It was great fun moderating a panel discussion on mobile social networking as part of MoMoVan May 2008. Fun bantering with Jim Udall, Jeff LaPorte and David Vogt!

Some random points:

• I loved David's vigorous defense of Vancouver and his wonderful case for mobile innovation in Vancouver no need to move to Asia! Perhaps our "mobile crisis" is a temporary aberration as I blurted out at one point? Vancouver does have a lot going on: great educational institutions, great social and cultural scenes, great weather and great public spaces (at least in the city of Vancouver, not much in the suburbs but this will change).
• The crowd at MoMoVan with a few glaring exceptions isn't really into social mobile networking. Not too much mobile real time blogging, twittering or facebooking or qik video or real time flickr-ing or whatever going on at the MoMoVan events I've attended. At least that's my sense. Prove me wrong! Twitter me (rtanglao) or leave a comment!
• The crowd at MoMoVan is into the traditional one-way web and old skool two way stuff like email, IM and posting pictures in non real time. I know because I took a poll at the start of the panel
• Mobile provides context
• Mobile can be socially enlivening public spaces instead of distancing or cocooning
• The discussion was recorded by Bruce Sharpe. Hopefully he'll post the video soon

I'm helping a wee bit with the re-launch on October 1st in a more informal style like Steph and Bryan did for the original Mobile Monday Vancouver way back in January 2006. Register today, it's free; see you at Granville Island Brewing Company at Granville Island on October 1st at 6p.m!
From MOBILE MONDAY VANCOUVER, October 1, 2007 | Bryght:

QUOTE

Roland Tanglao is helping organize MoMoVan October 2007! (event on upcoming)

Every first Monday of the month 100 of the smartest local minds will share their ideas in places that we all love. The new WINBC Mobile Monday Vancouver (MoMoVan) starting Monday, October 1st is going back to its grass roots origins. FROM HELSINKI’S MOMO GLOBAL SUMMIT TO VANCOUVER’S LOCAL INNOVATORS Are you an interested, opinionated developer, entrepreneur, CEO, Ph.D or student ready to share with others your thoughts, ideas, and solutions around our local wireless industry and Web 2.0 community? Are you ready to have fun? How about free pizza, free beer (1st round), and free parking? We have listened to people like you and developed an event that YOU want:

* To enable an open conversation that is relevant to the wireless and Web 2.0 community in Vancouver and BC

* To facilitate opportunities for casual networking, identifying local talent, building strategic partnerships and business development

* To promote local innovation and collaboration in the wireless and Web 2.0 industry from small start-ups to large companies to research labs

* To have FUN

** You must register, even if you are not paying a fee, by Friday, September 28, 2007. **

END QUOTE

[Cross posted from MoMo Van]

Mobile Monday Vancouver May 2006 last night at Take 5 was an eclectic potpourri of topics and very lively conversation. Here are my highlights:

Matthew Snyder of Nokia is a former big wig of Nokia Search but has now moved on to other cool projects in Nokia. His current job is in Helsinki but he's based in Vancouver! Talk about a commute. He was a lively and fascinating conversationalist. Matthew demoed the Nokia/Yahoo Search app on his N70 together with some cool Canadian local integration which has not yet been released but I can't wait until it does. And I hope Matthew will start blogging!

Jim Pick showed off his 2 (!) Nokia 770s that he picked up when he was living in Berkley. The 770 is an awesome WiFi mini tablet (would be better if Gizmo and Skype were bundled!). I really wish it was sold in Canada. Anyways Jim who recently moved back to Vancouver has worked on the ARM port of Linux, Xen Virtualization and the Kaffe Java virtual machine. Jim's a great addition to the mobile community. Welcome back Jim!

Carlo of Upside Wireless discussed their SMS related work with the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale and plans for the IPIPI SMS engine

Duff Gardner of New Media BC's Mobile Muse project gave us the skinny about the upcoming mobile related talks at Vidfest (I wish there was a schedule for Vidfest 2006 that I could link to, but until then here's the Vidfest 2006 Speaker list) as well as some insight into the new World Centre for Digital Entertainment that New Media BC is working on.

Patrick Payne, ex of Mobile Operandi/Mophone/3GUPLOAD and Ericsson, was also a lively conversationalist. He spoke about the Wireless lab that will be part of the World Centre and the plans for taking MoMoVan to the next level after learning from the mother ship at the Mobile Monday Global Summit May 8th and May 9th, 2006 in Helsinki, Finland.

Speaking of the MoMo Summit, Steph Rieger (who along with Bryan has done 99% of the MoMoVan organizing, I just pontificate and blog :-) !) will be there with Patrick and is also hoping to learn from the MoMo Mothership. She and Bryan also discussed Flash Lite as well their ideas for a Bluetooth server.

I of course pontificated about the greatness of ShoZu (my ShoZu pics and videos) the N70 Nokia Blogger Relations program and how I was saving for my own N93 dream phone (3x optical zoom, 30fps video!)

John Goodall of LiteFeeds (a cool mobile RSS reader) made a brief appearance and then mysteriously left (work or family called I bet). Come back John!

Finally, we spent a long time discussing the next MoMoVan which will be Monday June 5th at a venue to be determined and what the next phase of MoMoVan looks like. If you are interested in helping shape and influence Mobile Monday Vancouver, it's never too late. Sign up for the Yahoo Grooup MoMoVan group and get your skin in the game! Looking for organizers, speakers, and sponsors! Looking forward to hearing from you!

See you in June!

Watch the Video

More great discussion at the March 2006 MoMoVan tonight. Check out the video above of Steph's presentation (well 30 seconds of it anyway on Visual Radio) as well as the flickr photos and the coverage on the official MoMoVan site.

The secret to mobile photo uploading is indeed Shozu (and an unlimited mobile data plan!). Thanks Bryan! And demoing Shozu at the Feb 2006 MoMoVan was fun!