Mass Mobile Month

This post was written by Matt Fellows and originally appeared at BostInnovation on March 19; republished by permission.

Boston continued to define itself as a technology hub when it was announced by Mayor Menino on Tuesday that the city of Boston was awarded top honors twice from the Public Institute of Technology (PIT). Recognized were Boston’s iPhone app, Citizens Connect, and GIS (geospatial information system) Data Hub.

The PIT is a non-profit organization based in Washington D.C. focused on promoting and perfecting the use of technology in local government. Backed by federal, governmental, and industrial organizations, the PIT makes it their business to learn the newest technology solutions and share these with the local governments of the nation.

The PIT also recognizes local governments for technological achievements in government affairs, and as a Bostonian I’m proud to report that Boston took gold in the Web and E-Government category, as well as the award in GIS. Read more…

This post originally appeared at BostInnovation on March 16; republished by permission.

If your grandmother is anything like mine, she’s probably still watching the same photos you loaded into the digital photo frame you gave her as a gift four years ago.

Last week, I got a chance to sit down with Matthew Growney, the CEO of Concord-based Isabella Products, to talk about Isabella’s first mobile-enabled gadget: The Vizit

What’s more, I got to play with a prototype version!

The Vizit is going to be released on March 23 at next week’s CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas, Nev. Essentially, it’s what digital photo frames should have been when they Read more…

This post was written by Jonathan Kardos and originally appeared at BostInnovation on March 11, 2010; republished by permission.

I’m sick of living a lie.

I’m sick of pretending to know which wines to pick. In fact, I’m also sick of butchering French pronunciations. Ka-berr-NAY SOH-vi-YON anyone?

If you’re anything like me, you love a good wine but you’re definitely not a snob. And you don’t have the time or patience to acquire all the knowledge necessary to navigate wine racks or read wine lists with complete confidence.

Wine novices of the world,  there’s an iPhone app to solve your worries.

Co-founder Jim McNamee of Massachusetts-based Hello Vino says the app is designed to help the “average wine consumer who might have trouble making Read more…

This post was written by Erin Kutz and originally appeared at Xconomy on March 12; republished by permission.

So the iPhone may be the prettiest, the Blackberry may boast the biggest smartphone market share, and the Windows Mobile platform is, um, around, but it’s Android that’s best for developing apps. Or at least it was the Android developers who best defended their platform at the smartphone smackdown during our Mobile Madness event on Tuesday.

The event was a big success, featuring a look at the future of the mobile industry both locally and globally, a panel of executives dishing on what we can look forward to in the next year, and keynote speakers touching on voice recognition, data storage, and Windows’ share in the smartphone world. More than 200 people crammed into Microsoft’s New England Research & Development Center for the forum. (Check out our slide show here.)

I think the purpose of the smackdown was best summed up in the words of referee John Landry, founder and managing director of Lead Dog Ventures: “The objective here is really to dump on the other platforms.”

To achieve that, we invited developers and others passionate about app creation to step up and represent the iPhone, Google’s Android, BlackBerry, and Windows. The audience decided by a raising of hands that the Android guys did the best job representing their platform. The congratulations goes to Read more…

This post was written by Jennie White and was originally published at BostInnovation on March 10; republished by permission.

Guess what Boston? We’re in line to be one of the first cities with 4G-network coverage for mobile devices.

On Tuesday, March 9, Xconomy held a forum called Mobile Madness-The New Future of Computing. I got the chance to sit in on the Executive Panel: New Gadgets, New Infrastructure, New Business Models. The panel included Walt Doyle, CEO of uLocate; Steve Krom, VP/GM of New England AT&T; Greg Raiz, CEO of Raizlabs; and Dan Olschwang, CEO of Jumptap.

The panel kicked off with an in-depth discussion of mobile networks, specifically, conversation about the how the technology powering your cell phone signal is improving. With 4G networks, we’ll get more wi-fi integration, bandwidth and speed. What does this mean for  your cell phone? Faster application downloads and fewer calls dropped.

Faster downloads mean more applications.

In February of this year, TechCrunch reported 150,00 apps in Apple’s app store; there are thousands of other apps for the Palm, Android and Blackberry platforms. Greg Raiz of Raizlabs made a good point; in comparison to the number of websites that provide services like apps, there aren’t that many mobile applications yet. He predicts that, similar to when everyone had to have a business card or a website, soon everyone is going to need a Read more…

This post was written by Jennie White and originally appeared at BostInnovation on March 9; republished by permission.

We’re obsessed with all kinds of things here at BostInnovation; robots, Twitter, YouTube videos, augmented reality, foosball, and especially our cell phones. We’re an office full of mobile users, texting, photo uploading, and gaming, and we’ve taken our mobile activity to a whole new level this month because it’s Mass Mobile Month.

On Monday March 8, the BostInnovation team attended Mobile Monday Boston, a quarterly event that allows companies specializing in mobile products and technology to present their products to a huge local audience.

Organizers Matt Gross and Kate Imbach put on an impressive event last night or should I say “battle?” That’s right the lines were drawn between the U.K. and the U.S. to see who had the coolest mobile companies. It can’t really get much geekier then that, can it?

In case you missed the event, here is quick a recap of the companies who presented and a look at what they do: Read more…

This article originally appeared at Xconomy on March 9, 2010; republished by permission.

Venture investments in Boston-area mobile technology companies decreased in both volume and value in 2009, plummeting to levels not seen since 2005. But payouts from mergers and acquisitions hit a record level, raising overall deal flow to an unprecedented $1.5 billion, according to data compiled by Mobile Monday Boston.

Venture investing started out strong in 2009, according to the report, with $208 million invested in the first quarter. But investors couldn’t keep up the pace. They doled out only $24 million in the third quarter and $40 million in the fourth quarter.

By year’s end, venture capital firms had handed out only $339 million, a decrease of 40 percent from 2008′s record figure of $565 million. The total number of companies in the region receiving venture funding also fell, from 45 in 2008 to 32 in 2009.

The drops—which were paralleled in other sectors, and likely reflect the venture industry’s own travails rather than any fundamental decrease in venture-fundable innovation—brought an abrupt end to Read more…

This post was written by Jennie White and was originally published at BostInnovation on February 26; republished by permission.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Boston is one of the hottest places globally for mobile development. With Steve Jobs’ recent announcement of Apple’s new iPad and the release of Google’s Nexus One phone, Bostonians are seeing a shift in lifestyle and technology due to evolving mobile devices.

Perhaps sooner than we realize, we’ll depend entirely on our mobile devices; desktop computers and laptops will be a thing of the past. Or as Mobile Monday founder Matt Gross predicts “the term mobile will become obsolete.”

So why mobile and why Boston?

I sat down with Gross recently to get a better grasp of where Boston’s mobile scene has come and where it’s going.

Gross is a mobile pioneer — he was on the local scene before mobile meant the big money we associate it with today, and yes, before the iPod. (Shocker, I know. There was life before the iPhone.) He credits Boston for being so mobile-developed because of places like MIT and collaborators like the Google Android development team in Cambridge.

Gross has become the face of mobile in Boston because Read more…

This article was written by Jonathan Kardos and originally appeared at BostInnovation on February 25, 2010; republished by permission.

Last week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft surprised the tech world by unveiling the Windows Phone 7 Series mobile operating system (WP7S). Despite the funny name, the operating system itself is poised to be a seriously fresh and exciting new contender in the mobile space.

We’ve previously written about Boston’s bustling mobile scene. Given the area’s unique demographics and massive student population, Beantown might just be Microsoft’s perfect testing ground for WP7S; a mobile tech microcosm of sorts.

Microsoft’s WP7S will definitely love Boston.

With Microsoft N.E.R.D. in town — it’s one of the biggest offices Microsoft has outside of their Redmond, Wash., corporate headquarters — Boston could see a little love.

One approach might be to distribute devices to a select group of testers (I’d be happy to help compile that list, haha). We’ve got tons of busy, bright, and tech-savy students and young professionals here that can serve as Read more…

The Ad Club, the leading trade organization for the marketing, advertising, and communications industry in New England, has a great online video series called The Big Orange Couch. It’s named after the colorful settee where Kathy Kiely, the Ad Club’s president, interviews local figures. I was thrilled to have a chance to tell Kathy earlier this week about Mass Mobile Month. (As you’ll see, the couch was actually red this time, as we did the interview at downtown advertising firm Arnold rather than the Ad Club’s offices.) The video is online here; I also urge you to check out the Ad Club’s extensive, resource-rich website.

I’d like to thank Kathy Kiely and Ad Club executive assistant and video producer Marsha MacEachern for inviting me to do the interview.

This post was submitted by David Hughson, vice-consul and trade & investment officer for the British Consulate-General Boston.

UK Trade & Investment is excited to be hosting a delegation of UK-based mobile technology companies to Boston as part of Mass Mobile Month. A group of eight innovative companies with diverse technologies across the wireless industry spectrum are looking for business opportunities, exposure, and partnership—and they’re looking to Massachusetts to make it happen.

These eight companies offer exciting products and services—but most of all, they represent the best and brightest of UK technology.  With platforms for everything from mobile healthcare to mobile banking, advertising to social media, these companies are well positioned to take the mobile market in the US by storm.

Check out the brief company snapshots below, and keep an eye out for them at next week’s events with:

• Mobile Monday Boston—UK vs US mobile demos http://www.momoboston.com/2010/02/23/uk-vs-us-mobile-demos/
• Xconomy—Mobile Madness — The New Future of Computing http://xconomyforum18.eventbrite.com/

• The Ad Club—Breakfast with UK Mobile Media Innovators
• MITX—Across the Pond Showcase: Mobile technologies in the UK http://www.mitx.org/events/2151.cfm

We want to thank Xconomy and Mobile Monday Boston, who have been amazing supporters of this delegation. If you would like to Read more…

This post originally appeared at Xconomy; republished by permission.

On the third official day of Mass Mobile Month, we’re extremely pleased to unveil the official Mass Mobile Month iPhone app. Created by Swift Mobile of Cambridge, MA, and available at no cost through Apple’s iTunes App Store, the app includes the full list of Mass Mobile Month events, as well as a map guiding you to the events, along with information about transportation options and local businesses around the event venues.

There’s even a built-in social media client that lets you post updates about the events to your Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn accounts, with hash tags pre-supplied. If you’ve got an iPhone or an iPod Touch, I urge you to download the app, try it out, and tell your friends about it.

Swift Mobile founder and CEO Kathleen Gilroy demonstrated the Mass Mobile Month app at Monday’s meeting of the Web Innovators Group at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge. The gatekeepers at Apple finally approved the app yesterday.

Last week I talked at length Gilroy and got the inside story about Swift Mobile—which is out to Read more…

This post was contributed by Tom Hopcroft, President and CEO of the Mass Technology Leadership Council.

One reason the Mass Tech Leadership Council and MassNetComms decided to combine forces last fall was to bring all the mobile players under one roof and give this growing and critically important sector the boost it needs – with average people both inside and outside Massachusetts; with the press and policy leaders; and with tech people themselves.  That’s why we’re so excited to join in the Mobile Month effort and to help promote this region as one of the world’s leading wireless hubs.

As others have already posted here, the Boston area, on a per capita basis, is arguably home to more mobile investment than any region in the country. And yet we still struggle for the recognition we deserve. Why is that important? The more we’re seen as a wireless hub, the more likely it is that our best talent will stay, that new talent will locate here, and that capital will flow to our most promising companies. And if we believe that mobile represents not just the evolution of the phone but, as Wade and others have argued, the next wave of computing, then this is  enormously important. If we miss out on this opportunity, then Read more…

This post originally appeared at Xconomy; republished by permission.

March 2010 is Mass Mobile Month, a celebration of mobile technology innovation in New England. Who says so? Xconomy and the 22 other local organizations that have banded together to highlight the remarkable string of mobile-related events happening around town in March. Actually, the fun started in mid-February and will continue into early April—but today, the 1st of March, is the perfect moment to call attention to the initiative, and to remind everyone about the wealth of learning networking opportunities coming up in the next few weeks.

The roster of Mass Mobile Month events this month is long and growing. If you check out the full list, you’ll see that there’s something for everyone, from an anime film screening to a showcase of UK mobile companies to a scholarly meeting on virtual and augmented reality technology. And of course, we hope you’ll sign up to attend Xconomy’s own big event, Mobile Madness: The New Future of Computing, set for March 9.

There are two big mobile events happening this very night. Unfortunately they’re at the same time, so you have to choose one or the other. The first is Read more…