The line-up includes:

• Our welcome COM newcomer Optism, which submits commentary from Peggy Anne Salz asking the question: What is the value of apps?
• James Coops over at mobyaffiltates provides advice on how to increase ad fill rates.
• Ajit Jaokar fills us in on the webinos project and its ambition to create an Open Source platform, which will enable web applications and services to be used and shared consistently and securely over a broad spectrum of connected devices.
• Liron Segev of Swift Consulting tells us what users need to be aware of when they download apps that don’t come via the official app stores. There are real dangers and Liron runs through some real-life cases.

Get involved!

Over at AppCircus the 2012 Mobile Premier Awards have been announced. The Mobile Premier Awards 2012 are correctly hailed as THE international showcase for the world’s latest apps. Emerging and established developers pitch their apps for a rare opportunity to compete for the best app at Mobile Premier Awards, the crowning event held in February during Mobile World Congress.

[READ COM #258 HERE]

• James Rosewell at TheFonecast.com looks at the trend to larger screens at CES.
• Oren Levine dissects recent Flurry numbers to argue that apps may not beat browsing after all.
• James Coops of Moby Affiliates compiles the best mobile advertising networks 2012, helping us choose the right network based on our individual needs.
• Terence Eden takes a hard look at QR codes. How effective are they *really* are what are the KPIs that will allow companies to decide if QR codes delivered results?
• Peggy Anne Salz at MobileGroove takes a look at data from Orange and Millennial Media to predict the impact of Kindle Fire’s imminent arrival in Europe on people and advertisers.
• Tina de Souza makes the case for mobile-optimized sites. Without the right site, retailers may as well just close their doors — at least for a few days of the week anyway…
• Rodrigo Arantes questions if anyone else — besides Microsoft — is interested on another mobile OS?
• Hoi Sta gives us good reason to believe the smartphone OS space still has plenty of room for change and innovation. The race is far from run…
• Antoine RJ Wright asks when wearable computers will be mainstream — particularly since all the parts exist to make this happen at an affordable price.
• Ajit Jaokar at Open Gardens suggest the bandwidth crunch we hear so much about in the news out of the U.S. may be a “mirage.” A provocative post indeed!
• Volker Hirsch analyzes the French provider Free and its advance into mobile.
• Bruce Burke of Gulf Bay Consulting talks about how embedded cameras may just be the next disruptive force in mobile commerce, allowing us to make purchases by ‘clicking’ not swiping our credit cards.

And the Winner Is

For his post of the week, Steven chose Hoi Sta’s article on what Android and Apple have NOT won the smartphone war.

[READ COM #257 HERE]

• TheFonecast.com starts off 2012 with a look back at the milestones that marked 2011.
• Carnival newcomer Albert Cuesta takes a light-hearted look back at joke made by Apple in 2004, when the company mused it might launch it’s own phone and bypass the existing mobile operators.
• David Murphy of Mobile Marketing magazine brings us the last 12 months in mobile marketing with stories of acquisitions and growth.
• Oren Levine offers an interesting opinion on the webOS open source plans.
• Caroline Lewko at WIP offers her predictions about mobile development – and the issues that will dominate the 2012 agenda.
• Chetan Sharma shares the results of his 2012 predictions survey of mobile industry professionals and practitioners.
• Nikhil Pahwa of MediaNama talks about the ongoing decline of text messaging in India.
• Antoine RJ Wright (writing for Mobile Ministry Magazine) reviews the potential role of mobile technology in education.
• Tomi Ahonen talks about the convergence of ‘megatrends’ and stressed that mobile is the greatest economic opportunity of our lifetime.
• Francisco Kattan examines Adobe’s decision to stop developing Flash for mobile browsers and wonders if the company can survive.
• Ajit Jaokar delves into the USA’s much-discussed ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ and asks whether we’re likely to see a compromise on SOPA with both sides of the debate finding an acceptable middle ground.
• James Coops at Mobyaffiliates compares the performance of admob – the global leader among mobile ad networks – with European contender mobfox.
• Volker Hirsch investigates the Angry Birds phenomenon. (A whopping 6.5 million apps were downloaded on Christmas Day alone.)
• MobileGroove guest columnist Scott Bown of Mubaloo tells developers to prepare themselves for the Kindle Fire, especially now the Amazon tablet is rumored to arrive in the UK this month.

Pick of the week goes to Caroline Lewko, CEO of the Wireless Industry Partnership Connector for making good sense with insightful predictions.

[READ COM #256 HERE]

This month we received a large number of submissions —covering the months of  November and December — making it just that little bit tougher to choose the outstanding blogs to include in this final line-up. So, here we go…

• Chetan Sharma leads the pack with a must-read post recounting the highlights of his 8th Mobile Breakfast Series event.
• Martin Wilson at Mobileweb Company has two worthwhile submissions. The first, a guest post on his company blog by Tina de Souza, provides recommendations to companies on how to address the retail crisis hitting the U.K. hard. In the second post Martin walks us through the basics of Google’s GoMo Initiative.
• Tomi Ahonen does his math to present us a gloomy prediction of what Nokia’s smartphone market share will likely be for 4Q2011.
• Carlo Longino over at WIP Connect submits a must-read practical post based on his recent interview with TouchType CMO Joe Braidwood. By way of background, TouchType’s SwiftKey is one of the leading paid Android apps in several markets, and has seen a huge amount of success despite having a relatively small marketing budget.
• Dave Olsen argues that ‘mobile’ is becoming a prefix when we talk about the Web.
• Mark Bridge over at TheFonecast.com brings us a valuable roundup of the CES Unplugged consumer electronics event in London.
• James Cameron catches up with mobile veteran and Head of Product Management for BlueVia.
• Antoine RJ Wright brings together a variety of perspectives in his blog post to explain why mobile fails to be a satisfying experience.
• Francisco Kattan is back with a post that analyzes Amazon and helps us understand the real essence of its competitive edge.
• Steven Hoober explains the need to design for every screen and think touch points, not devices.
• MobileGroove ends the year with two submissions. The first post builds on an interview with Atlas Premium (which made it’s debut in the recent Netsize Guide by Gemalto, a must-red mobile industry analysis and almanac you can download here for free). The second submission —from guest columnist Lisa Ciangiulli over at Optism —offers us an in-depth analysis of Starbucks’ mobile strategy.

Pick of the month goes to Tomi for his comprehensive —and somewhat controversial — analysis of issues at Nokia.

FINALLY,

Remember anyone can submit their best blog to the COM for consideration. Simply email your submission for the week to mobilists@gmail.com. If your post is selected, then the host will provide you a link to post share and tweet to your community.

Also : send in your image (thumbnail), your Twitter handle and a 50-100 word description of what you do. And don’t forget to follow the COM on Twitter (@TheMobilists) and spread the word!

[READ THE COM #255 HERE]

Weekly COM

Beginning in 2012 the COM is back to a weekly schedule. Please check the new schedule here, and let me know which dates you would like to host the COM in 2012.

Remember ANYONE ANYWHERE can submit their best blog to the COM for consideration. Simply email your submission for the week to mobilists@gmail.com. If your post is selected, then the host will provide you a link to post share and tweet to your community.

Hosting the COM is also a task with huge rewards. For one, there is the personal fulfillment that comes from leading  the mobile discussion on your site. I personally enjoy the opportunity to interact with friends/colleagues and forge ties with bloggers and voices impacting mobile at all levels. Nothing would please me more in 2012 than to see our community (currently some 100+ influential bloggers and thinkers) grow and flourish!

Our ‘founding fathers’ Russell Buckley and Carlo Longino started the COM in 2005 as a platform for ideas, insights and a way to ensure that the tide of mobile transformation lifts all boats. For this reason, the Carnival is hosted every week at a different site, a balanced approach that allows us to encourage variety, drive interest in the posts and benefit from the rise in traffic and visits that result.

New Look (!)

It’s a virtuous circle and a wonderful community! And now — thanks to Martin Wilson, leading mobile strategist, veteran Mobilist and founder of Mobileweb Company — we have a new website design and host. My personal and heartfelt thanks to Martin and his colleague Damian Stafford for your support. And my congratulations on all the good news around your company and its growing roster of clients!

The new site is matched by a new (and perhaps) overdue focus on featuring YOU, the Mobilists.

I want to promote your work, your services and your sites via COM, so please start off my sending me your image (thumbnail), your Twitter handle and a 50-100 word description of what you do.

I will add these to the site and proactively promote your participation in the COM using social media, as well as my position/influence as MobileGroove publisher/chief analyst & COM Coordinator (‘keeper of the tents’) to amplify your involvement and achievements

So PLEASE send me your images, handles and descriptions SOONEST.

The next weeks will see additional changes, including some long overdue changes to our modus operandi (replacing Google Groups, for example) and the launch of new ‘publications’ and alerts to help us all spread the word about what we read, do, organize and enjoy…

Twitter too

Finally, please follow us on Twitter (@TheMobilists) and spread the word!

None of us is as impactful as all of us — so let’s make it count!

I hope you will reach out to bloggers, companies and people passionate about mobile and encourage them to submit posts and join our community!

Thanks to everyone for your help and support — and please continue to contact me with your good ideas!!

• Martin Wilson at Mobileweb Company tells what can make —and break — your mobile strategy.
• Anne Thomas over at the Wapple blog makes a strong case for us to develop mobile-optimized websites, and supports this with some serious stats.
• Sacha Vekeman over at the Mobiya blog describes how Google is now providing Google Trader (which has launched in Ghana as a kind of copy-cat of Mobiya).
• Ajit Jaokar at Open Gardens shares his insights on what makes Smart Cities smart, and preps us for the massive changes afoot.
• Antoine RJ Wright talks about the opportunities in the market space emerging between tablets and smartphones and the services that might benefit.
• Rodrigo Arantes over at Apito e Mercado blog writes about the tensions in the OS wars and makes a plea for more open standards and open source projects.
• Alex Franks over on the Blyk blog discusses location based services and the fit with mobile marketing.
• Steve and Alison Hoober offer us a useful guide we can follow when integrating smartphone-related hand gestures into guidebooks and tutorials.
• Sachendra Yadav  anticipates the changes in the lives of people in Bangalore a few years from now when phones have NFC capability.
• Jonathan MacDonald explores attitudes (especially with the advertising industry) toward change is a thought-provoking blog aptly titled Change is the Enemy of the Competent.
• Peggy Anne Salz provides us the highlights of a recent Tweetchat with Tomi Ahonen and Paul Berney, CMO of the Mobile Marketing Association.

[READ THE COM#253 HERE]

Among our contributors:

• Richard Monson-Haefel at Ambient Strategic Mobility argues that tightly integrated mobile ecosystems à la iOS are the key to success for mobile platforms.
• Sachendra Yadav over at Technology, Mobility, Usability and other Musings analyzes UX issues in a popular iPhone RSS reader app.
• Andy Favell over at mobiThinking gives us his views on the city that makes the best use of mobile technology.
• James Coops at Mobyaffiliates argues that (for mobile publishers) Admob’s best days are behind it. Look out for mobfox (!)
• Helen Keegan at Musings of a mobile marketer looks at “App Overload” problem and the trouble we all have finding the apps we want (and appreciate)
• Peter-Paul Koch at quirksmode looks at the steps an OS owner or licensee must take to ensure the Web OS thrives and —ultimately — succeeds.
• Nikhil Pahwa at MediaNama shares recommendations for government regulators in India and a blueprint for a robust mobile services ecosystem.
• Peggy Anne Salz at MobileGroove interviews Ogilvy’s Rory Sutherland who tells marketers that the best way to get consumer’s attention is by providing real value.
• Charles Knight at MobileGroove profiles mobile search company Goby and takes the app out for a road test in the wild.
• Judy Breck via SmartMobs explores the real reason Martha’s Vineyard residents warmly welcome a visit from U.S. President Obama.
• Dennis Bournique at WAP Review provides us a review of the trending mobile media check in service GetGlue.
• Mark Bridge at the TheFoneCast brings us an in-depth interview with Neal Fullman, CEO of Get Taxi.

Dennis also offers his Pick of the Month and a special mention to our new Mobilist, Richard Monson-Haefel.

[READ THE COM #251 HERE]

This month’s line-up features:

• Martin Wilson weighs in with how and why directory providers need to wake-up and re-focus their strategy around mobile.
• Content Studios suggests that the best way to get mobile context right may be to simply ask the individual outright.
• David Rogers over at mobilephonesecurity.org outlines the procedural flaws and shortcomings that allow voicemails to be accessed (hacked) and suggests the best solution to this security issue to stop provisioning the service Ü full stop.
• Over at MobileGroove regular contributor and leading mobile marketer Jeff Hasen gives his take on the new Groupon Now offer and its likely impact.
• Neil Robertson over at Speed Communications takes a hard look at Facebook’s mobile strategy and sharp focus on the hundreds of millions of mobile Web users that use feature phones, not just smartphones.
• Bruce Burke via Mobile Payments Today provides an overview of the recent GSMA Mobile Money Summit held in Singapore.
• Veteran Mobilist Antoine Wright muses that his decision to donate his N97, a favorite and faithful companion, to an Indian friend is a gift that can transform lives. An emotional journey that takes a big-picture view of the power of mobile.
• Over at MobileGroove regular columnist and social media guru Ken Herron gives his views why you should not automate any part of your social media without understand what you are getting into.

Martin also draws our attention to some must-read white papers available for download from Chetan Sharma and the Mobileweb Company.

[READ THE COM #251 HERE]

Among the highlights:

• Tomi Ahonen delivers us a biting and truthful that asks us to put ourselves in the shoes of Stephen Elop. How would you run Nokia and what choices should you make. Take the quiz and let us know how YOU rate.
• James Coops at MobyAffiliates walks us through the fast-paced mobile advertising space and introduces us to some upstart startup mobile ad networks rising up the ranks.
• Antoine RJ Wright suggests that our tendency to act on impulse is not matched by the mobile phone UX. We need a rethink (!)
• Judy Breck (lead blogger over at Smart Mobs) calls our attention to the rise of online listening rooms in a succinct  post that summarizes a recent Wired article.
• Alex Franks over at Blyk joins the COM for the first time (welcome!) to share his views on where mobile advertising is — and what’s needed to move the dial on spend.
• We also welcome Nan Hickman over at Open Strategies. The post, which walks us through the recent Apple developer conference (WWDC), hones in on the iCloud announcement and what it really means for Apple (and us).
• Richard Monson-Haefel over at Ambient Consulting weighs in with a pair of posts focused on what flies (and fails) in mobility solutions
• Martin Wilson over at Mobileweb Company draws from recent industry reports and surveys to map out the opportunities in the emerging mobile retail/commerce space.

MobileGroove deep dives into Mobile Intel: Retail, a mobile intelligence report that draws from Millennial Media network data (data that was accumulated across 67 billion mobile impressions in 250 countries and territories) and consumer research conducted by comScore.

Andy Favell over at mobiThinking  connects the dots in recent developments to provide us an up-to-date look at NFC (Near Field Communications) progress worldwide.

Ajit Jaokar over at Open Gardens does us all a service by providing us an expertly curated list of Mobile Web influencers.

Remember ANYONE ANYWHERE can submit their best blog to the COM for consideration. If your post didn’t make this lineup, then I hope you will try again soon!

[READ COM #250 HERE]

Among the submissions:

• Sean Thompson, VP of Production at GOSUB 60, helps developers make the biggest decision of their business: how to monetize their app.
• James Coops from MobyAffiliates tells us what to consider when we weigh a decision around mobile affiliate marketing and asked if it is possible to make money in the first place.
• Russel Buckley, Chief Marketing Officer of Eagle Eye Solutions, outlines reasons why he believes mobile coupons will be the next Big thing. Despite the company promotion in the article, it is well worth a read
• Ajit Jaokar, veteran Mobilist and founder of the London based publishing and research company futuretext posted a thought provoking piece about mobile operator business model arguing that the two-sided model doesn’t apply.
• Peggy Anne Salz, Chief Analyst and Founder of MobileGroove (and also the ‘kkeper of the tents here at the COM) shares practical advice on marketing to the Digital Natives.  Peggy’s contribution is based on extensive primary research she conducted on the topic (and published in the new book, Dancing With Digital Natives):
• James Rosewell, Technical Wizzard at The Fonecast, tells us why Microsoft would do well to just buy Nokia and get it over.
• Aurélien Fonteneau, mobile media & marketing enthusiast, also zeroes in on Microsoft, proving a detailed roundup of new capabilities in Windows Phone 7.
• Dennis Bournique of the WAP Review attended the Meego conference and shares his views on what he saw, heard, and sorely missed.
• Volker Hirsh, Chief Strategy Office at Scoreloop and co-founder of Blue-Beck takes a close look at the evolving role of the game publisher – from the traditional console game days to today’s mobile distribution.
•  Richard Monson-Haefel, VP of Mobility at Ambient Consulting, recounts why mobile is a mega-disrupter and coins a new term we will likely see/hear more of: Omni-Mobility.

Find out Franciso’s Pick of the Month and peruse all the posts.

[READ COM #249 HERE]