If you’re lucky enough to have grabbed an iPhone 3G, MobileMe would certainly be one of the apps you’d be considering to dirty your hands with, if at all you need the sync-everything-everywhere service. Though you can use it with an iPod, Mac or PC, but having an hands on with it over an iPhone would be sheer fun! For the Indians, the day for iPhone 3G launch is not far!

Image from Funambol

Funambol - Mobile 2.0 Messaging Powered by Open Source.

But for the individuals who would not like to shell out $99 per year for MobileMe, we would advocate trying out a free & open source alternative to MobileMe - Funambol.

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A conversation with Whatleydude two weeks ago at Social Media Cafe in London proved extremely useful in making a change to my relationship with my mobile service provider, Vodafone.

Whatleydude told me that Vodafone offers a network unlock code free of charge to any UK monthly-contract customer who requests it.

It’s true, and it’s something Vodafone has been offering for some months. Indeed, if you enter into a monthly service contact with Vodafone now, the phone you get is no longer locked by default.

Following a 2-minute conversation yesterday with Vodafone customer support, my Nokia N95 8GB is no longer locked to Vodafone.

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Bango has won the ‘Best Mobile Internet Use’ Award presented by the Mobile Data Association (MDA) on July 1 2008. These prestigious industry awards recognise companies and individuals that have made an outstanding and innovative contribution to the rapidly growing UK mobile data industry. This means Bango has won two awards in two weeks, after picking up a special Gold Award at the Mobile Content Awards last week.

In making their selection, the judges commented: “The Bango Service has been awarded the MDA award for the best use of the mobile internet because of the company’s contribution to getting both big brands and small content providers to take advantage of mobile internet services. The mobile internet market has faced many hurdles in the past but Bango has worked within the constraints and is an early innovator.”

“It is very rewarding to be recognised by the industry for our role as a pioneer of the mobile internet. We’ve helped business of all sizes harness the new opportunities presented by this rapidly expanding market by providing a mobile content monetisation solution for the mass market.” said Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango.

“The aim of the MDAs has been to show how much world-beating talent there is in the UK for mobile data applications and technology, and this list of award winners does just that,” explained Vice Chairman, Steve Reynolds. “Our winners have been able to demonstrate innovation and commercial success, which deserves this level of recognition.”

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That’s right - 9 million US mobile users turned to their mobiles to make purchases. Not just to research where to buy, but to actually burn a whole in their credit cards via their cell phones.

Nielsen Mobile detailed the new report, which sees purchasing of goods and services via mobile phones on the rise. And guess which gender likes spending more via their mobiles. Wrong - it’s men. 4.9 million men vs 4.3 million woman indicated they have made a purchase via their phone.

In the US, of the 40 million active users of the mobile web, 5 million of them visited shopping and auction websites (e.g eBay) during April 2008 - That’s up 73 per cent from April 2007.

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Microsoft has updated its Live Search for Mobile with some really cool and slick features. According to the Live Search Blog Microsoft in its last update had incorporated a feature that enabled a user to directly send feedback to the Live Search engineering team. Based on the feedbacks received, MSN has rolled out these features.

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A couple of years ago, Jerry Michalski introduced a number of people to the concept of “Red:Green Cards,” which are described thusly:

Ever wish you could talk back to the speaker at a conference? To offer approval or register dismay?

Use RedGreen feedback cards.

Red:Green Cards
Originally uploaded by christophercarfi.

I found the concept to be absolutely fantastic. It was a clear, yet unobtrusive, way to bring the audience into a conversation, without having to disrupt the flow of a thought and without having to deal with those little voting clicker boxes or microphones. It was possible to achieve this goal without any kind of intrusive hardware at all, actually.

Red:Green cards are a wonderfully elegant way for an audience to give respectful feedback in real time.

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ReadWriteWeb seems to have created quite a furor in publicizing the views of start-up entrepreneur Russell Beattie.

The former Yahoo! Mobile evangelist announced today that he’s calling it quits for his company Mowser because the market for mobile browsing is taking a fast turn for the worse.

“I don’t actually believe in the ‘Mobile Web’ anymore, and therefore am less inclined to spend time and effort in a market I think is limited at best, and dying at worst. I’m talking specifically about sites that are geared 100% towards mobile phones and have little to no PC web presence. Two years ago I was convinced that the mobile web would continue to evolve in the West to mimic what was happening in countries like Japan and Korea, but it hasn’t happened, and now I’m sure it isn’t going to.

In other words, I think anyone currently developing sites using XHTML-MP mark-up, no JavaScript, geared towards cellular connections and two inch screens are simply wasting their time, and I’m tired of wasting my time.”

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Mobile search is clearly a hot topic, which is why I attended the session: Mobile Local Search: Finding the Way. The first panelist, Tom Limongello with Crisp Wireless, outlined the various ways consumers can engage in mobile local search applications.

One of the first options is SMS text messaging triggered by proximity. GPS functionality offers even greater power to target messages. Another option includes Web-enabled desktop to mobile interaction. Examples include cars.com, flight updates, etc. The next level is social networking (desktop to mobile) like SociaLight, WHML and Dodgeball. Challenges with mobile include: confined real estate on phones (simple, minimal, etc).

The next speaker, Ryan Sarver with Skyhook Wireless, outlined their latest technology that utilizes wi-fi (instead of GPS) for targeting. Manhattan has 2M wi-fi hot spots/access points. Compared to GPS and cellular, wi-fi targeting is accurate within 20 meters (vs. 1 meter and 5,000 meters respectively). Skyhook powers the iPhone “locate me” technology to help place the 4M subscribers on a map for location based services.

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Reviewing some of the reporting and commentary from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, it’s clear to see that this is heaven for gadget geeks.

I wish I were there!

New mobile devices abound, either launching very soon or in the works for later in the year, such as one that interests me a lot - the Nokia N96, successor to the N95 models (I have an N95 8GB).

Devices like this are squarely positioned as audio-visual entertainment devices, from a content creation as much as a content consumption point of view.

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Yes you have seen this idea before…

Shades of the nearly-forgotten barcode scanning CueCat, and Japanese business cards, add up to a old yet new strategy for Google. This latest AdWords initiative has to be a 20 percent project at Google.

We picture some techie cleaning out a closet at home, finding a card from a hostess bar in Osaka stuck under a CueCat in a box, and being suddenly struck by a bowling ball falling from an unbalanced shelf.

Tra-la-la! Wait, that’s Captain Underpants. Eureka! That’s more appropriate for California.

We’ll give credit to Joel On Software for making the CueCat connection too. Yes, play spot the oldies, kids, it’s easy and fun!

Google intends to drop square barcodes onto print ads.

With a camera phone and the right software, a person can scan the ad, and the phone’s onboard web browser will bring up additional information related to it.

“2D barcodes have been common in Japan for a number of years,” Google said in its barcode help page. “In fact, Japanese business cards often feature barcodes containing contact information.”

The first ads containing these barcodes appeared in newspapers, and connected to jewelry retailer Blue Nile.

Google promoted these, and other barcode ads, as a way to quickly deliver more information about an advertiser to a consumer.

It’s far too soon to guess at how successful barcoding may be, for Google or anyone else opting to use the technology.

We will make one guess: Google’s Android mobile software will include a barcode reader when it launches.