There’s been the move to Google, which has taken my eye off the ball. Google are (as you might expect) enlightened about employees blogging, providing that they make it clear that it’s their opinion, not Google’s – please note But sometimes it’s hard not to be conscious that people might interpret what I write as “Well you would say that, you Corporate Drone…” or read bias into a post where none exists. I’m still trying to get my head around this, so watch this space.

Other reasons include too much travel – blogging is the first thing to get ditched – holidays and just, well…life, I guess.

One way to get back in touch with anyone who is still kind enough to be reading MobHappy is to update you on my Autumn/Fall plans and to say that I hope to meet you at one of the events I’m going to be at. It’s still an evolving plan, but here goes:

Burning Man. This hasn’t much to do with mobile directly, though lots of geeks generally, as well as Mobilists and Mobsessives seem to go to hang out in the Nevada desert for a week in early September. If you haven’t heard about the legendary Burning Man, you should check it out – this video is a great intro. It’s a combination of art, bacchanalia and communal living, with a temporary city of 50,000 people being constructed in the middle of nowhere, where everything needs to be taken in (including water and supplies) and where trading or buying anything is forbidden – it’s a gifting economy.

At this stage, I intend to write something after the event, although the original “what happens in Vegas…” saying was actually about Burning Man, before being appropriated by the Nevada tourism people. So I may well change my mind on that.

If you’re going, or know anyone else who’s going, let’s get in touch and hang out at the Playa.

After that it’s back to work (yes, the Burning Man is a holiday thing for me). This includes speaking at:

The Vail Summit – a leading conference on tourism in Colorado

DMEXCO – Germany’s main Digital Marketing exhibition and conference on 15th and 16th September

Judging the final of the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition in Amsterdam. The jury includes multi-faceted M-Trends’ Rudy De Waele, the Peter Vesterbacka, who also wears many hats these days, as well as the legendary Om Malik of GigaOm, who I’m very much looking forward to meeting for the first time. With Euro 150,000 up for grabs in prizes, check it out!

At the end of September, I’m in South Africa for Mobile Web Africa, which promises to be a great one. Africa has always been a leading market for usage of mobile web and there’s no sign that the growth is doing anything but getting faster.

5th and 6th October seems the MMA’s Forum return to London after last year’s excellent agenda in Berlin. Building on that, we have a whole host of world class brands speaking about their mobile experiences. If you haven’t been to a Forum for a while, the days of vendors evangelising to each other are long gone, reflecting that mobile is no longer a wannabe, but a doin’it business.

I’ll be chairing a panel consisting of the great and the good from the agency world and it’ll be my last appearance as Global Chairman Emeritus of the MMA.

October also sees me speaking at Open Software in Mobile in London, along with a whole bunch of Mobilists. Looks like it’s going to be a great one too.

I’m pretty busy going into November and December, but that’s probably enough for the time being. I hope to see you at one or some of these and if you’re coming, please come and say Hi.

Just wanted to write that I’m in London next week for 3 interesting speaking events – all different, but all very interesting.

Monday sees me chairing a very distinguished panel at MoMo London, which consists of Neil Johnson from Teletext,
Dave Gwozdz from Mojiva (one of the event sponsors), Jason DaPonte from the BBC, David Gibbs from BSkyB and Hugh Griffiths, who is pursuing a portfolio career these days, but found fame and fortune at O2 and Microsoft. Our topic is “Where Mobile Meets Media” and in the best crowd-sourcing tradition, let me know if you have any questions you’d like me to pose to the panel. MoMo is already over-subscribed, so if you haven’t got a ticket, you’ll need to try bribery or start a secondary market on eBay.

On Wednesday, I have a slot at ME Magazine’s “Monetising Mobile”, which consists of a lightening series of 10 minute presentations, so no room to waffle. I’ll be speaking about ‘Commercial break – The reality of ad-funded apps’ – basically talking about the engine room of App development, which is how you make money.

As an aside, ME Magazine does a brilliant job (no, I’m not being sycophantic!) of balancing humour with mobile news and comment. It sets standards that other trade magazines need to aspire too, providing they wish to entertain, as well as inform. And making content fun to read has to be a winning strategy over traditional dry reportage.

On Thursday, we move on to The Open Mobile Summit, which has a seriously good line-up of speakers, including many old pals. I’m doing a panel on “Mobile advertising in 2011″, chaired by comScore’s excellent Mark Donovan. Back in the day when they were M:Metrics, I wrote a post calling them “The Elvis of Analysts” after a briefing with Mark and I think that’s still true all these years later.

So – a busy week and I hope to see some MobHappy readers at one of these events. If you are attending, please come and say Hi and tell me what you’re up to. Both Carlo and I love to meet readers and followers, so don’t hold back.

Tomi’s Almanac is one of the most comprehensive data sources about all things mobile and it’s a must-buy item for…well, almost anyone who works in mobile. It’s got everything you need to know about handset sales and market sizes throughout the world, key facts on music and mobile, all you need to know about mobile gaming, mobile advertising, the best mobile blogs (pleased to see MobHappy included) and even key milestones in the industry. Did you know that 2004 was the year that there were more mobile subscribers than credit card owners?

Tomi’s Almanac is not available in the shops, as they say. Get it direct from Tomi at http://www.tomiahonen.com/ebook/almanac.html. You won’t spend a better 9.99 non-dollars this year.

It’s one of my favourite events of the year and it’ll be the fourth year I’ve been on the jury – I’ve been involved since the beginning – and it gets better and bigger every year. If you’re in Barcelona for MWC, you really should make a point of going. And if you’re not in Barcelona, are you sure you’re reading the right blog?

This year, I’m very pleased to have been asked to give a keynote, along with Accel’s Rich Wong (who also sits on the AdMob Board). I’m going to try and distill some of my experiences (good and bad) in mobile startups into a 10 minute talk. Quite a challenge.

The MPA’s themselves feature the best start ups (early and emerging stage) chosen by local Mobile Monday chapters throughout the world. Then, the best 20 are selected to present for 3 minutes at the Awards themselves. If you’re one of the lucky few, I’ll put a few tips on a subsequent post, which I recommend you read. From an attendee point of view, you get an afternoon seeing some of the best startups in the world, but it’s also intimate enough to meet everyone in both the breaks and also if you attend the dinner afterwards. You can see the kind of variety the Awards attract from my write-up last year.

One of the great thing about the Awards is that there are three ways to win! You can win a Jury award, where a bunch of “experts” (that’s where I come in) cast their vote. But the audience gets to vote too, as well as Mobile Monday chapters.

I hope you can come and if you do, please try and make a point of coming and saying hello. I tend to be quite busy at these things, but feel free to come and join the conversation.

If you’d like a whopping 40% off and a day at the Emirates Stadium, mixing with a great line up of speakers and attendees, use the booking code “mobh4pp3″.

If you’re going, please come and say Hi. Meeting MobHappy readers is something I love and if there’s anything you’d like to share here, feel free to talk to me about it.

In a few short days, on Monday, December 7, Heroes of the Mobile Screen is going down in London — and tickets are going fast, so don’t get left out! It promises to be a great day with lots of great speakers and sessions, and of course all the great attendees for networking and conversation. Head over to MobileHeroes.net and get yourself registered!

[For those that don't know, the idea is to collect the best writing and blogging about mobile from the previous week at a different blogger's website. All contributors promote the Carnival and send the host traffic. In turn the host sends traffic to the individual contributors. It works pretty well, though I do say it myself.]

In recent years, Judy Breck has been running the administration of the Carnival, or has been “Keeper of the Tents” as she likes to say and a jolly fine job she’s been doing. Sadly, she has had to give up due to some personal issues, leaving us without someone to pull things together.

This means the end of the road for the Carnival, unless we find someone to step into her shoes. It’s not particularly onerous (a few hours a week, at most) and involves appointing hosts and keeping the website updated. In return, it puts the Keeper right at the heart of writing about mobile and is great for networking.

If anyone would like to step up and run things, please let me know. Or perhaps you know someone who might want to contribute like this? I guess I’m the nearest thing to the “owner” so if someone wants to take it over and re-invent it in some way, be my guest.

If not, Roll Up, Roll Up and get your entries in for the very last Carnival of the Mobilists, which is taking place here at MobHappy early next week. More info www.mobili.st and you enter by sending a link to your nominated post to mobilists@gmail.com

I (Russell) have also started blogging over at Media Week at a site I’ve called Mobsessed – a word I made up a few weeks back. You can check out my first few posts here. I’d be especially interested in your opinions on this rather controversial topic.

The new gig wan’t stop me blogging at MobHappy, though it’s fair to say that I’ll be writing less about general mobile advertising and media issues here and focusing more on other stuff. Obviously, you’re welcome to follow both blogs, as you wish and we always love it when you comment.

In the meantime, if there’s anything you’d like us to be covering more at MobHappy, please leave a comment, whether it be an ongoing topic or a one-off opinion.

This description didn’t sound quite right to me – a little contrived and clumsy – so I offered up “mobsessed” as a neater alternative. The phrase has taken off in the Twittersphere, largely due to the influence of Tomi Ahonen, Godman of all things mobile. This has led to a Twitter meme where people are writing:

You know when you’re #mobsessed when…

or occasionally

You know when you’re not #mobsessed when..

Some of the best so far are:

You know you are #mobsessed if while on vacation,you value a place because its 3G network coverage @oscarb

You know you’re #mobsessed if you’ve turned to your wife and said, “honey, they’re playin our ringtone” @SonyEricssonDev

You are #mobsessed if you and your wife squabble over the phone chargers (even though you have one in every room of your house) @mike_bradford

You’re #mobsessed when you go to toilet just so you can #tweet legally without being seen as #twitterholic in office @cchhaann

You know when you’re not #mobsessed when your ring tone is the default Nokia tune. From me.

Have a go yourself – if you Tweet it, don’t forget the hash tag ie #mobsessed. Or just leave it as a comment.

On a peronal note, I’m off on holiday for a couple of week tonight, so leaving Uncle Carlo in charge.

Toodle pip.

Russell

If microfinance is a new idea to you, it has really exploded in the last few years, ever since the Grameen Bank pioneered the concept in Bangladesh. Read more about Nobel Prize winner and founder of the industry Muhammad Yunus here, but the basic concept is lending tiny amounts of money to the poor in developing countries to enable them to start or expand businesses. It’s distinct from charity, as the entrepreneur is expected to repay the loan in due course.

Mobile Movement takes the concept to the mobile – actually a more relevant channel than the PC in many ways, certainly as far as the borrower is concerned. In developing markets, people are far more likely to have access to a mobile than a PC, as any MobHappy reader knows.

However, not only is mobile used to facilitate the loan and subsequent processing, it’s then employed to provide ongoing mentoring and support to the entrepreneurs via sms and email, as well as allowing the entrepreneurs to feedback progress, including via MMS photos. The MMS idea sounds fabulous, although not sure how practical inter-continental interoperability is in real life.

Read more at Springwise, but let’s hope that they’re on to a winner.