The AppCircus jury was announced yesterday and yours truly will be taking part as one of the judges. More information below and the deadline is 7th June so get your application in now!

Present your app at the Mobile 2.0 Europe Developer Conference for FREE!

Mobile 2.0 Europe is proud to host the AppCircus - a unique global traveling showcase of innovative apps!

Participation is FREE and open to start ups and individual developers, so apply now to the AppCircus@Mobile 2.0 Europe in Barcelona June 17th 2010 and walk the high-wire!

Deadline for submission is June 7th, midnight local time CET.

Developers, here’s what you get if you apply:

- The chance to get your app reviewed by an international jury of mobile industry experts
- Pitch your app at AppCircus @ Mobile 2.0 Europe in front of industry experts on June 17th in Barcelona (10 apps will be selected), and win a nomination for the prestigious Mobile Premier Awards 2011, during the Mobile World Congress
- Present your app at Mobile Apps Investment Forum on June 18th in Barcelona, and the opportunity to get funding for your app business.

Mobile Thinkers Debate Effective Publishing Models In Era Of Smartphones And iPads; Countdown To Premier M-Publishing Conference

For media enquiries, please contact:
Peggy Anne Salz
Email: peggy@msearchgroove.com
Mobile: +49 172 245 1028

LONDON, U.K. and COLOGNE, Germany – May 28, 2010 – Does the iPad represent an opportunity or a threat to content companies? Can print publishing survive? What are the monetization models that will guarantee sustainable mass-market success? These are just a few of the hot topics media companies, analysts and attendees will debate during M-PUBLISHING (London, June 1), a conference that combines an array of formats, sessions and provocative one-on-one debates to identify winning business models and encourage alliances that will deliver positive results.

In the countdown to this high-caliber event conference organizer Camerjam has teamed with MSearchGroove, the source of commentary and analysis on mobile marketing, mobile search and social media to produce a special podcast interview with Paul Reddick, CEO of Handmark. In this exclusive interview, which debuts today on MSearchGroove, Reddick urges publishers to acknowledge the impact of device and platform fragmentation on their future business.

“Publishers need to be where their customers are. It’s not just the iPhone or the iPad. You [publishers] must build rich applications that take advantage of what all these devices can do,” Reddick says in an exclusive interview with Peggy Anne Salz, MSearchGroove chief analyst and founder. “It’s not enough to have a good brand and a great app. Publishers also need to seek partners that actively drive distribution of their apps and monetization of their business.”

Other speakers at M-PUBLISHING include: representatives from leading U.K. daily newspapers (Guardian, Mirror, Evening Standard, Mail, FT), global magazine publishers (IPC Media, Bauer Media, Contagious Magazine), and book publishers (HarperCollins, Ether Books). Digital media experts from Sky, Absolute Radio will also present their key learnings and Teletext Mobile will use the event to demo its new iPad application for free newspaper the Metro.

To identify industry concerns and gauge interest in issues such as advertising-funded schemes and the rift between mobile applications and mobile websites Camerjam has also conducted an informal online poll of practitioners and professionals. The survey, which is still ongoing, has provided some interesting initial findings:

• Is there a future for print publishing? Yes 77% (357 votes), No 23% (109 votes)

• Apps vs. mobile websites ? Apps 74% (201 votes), Mobile websites 26% (72 votes)

• Is ad funded or paid content more sustainable? Ad funded 48% (32 votes), Paid 52% (35 votes)

“While 74 percent of respondents favored apps over mobile websites, those with app capable phones represent a small but growing part of the market,” notes James Cameron, Camerjam founder. “Mobile websites are an extremely important part of any publishers’ strategy if they want to address their complete customer base. Marks and Spencer this week launched an m-commerce mobile website to deal with this exact issue.”

MSearchGroove proudly showcases premier industry events and conferences worldwide. “Mobile is becoming the remote control of our lives and the mass medium that sits at the center of all we do,” Salz says. “Therefore MSearchGroove proactively promotes events at this critical intersection of content and context. In addition to media sponsorships, MSG produces interviews and podcasts free of charge for select event partners to boost profile and drive results.” Event organizers are encouraged to contact MSearchGroove and discuss collaboration and promotional partnerships.

About MSearchGroove
At the intersection of content and context
Peggy Anne Salz is the Chief Analyst and Founder of MSearchGroove (MSG), a top 50 influential technology site* providing analysis and commentary on mobile search, mobile advertising, and social media. She also leads a team of committed mobile authorities to produce bespoke research, white papers, thought leadership columns & commentary, sponsored podcasts, and editorial content for the mobile industry. Her report, “Mobile Search & Content Discovery,” was regarded as the first in-depth study of its kind, establishing Peggy as an authority on mobile search and content discovery technologies, enabling media companies and mobile operators to monetize content and services. Her most recent series of practical how-to white papers covers the basics of mobile advertising and mobile analytics, earning her a reputation as a leading mobile advertising expert. Her published work, which includes more than 300 articles on the mobile industry, has appeared in magazines and online destinations such as The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, Mobile Entertainment, New Media Age, and in the Agile Minds column in EContent magazine, among many more.
For more information, please visit www.msearchgroove.com.

About Camerjam
Camerjam is a conference and events company with a passion for all things mobile. We specialise in bringing together top executives and the brightest minds in the mobile industry to deliver real learning opportunities for all participants. By consistently coming up with new and innovative conference formats, Camerjam events not only promote enhanced networking opportunities and idea exchange, but crucially, create environments where business deals can be brokered.
For more information, please visit www.camerjam.com

The launch of the iPad in the UK has major publishers salivating, but an in-house ad sales rethink is needed to maximise ad revenues. As with the birth of any new medium, specialist agencies spring up to sell ads for the innovators and to evangelise to everyone else - just look at the burgeoning smartphone market.

The problem for new ad formats, particularly on mobile, is campaigns tend to be either small-scale tests or tacked onto wider activity as an afterthought. If you’re a publishing salesperson your energies will be directed towards selling high-value campaigns, and the same is true for an agency planning and buying inventory. The current commission structure is a huge constraint for mobile advertising and will be on the iPad, after an initial goldrush.

Despite specialist agencies positioning themselves as iPad experts, the market is in its infancy. The concept of highly engaging in-app advertising is well understood, and a realisation that there’s more to ads than banners makes the case for an incentivised and integrated in-house mobile sales team clear.

For a publisher to integrate mobile and the iPad into their existing ad sales teams, incentives need to be sufficient to guarantee sales of prime inventory which will help grow the industry. However, this must be coupled with an ad network strategy that ensures their entire mobile and iPad real estate gets sold. Failing that, there’s always iAd.

The recent Association of Online Publishers (AOP) census showed that mobile has jumped to the top of the priority list for 2010. In terms of investment this year, mobile was most important with 75 percent of AOP members identifying it as the top priority ahead of cros-media (53 percent) and audience development (47 percent).

In addition, the census revealed that the biggest challenge for publishers in 2010 was mobile and apps (51.4 percent), ahead of ROI measurement (41.2 percent) and database development (40.5 percent).

These figures just continue to show the increasing importance of mobile as a medium. The hackneyed phrase ‘the year of mobile’ has been constantly touted in the industry since the birth of the ringtone industry, but 2010 is certainly looking like a great year handheld devices