MobileBeat Mobile Conference

[Breakout Session #2] New Devices: How will the rise of netbooks and other new devices affect business? First there were feature phones, then smartphones. There seems to be a natural convergence between smartphones and personal computers, and that wave involves netbooks and other devices such as the Kindle. Carriers hope that these devices will generate enough value for users to warrant expensive data plans. What will the next generation of devices be? How will the device manufacturers differentiate themselves? Asian netbook manufactures have been able to keep costs down, but what will make products stand out? How will these devices interact with the cloud?

[Breakout Session #3] Social media, mobile content. It used to be ringtones — now it’s social. Social apps are storming mobile platforms, moving from the web’s social networks to the iPhone and other mobile app platforms. How will the app providers make money? What are the elements of creating successful social mobile apps? How can the platforms be improved?

[Breakout Session #5] Is the day of reckoning coming? Are data intensive apps in danger? New data-intensive applications, embodied by Internet voice applications such as Skype, are endangering carriers’ voice revenue. At the same time, millions of new smartphone users are browsing the Web and hogging massive amounts of bandwidth. The plethora of new data-intensive apps are only going to make things worse for carrier costs. Growth in data being transferred from AT&T, Verizon, and other network giants is exploding — it grew 1,000 percent last year alone, and is expected to roughly double annually through 2012, according to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index. So how will carriers survive as costs may exceed revenue?

[Breakout Session #6] Bringing brand dollars into mobile. How are the big brands creating apps that run across a number of mobile platforms? How are they targeting apps to take advantage of unique platforms? Are new brands coming into the space? What do the brands aim to achieve with the spending? Direct response campaigns run by mobile content companies, multi-channel mixed campaigns for events and selected products which build quality brand awareness are proven — are there any new examples of brand dollars becoming effective in mobile?