If you’re in London and you like the mobile world, there’s only one place to be this evening: Mobile Geeks of London (and here’s a non-Facebook link!) It’s an informal evening gathering of people who work in mobile or simply enjoy geeking about with phones. Good company, good beer and hopefully good weather.

It all begins at 6:45pm at the New Oxford Street All-Bar-One, and even though over a hundred people have RSVP’ed as attending, I’m putting money on it that there’ll be at least twice as many phones and mobile devices than people. Yes, we’re geeks. And we love it.

Today, the Mobile Internet for Dummies book landed on my desk wih a thump. A book like this is a great sign for us, a confirmation that the mobile internet is heading squarely for the mainstream, which hopefully means an increasingly easier user experience and lower data charges from the networks.

It’s got a mention of Taptu, which is very flattering, and, of course, being a “… for dummies” book, it’s got the unavoidable The 5th Wave cartoons - with my favourite being before Part V of the book. You’ll have to get a copy to find out which one it is.

Here’s the link to the book on Amazon US

Here’s the link to the book on Amazon UK

And yes, I realise my top matches the book… I’m that dedicated to my job.

Last week, we released some fresh updates to the Taptu service. Since some of them are sneaky changes under the hood, I wanted to highlight a few of the more interesting ones.

More Filters

We’ve added some more filter information to help you find what you want easily before you even get to the summary page.

Better SMS Sharing

We’ve brought SMS sharing to a wider range of mobile phones than before, and since you don’t need to register (on most networks) it’s a breeze to send an image, a video or a song snippet to your friends.

Six Taps of Separation

Related searches adds a whole new dimension to your searches; Make your first search, then scroll down for some suggestions to narrow down your search, or look at similar topics.

One of our developers apparently lost an hour going through related searches, starting with some current charts band and ending his quest on “Women wrestling” (hmm interesting!) so this feature comes with a warning label the size of Jupiter: “The mobile web is full of fascinating quirky stuff, so don’t blame us if hours disappear when you next look away from your screen!”

I’m Bored

On a similar note, we’ve created a page dedicated to all of us public transport commuters, back-of-the-classroom dreamers and recreational surfers. It’s called “I’m Bored” and on that page, you’ll find top searches, most shared content and some topical pages picked out by our editors. You can bookmark the page for new, fun stuff to look at every day.

You’ll discover all sorts of interesting stuff, from videos and music you’ve never heard before, to blogs, news items and sites full of great content to read on your mobile phone. It goes to show that there’s so much more to mobile search than finding your local pizza place; There’s endless entertaining content in that tiny gadget we carry in our pocket.

As for the other new features, you’ll discover them as you browse, won’t you? We can’t tell you everything, we’d be spoiling the fun.

I watched the launch of the second generation of the iPhone with great interest on Friday, not because I planned on replacing my first generation one, but because I wanted to see how the world would welcome it. While not everyone here is an Apple fiend as I am, we couldn’t help but be curious about it since we’ve just launched a new iPhone version of Taptu*.

The product

In December, after a month of iPhone ownership, I reviewed it. I loved it then and I still do now. It’s clearly not everyone’s cup of tea, as certain Symbian-owning friends regularly remind me, but definitely still the best device for my needs.

The new version of the firmware gives all iPhones, new and old, a fresh lease of life with a wide range of downloadable applications available to make better use of the phone. Applications range from really useful to downright silly (see the iPint one for possibly the wackiest one around), but I can’t get over the fact that they can’t run in the background. I appreciate that the battery would run down faster than our office manager Celia can neck a glass of wine, but it still renders applications like streaming radio and instant messaging pretty much pointless.

The 3G hardware theoretically brings GPS functionality and faster browsing speeds, but I’ve yet to witness these first hand. I’m sure it’ll make a marginal difference, but still isn’t enough to convince me to upgrade.

The 3G iPhone is Apple’s tough second album, and not bad going, but not an awe-inspiring result.

The launch

Oooh, now here’s my bone to pick with Apple and the operators. How could launch day go so horribly wrong?

With expected sales of over 1 million handsets on day 1, plus millions of first generation iPhone and iPod Touch owners across the world, why did O2, the UK’s operator to win the iPhone contract, grind to a halt within moments of opening its doors at 8:02am? The iTunes Activation Center then followed suit shortly.

Sure, that’s a bunch of frustrated new users. But it’s also a whole lot of stranded existing users: My phone began its update and restore around lunchtime, yet I only managed to reactivate via the iTunes store around 8pm, leaving me unreachable for most of the day.

So Apple and the operators owe their users an apology for a poor first experience, I think!

The future

While execution wasn’t perfect over the launch, it’s still undeniable that the iPhone’s impact on the mobile world is increasing with every phone sold. A large and bright glossy screen, a user-friendly interface with single-click app download and no learning curve, this is inspirational for mobile developers.

The gloss is marred by the strong DRM and lock-down the iPhone suffers, one of the main criticism heard from those who opt for the Symbian-based alternatives. I’ll be curious to see how many users of the 2.0 firmware still choose to jailbreak their device, defying Apple and the operators. In fact, how long before jailbreaking becomes pointless?

[* Best viewed on an iPhone, but can be accessed in your browser]

Did you hear it this morning? The sound of 200,000 UK iPhone hopefuls getting an SMS simultaneously. It caused tremors around the Internet, and has certainly has thrown the operator’s website to the ground.

Everyone and their grandma’s dog have reported the issue O2, one of the UK’s main mobile operators, has suffered by now, but I’m amazed (yet oddly unsurprised) that an operator can be so unprepared for a traffic rush.

Based on this activity, it’s already obvious that the second coming of the iPhone will be more popular than the first. If the majority of these are new users adding themselves to the O2 network this Friday, we can only hope that O2’s mobile infrastructure is more resilient than its website!

Over the next few days, the Taptu team will be spreading across Europe to attend a few conferences.

You’ll find Stef and Lynsey in Barcelona for Mobile 2.0, an event organised by dotOpen, ESADE and Mobile Monday. Meanwhile, Chris, Conor and myself will be going to Amsterdam for the Mobile Social Networks & UGC Conference, organised by IIR Events.

If you’re attending either of these events, we’d love to meet you and have a chat.

In our competition for who would get the best weather tomorrow, it looks like Barcelona wins over Amsterdam. Aww shucks!