CEO of Dopplr, a regular SIME -ite and featured speaker at SIME Barcelona, will be previewing the Dopplr iPhone App, and will talk about places, people and mobility. So if you are as intrigued by Dopplr as we are, the wait is not too long!
5. Hash tag anything with #SIME or #SIME (example <#SIMEBarcelona>) at Flickr, Twitter etc, thats cool.
Share and spread the love: what other online channels would you like us to be? Rest assured, the geeks in us are looking for cooler ways to make the SIME ecosystem closer, and if you “geek-out” something before we do, do shout to us at info@sime.nu or leave them as comments.
Barcelona Update: Net Jacobsson, the evergreen man from Facebook is stuck in the US, and will not be joining us on stage at Barcelona. We wish him good luck anyways, and hope the SIME crowd can get a chance to meet and hear him again in an upcoming edition of SIME pretty soon.
Barcelona, here we come. Are you ready for a good time?
