Category Archives: ctia-2008

CTIA 2008: GoMo News on Wheels!

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Another CTIA has come and gone. What a great week! It’s been a great pleasure to work with Bena Roberts at GoMo News these last couple of months and bring GoMo News on Wheels! to life along with creating and launching GoMo’s new look in time for “the conference formerly known as 3GSM”. The new logo and site have been well received by GoMo’s readers and clients which is happy news.

For GoMo News on Wheels! we went from zero to a great production in one month. That’s astonishing. And it was hectic. We couldn’t have done it without the help of a number of people.

GoMo News on Wheels! was an ambitious undertaking. The idea required the right devices to capture quality video, software that could stream the video live and be fault tolerant in the inconsistent environment of the mobile network. We needed enough bandwidth to transfer video at 30 frames per second. And beyond this we planned to record interviews not the 30 to 60 second clips that most people record. In short, we pushed all the parts of the technology to it’s limits and beyond. And of course, we needed wheels.

What made GoMo News on Wheels! a success were our sponsors and technology providers. And I’d like to introduce you to them and reveal their heroic contributions.

First was Nokia. We put in a request with a very short response time for 3 to 5 devices adequate for capturing the videos. The newly minted Social Media Communications group, namely Charlie Schick and Ray Haddow responded quickly and I received 3 brand new N95 8GB-4s. The video quality is amazing and the automatic light and image adjustments made it possible to capture the SnapNow demo. I spoke with Mark Squires about the new team he leads and Nokia’s own social media production.

Next, we needed the software and service for streaming. I spoke to a couple of service providers, but Flixwagon stepped up immediately. They understood the production, our goals and shared my excitement and enthusiasm for putting the mobile industry in motion. To support us Flixwagon provided the SIMs we needed to access ATT 3G network. The whole Flixwagon team was amazingly responsive. Here are the highlights of their heroic efforts in support of GoMo News on Wheels!

  • Sarig Reichert traveled to Las Vegas just to ensure our successful capture of interviews
  • Xen Mendelsohn brought the production to the attention of the company and did lots of hand holding with me even when it was 11PM in Tel Aviv
  • Flixwagon’s developers went into overdrive to develop an updated client for us, and to producethe sexy hot event page for CTIA

That’s an amazing level of support from a tiny startup who is busy creating the bleeding edge solution for Social Media. You guys rock!

And then there was the late night technical service call to the RV by Cradlepoint’s Gary Olivero, founder and VP of Marketing. Gary wasn’t only gracious in the party atmosphere, but kind when responding to a user issue. I love this product and will expand on it’s capabilities in a future post. Gary was scheduled for an interview but Cradlepoint’s success at CTIA prevented us from finding a time to talk. Thanks, Gary!

 

We are thrilled to be supported by pioneering companies including: JumpTap, MCN, Smaato,Airwide Solutions and SnapNow.

Finally, GoMo News on Wheels! would never have been conceived had Paul Smith of mPulse not shared a meal with me following the Insiders by Dealmaker Media. Paul and mPulse put GoMo News “on Wheels.” Paul has been a source of inspiration, collaboration and humor when it was needed most. The RV was provided by mPulse, as well as the spark that launched GoMo News on Wheels!

Check out all the videos at http://www.flixwagon.com/cita/

TechCrunch50 and CTIA

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TechCrunch50The second annual TechCrunch conference, TechCrunch50,  is set to debut 52 startups next week in San Francisco.  Along with the startups, TechCrunch has planned an amazing line up speakers from Silicon Valleyand Hollywood.  The conference is content rich with the schedule for each of the three days, September 8 -10, running from 7:30 AM to 6:30 PM.The schedule for TechCrunch50 has just been released today and the details are availableI attended and covered TechCrunch40 last year and it was an outstanding 1st time conference with interesting companies on stage and in the demo pit.   This year will be even bigger and better.  The Demo Pit allows companies already launched or who didn’t make the cut for stage appearance during TechCrunch50 to demonstrate their products.  A new addition this year is the Exhibit Hall.  TechCrunch50 Exhibit Hall will feature 23 early stage companies and will be located in the West Hall of the venue at The San Francisco Design Center Concourse.MobileJones coverage of TechCrunch50 will include a collection of feeds from Twitter, Qik and Flickr by those attending the conference.  MobileJones will, also, feature video streaming powered by Mogulus and Qik.  If you are attending TechCrunch50 and would like to be added to our feed of feeds, send an email to mojo _at_ mobilejones dot com.   The TechCrunch50 site for MobileJones will be launched tomorrow morning and the site plus the streaming video next week are sponsored by Mogulus, Cradlepoint, Qik, Winksite and Windows Mobile.CTIA Fall 2008Intersecting with TechCrunch50 is CTIA FAll in San Francisco September 10 – 12.  Some of the special events around CTIA are on the schedule for mobilejones.  Showstoppers which hosts invitation only events at both CTIA and CES along with MobileFocus produced by Pepcom always offer great demos of the newest devices, applications and technologies.Are you attending CTIA next week?  Then check outEric Chan’s CTIA Party List to fill your social calendar.To get ready for the coverage of TechCrunch50 next week check back here tomorrow for the preview of TC50 @ mobilejones.com.  The URL will launch at http://tc50.mobilejones.com during the day tomorrow. The link will be live when the site is live.