CTIA 2008: GoMo News on Wheels!

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!

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