However, it does raise an interesting issue about advertising and brand association. The generally accepted wisdom in the Brand Manager’s Basic Manual is that brands should avoid advertising in controversial media. These days, a good example of this might be media containing User Generated Content. UGC must be a BAD THING as the advertiser doesn’t know what it might contain and HAS NO CONTROL over the content. Thus, the advertising might appear in conjunction with NASTY STUFF like partial nudity, men wearing skimpy lederhosen or recipes for twee cup cakes.

The other side of the coin is that people who are viewing this perverse content don’t find it controversial or offensive, otherwise they wouldn’t be looking at it. Well, unless they’re trying to be offended, for reasons too strange to consider. So, if they implicitly like the content they’re consuming, why would they find any brand associating itself with that content inappropriate? Or worse, would they not buy the brand which has associated itself with material they like to imbibe?

OK, I realise that this somewhat disingenuous. If a brand associates itself with some kind of extreme political view, as an example, it can come across as endorsement and that can’t be a good thing. But overall, I think brands are far too precious about this issue.

As far as FCUK is concerned, this is a great idea which will earn them millions in free publicity, as well as demonstrating their grasp of the zeitgeist to their brand fans. And when the inevitable “Yes, it was an actual penis” articles appear in The Daily Mail, they’ll be laughing loudly at quite how clever they’ve been.

If you’re a stranger around these parts, the Carnival features the best writing about mobile from the past week and is considered a “must read” among all true Mobilists.

Mob4Hire is the inspiration of Paul Poutanen, who set out to solve a perennial mobile industry problem of testing not only on the huge variety of 26,000 handsets, but also over the local idiosyncrasies of over 350+ networks in 130+ different countries. Just because you’ve tested your JME* app on one handset in the US, don’t assume that it’s going to work on exactly the same handset in the UK.

Mob4Hire’s solution to the problem is crowd-sourcing and today they have a network of 40,000 highly mobile literate users throughout the world to do not only do usability and functionality testing for developers’ projects, but they do so at up to 90% of the cost of traditional testing. A very strong proposition and one which meets the main criteria for any new start-up – solving a need or real pain in the sector.

Today, Mob4Hire has a bunch of other testing type services. But the one that really caught my eye was for Apps. As you probably know, most Apps Stores help discovery via implementing some kind of user ranking system. In Apple’s case, it ranges from a measly one star, up to the coveted 5 stars. Mob4Hire tell me that 83% of people only download 4 and 5 star Apps, which means that a 1 star rating kills any chance of success. To put it even more bluntly, if you launch an App which gets a 1 star rating, you’ve just completely wasted your time, energy and whatever money you spent getting it out there.

But how do you know if users will rank your App high or low? That’s where Mob4Hire come in – by pre-testing your App before it’s launched. Not only will you learn what your ranking will probably be with that version, but you’ll find out why. This allows you to improve and tweak your App, re-test and launch when you’re confident that you’ve cracked it.

This is a really valuable service for everyone from Indie developers to brands looking to launch an App – it removes the risk and uncertainty from the process and avoids the curse of the one-star. It’s hard to see why developers wouldn’t use this.

Mob4Hire have won a bunch of awards in their short life to date and it’s certainly a company to watch.

* JME is not a typo. Sun renamed J2ME back in 2005. Clearly not one of the world’s best branding campaigns, huh?

One of my concerns is how the information that’s posted in the virtual world remains usable, or as I wrote at the time:

Is Augmented Reality going to be so cluttered, ugly and intrusive that people eventually abandon using it altogether?

Bear that in mind when you watch this short video and you’ll see what I mean. Who would want to live in a world like this?

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

In my post, I called for some of the industry players to get together to agree guidelines to prevent this kind of scenario ever emerging. I still think that this is vital if the AR vision is to become a viable proposition. Otherwise what’s happening today is sowing the seeds for the sector’s future destruction.

[Video spotted on the excellent Daily Irrelevant]

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.

I make no apologies that some of these are a little bit obvious because at least 50% of the finalists throw away their chances of winning by failing to observe at least one of these rules.

1. Sorry to be a little harsh and language-ist here, but the presentations are in English. If English is not your mother tongue, or if you aren’t very good at it, you’re going to be at a disadvantage. Every year, there’s more than one company who finishes their 3 minutes and no one has a clue about what they do. Naturally, this means that they don’t have a chance at winning awards or attracting any attention from the bloggers and journalists who attend.

So, the first rule is: Choose someone to present who can speak the best English. If you are the CEO and can’t speak English well and the most junior person in the company happens to be fluent, put your pride aside and get the Junior to do it. It’s much better that everyone understand the presentation than recognises you as the big cheese – there’ll be plenty of time for that later.

I feel a little bad about writing this part, especially as my language ability is so rubbish. But it really is important.

2. Rehearse, Rehearse, Rehearse

This again sounds obvious. But loads of companies run out of time and quite obviously have missed out some of what they really wanted to say. 3 minutes is not the standard length of your company presentation. You will need to adapt and it won’t work on the fly.

Did I say that it’s important to rehearse, especially the timing? This includes rehearsing in front of colleagues and getting honest feedback. Then try and giving it to people without expert knowledge and get them to explain back to you what you do.

3. Stand out. You’ll need to give this a lot of thought, before you start rehearsing. But you’ll be competing with the best startups in the world and from a judging point of view, it can be a little overwhelming. If you’re on towards the end, you have to really make sure you’re memorable.

One of the best examples from last year was Unkasoft. After a general introduction to the product (you can skip the first 1 min 40 secs if you’re in a real hurry), the speaker suddenly bought the product to life by acting out the special features and which included a quite spectacular…..well take a look.

Difficult to forget, right? All the judges need to do was to use a shorthand “ah, he was guy with the great presentation” and he’s memorable.

4. Humour helps, if you can pull it off. But it’s not a fundamental requirement and culturally, it doesn’t always work.

The above are hard and fast rules – ignore them at your peril. But what follows are my opinions, based on the 100 or so pitches I’ve seen over the years at the MPAs and other events.

5. The best presentations start with a clear statement of what problem the company is solving, followed by an explanation of what the company does. If you can tell this as a human sized personal story, this might work even better. Babajob last year did this really well, when the presenter told the story of two nannies (with photos of them) in India. Although similar in age, qualifications and experience, one earned $20 a month and one earned $120. You can read more here if you like, but the point is that by telling a story about a couple of individuals, it made the presentation memorable and understandable.

6. Don’t focus on the tech. This might sound odd in an environment dedicated to technology, but the story you’re trying to communicate is what it does and how it makes the world a better place, not how it works and a full list of all the features you’ve worked so hard to code. If you’re thinking of including a complicated diagram of how the tech is architected, you’re probably on the wrong track.

7. I find images help to reinforce messages, especially in a multi-cultural audience. Equally, slides with too much text detract from your story. There’s loads of comparisons of Steve Jobs Vs Bill Gates style of presenting around, but one of my favourites is over at Presentation Zen. Clearly, poor use of PowerPoint hasn’t exactly held Bill back, but for lesser mortals like us, the Jobs Method is going to be more effective most of the time.

Finally, please remember, a great idea poorly presented won’t stand a chance. A good idea well presented might very well win something.

If you’d like to add your ideas to these, please feel free. If you are entering the MPA’s – Good Luck!

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.

Representative Democracies work by voters electing someone to supposedly represent their interests in the legislature. The elected official applies their own and probably more often, their political parties’ judgment on how to vote. And the only thing the electorate can do if they don’t like the way their representative votes is to kick them out when it comes to re-election.

But with today’s technology, we don’t have to put up with this any more. It’s possible to direct an elected official on how to vote on a daily or weekly basis. The role of the politician would change to one of explaining in simple terms what the more complicated issues of the day were and the citizens would make their opinion clear. Any politician standing in any election today could already pledge to vote how they were instructed – or at least take it into account, which would be a great and brave first step.

Technology is already changing politics. Examples range from the huge grassroots fund raising initiative we saw in the US last year, to national elections conducted online (in Estonia in 2005 and 2007) to iPhone Apps (thanks, Lisa) that allow you see who your MP is and educate the user. And 226 Parliamentary candidates in the UK are using Twitter to communicate with the electorate. What’s the betting most are using to to broadcast, rather than as a feedback loop though?

The problem with Direct Democracy is that the people who could make it happen, the MPs and political parties have the most to lose from this disruption. The role of the MP would suddenly be stripped of most decision making – actually, would we need these intermediaries at all any more? The parties would also face great change. Sure, they could compose a manifesto, but each piece of legislation would only be implemented at the behest of the people. Gone would be the days when a party could do pretty much what they wanted, with a suitable majority.

The unknown factor, of course, would be how this would influence the policy of a country generally. Would we fight quite so many wars, for example, where the people whose children would die would be in change of the decision? Would counties like the UK re-introduce capital punishment , as surveys seem to suggest? Would the man on the street want a control on immigration, in an anonymous voting structure?

I think we’ll have to keep guessing on these other and other issues, at least for the time being. But I am convinced that Direct Democracy will happen. The question is, when?

There were two pieces of news this week that demonstrated the other side of this coin, namely that people who download free stuff also spend money on music and that it’s possible to make money out of free anyway.

Exhibit 1 is provided by the music industry themselves in the form of the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) and report they published online. As Torrent Freak points out

Compared to music buyers, music sharers (pirates) are…

* 31% more likely to buy single tracks online.
* 33% more likely to buy music albums online.
* 100% more likely to pay for music subscription services.
* 60% more likely to pay for music on mobile phone.

The implication of this for me, is to confirm empirically what I’ve observed anecdotally, that file sharing is very often used to preview music, the best of which they go on to purchase. Obviously, there are many citizens who don’t conform to that model, but I wonder how much music they’d actually buy if they couldn’t get it free anyway?

Meanwhile, Moco News reports that Tapulous’s Tap Tap Revenge enjoyed 2.5 downloads of their App in the first two months, but that 1 million were pirate downloads. However, Tapulous knows who these users are and treats them slightly differently to ordinary customers by showing them more ads. This results in many converting to their best customers for virtual goods they sell in the game and for paid music downloads.

So there you have. File sharers pay for music. And you can make money from people who start off by thinking they won’t pay you. Who would have thought it?

If you’re not from around these parts, the Carnival features the very best writing about mobile from the previous week at a different blogger’s website. It’s a great resource for finding out what’s on in mobile – all in one central place.

If you’re a blogger yourself, you should think about contributing, or hosting a Carnival – it does wonders for your traffic and page rank.