Welcome to this week’s Carnival of the Mobilists, I’m thrilled to be hosting it here on the Taptu blog.

The turnout in posts has been great, and we’re covering a wide range of topics today; from web3.0 to free speech, and from Burmese dissent to UFO sightings. There’s also a sneak preview surprise for all Carnival readers at the bottom of this post… So what are you waiting for? Read on!

Innovation in Developing Markets

From Mobile Active, guest writer Abi Jagun from the University of Manchester deconstructs the hype on mobiles in civil society, in particular in developing countries. Kevin Smith from Vodafone Betavine touches on the inventiveness of some African services when faced with a problem, from “beeping” each other to transferring funds via a mobile payment service. In a similar thread, Paul Ruppert at Mobile Point View posts the first of a two-part series on mobile transactions, interviewing Michele Scanlon, an expert on mobile payments in global emerging markets.

Controversy in America

Abhishek Tiwari discusses the seemingly game-changing decisions Sprint has made over their wireless offering in the US, moving away from the binding contracting model and transitioning to a subscription model without users being tied to a specific device. Echoing some of the Sprint news mentioned by Abhishek, Jason Devitt from Skydeck tells us about Verizon Wireless (almost) declining to allow Pro-Choice America send messages, explicitly requested by users, about abortion, on the grounds that the subject matter was too controversial.

Ian Welsh of The Agonist questions net neutrality in the current oligo/monopoly of the telecoms landscape, putting out red flags around AT&T and Verizon’s questionable termination clauses.

Learning From the Past

Reflecting on the launch of the Sputnik 50 years ago, Judy Breck reminds us that today’s educators should use mobiles to support lessons in a positive way rather than resort to banning them from classrooms.

A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words

Mark van ‘t Hooft at Ubiquitous Thoughts posts his observations on the dilemma military generals are facing in the current Burma/Myanmar protests with regards to the use of mobile phones and information virality. Also musing on the impact of new technologies, Krisse from All About Symbian wonders about UFOs and the effect of cameraphones on the sightings. Quick, get your camera out, there’s something weird up there!

The Web Is Abuzz…

Meanwhile, C. Enrique Ortiz from …about mobility comments on Jason Calacanis’ “official” definition of Web 3.0, and Ajit Jaokar of Open Gardens writes on the “Phonetop”, mobile equivalent to the desktop, ODP and widgets as the possible future of mobile apps.

Dennis from Wapreview looks at the mobile version of Gawker Media sites I’m a big fan of; Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Valleywag, Wonkette and Defamer. Verdict? “It’s nice to see that a big publisher like Gawker is thinking of mobile, but these really aren’t very good mobile sites.” Read on to find out why. Tarek Esber from tarek speaks mobile… takes us through how the mobile web saved the day twice by allowing him to connect to important information in a quickie, taking him to destination.

Mobile Conference

This week, Rudy De Waele points us to the Mobile 2.0 Conference, which is taking place in San Francisco next Monday, 15th October. Presented by Mobile Monday and The Open Group, the event brings together experts and thought leaders from all aspects of mobile; investors, mobile carriers, device manufacturers, application developers and web technologists.

Coincidentally, Taptu will be presenting in one of the Mobile Launch Pads and showing some pretty exciting stuff! Have a look at the agenda and the speakers list and come tell me you don’t want to be there? I’ve been informed there are a few places left for those who’d like to attend.

And Finally… The Sneak Preview!

This brings me to the sneak preview you’ve been waiting for; we’ve decided to invite Carnival readers to have an early look at the Taptu mobile search beta, before we launch publicly. Want to have a look? Just leave a comment using a legitimate email address or email me on hello@taptu.com and you’ll get access to our private beta tomorrow.

Next week, the spotlight for the Carnival will be on the Symbian Smartphone Show, so see you there!

This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Mobile devices, Network Operators, On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.