The IMA held an interesting conference this week - on the hot subject of mobile advertising. some of the more interesting companies in this fled are based in Israel, such as amobbe, Medialayers, inneractive, and jumptap .

One of the guesrs on was Harald Neidhardt, Chief Marketing Office and Co-Founder of  Smaato.

Please introduce yourself. What do you do?

My name is Harald Neidhardt. I am CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) and Co-Founder of Smaato Inc. in Silicon Valley, with an office in Hamburg and Boston. My main responsibility is marketing & PR, corporate development and product strategy here at Smaato. I am evangelizing Smaato’s role as an innovator in the mobile ecosystem – especially mobile advertising. Furthermore I am in charge of industry relations and work actively in associations like the MMA and the German BVDW.

How did you get into the mobile business?

I am passionate about innovation, the future of our mobile life and everything digital. In the beginning of 2005 I saw that smartphones will be the way of the future and that there will be ad supported business models that follow the way of the online world. That was my calling to join with our co-founders to build Smaato. (Nobody knew what a smartphone was back then – years before the iPhone).

What does your company do that’s special and unique? What are your main products?

Smaato is a pioneering mobile advertising company that operates the mobile ad optimization platform called SOMA (Smaato Open Mobile Advertising) and partners with publishers, developers, ad networks and operators.
SOMA’s unique feature is the aggregation of 20+ leading ad networks globally to maximize mobile advertising ARPU. We serve mobile ads in 200+ countries. SOMA can be easily integrated with ad networks, ad inventory owners (publishers, developers and operators) and 3rd party ad technology providers.
SOMA enables the delivery of targeted advertising to mobile phones on mobile web sites, within applications, widgets and games.

When did you start working on ‘The Idea’?

Smaato was founded in August 2005, and has evolved over the years. We started in the application space and we are now uniquely centered on operating our open SOMA platform (Smaato Open Mobile Advertising).

What is your business model?

At Smaato we aim to support the mobile industry with an open platform to provide better ROI for our publisher and developer customers. We source advertising world wide from our ad network partners and retain a small revenue share from our publishers.

Where will you be 3 years from now?

Mobile advertising still is in its infancy and there are a lot of issues to work out and standards to define. In the western world, creative people will need to find ways to create interactive, targeted mobile advertising without interfering with the consumers intended behavior too much. In emerging markets there are huge opportunities for global consumer companies to reach new markets through mobile advertising: Mobile phones become more and more important in our daily lives; data plans for using the mobile web will become flat and simpler. There will be lots of creative companies publishing new mobile websites or developing new applications and games, especially in countries where the mobile phone is the predominantly means to access the internet.

In your opinion, what are the important trends in the mobile world?

Mobile Social Media: In my opinion mobile social media becomes more and more important. What evolved over the last 10 years with platforms like MySpace, Facebook, etc. is now moving rapidly to mobile. We could see in the last 6 months the great success of Twitter.

New mobile ad formats: I think we will see a shift to more engaging models of advertising and marketing on the mobile phone. “Conversational” advertising, sponsored messages and branded services will evolve and build branded communities. Some of us will pay premiums to not receive untargeted ads – and some of us will give freely profile information to receive targeted messages according to our preferences.

Location: There are many interesting companies like the German based Aka-Aki. Their application gives you information, which of your friends are around, e.g. using the same underground, even if you cannot see them.

Which mobile phone do you use?

I have an iPhone. Love it.

Which mobile apps and services do you use?

Tweetdeck, FaceBook, Trigga.me, Shazam (love it!), AkaAki, fring, Bloom (Brian Eno), Bubble Wrap (with my kids – they beat me!), Zensify (way cool!), Rummble (my friends best pplaces), iPod (not to forget), I wish I could play the Ocarina (Smule).

In your opinion, what product or service is missing in the mobile industry?

I miss innovation in the rest of the industry except for iPhone & Android. It is getting there, but a lot of catch-up to do …

What product or service let you down?

Friends call me an alpha geek – and used that things crash in the first versions. There is always a tomorrow. Some apps or services are just a feature, not necessary a product – so I might not use it after a while because this feature is then included in another app.

Are you familiar with IMA? What have you heard of them?

I shared a panel on the future of mobile with IMA CEO Eyal Reshef in Germany 2008 – he was very impressive with his stats about the Israeli market. Mark Wächter, founder of MWC.mobi is moderating the “cross industry panel” and invited me as a speaker there. I like the idea to cooperate with local organizations, to build up their network and grow the pie of the mobile ecosystem together globally.

Are you familiar with the Israeli market? Have you done business with Israeli firms before? Would you like to share a story?

Although we haven’t been to Israel before, the Israeli market is well-known to Smaato from trade shows and. We have some very good contacts here and have finished the integration of our SOMA platform with Fring, a mobile internet community and communication service that allows friends to connect, share experiences and enhance their online communities together. All the people we meet around the world rave highly about the Israeli people, their passion for new technologies and provide best services. I have made friends at events around the world and really look forward to meet their home country.

• Volas Entertainment Ltd, part of Logia Group and a provider of mobile video solutions and value added managed services, have recently signed an agreement with leading mobile games developer Redboss Games, part of MLiven, to distribute and resell Redboss mobile games in Israel. The new partnership will create an Israeli presence for MLiven’s Redboss Games via ICQ’s gaming site using a mobile billing solution provided by Volas.
• TuneWiki gave geardiary a peak at their brand new Beta application for BlackBerry devices.   Who is TuneWiki?  Well, they are a music/media/mobile application development team from israel that won top prize at the AT&T Fast-Pitch Mobile Developer Contest held during this year’s CTIA in Las Vegas. TuneWiki is a social media player application that offers song lyrics synchronized to the music playing on select music-enabled mobile devices in real time  (they previously released versions for the iPhone/iPod Touch and Android devices.
• into mobile take a look at AcCells. This Israel-based company, has a solution called AcCells mID which enables contactless payments with ANY mobile phone. The trick is to identify a mobile phone using only near field GSM signaling and authenticate is as unique to the billing servers.
• Gold Line Group has announced the general availability of Gold Lock Enterprise™, a triple layer end-to-end encryption suite that turns Nokia® cell phones, computers, and Windows® mobile devices into encrypted digital fortresses. Now individuals and corporations can easily and affordably keep their data and voice communications safe, secure, and private using the same military-grade encryption software government agencies rely on.
• For the second year in a row, a handful of Israeli high-tech companies staked out territory at the Canadian Telecom Summit, hoping to lay the groundwork for strategic alliances and future business deals.

Looking for information or contacts in Israel mobile industry? contact me at geva@kraoz.com

• Israel’s Chief Scientist office granted a 1 million dollar investment in Modu.  Dov Moran the founder and CEO spoke  about the procedures obstacles that caused (and still are) the delayed launceh: “At first we did not know how to build a mobile device, we consulted with experts, that were charlatan. Moreover there is no experience building a mobile device in Israel, so we connected companies that were hurt from the global economy crisis, such as Texas Instruments and Sky Mobile”.
• Microsoft Israel unveiled the SMS Messenger, that was developed by the telecommunications group at the center, and aimed at enabling transparent communication between cellphone users and users of instant messaging programs on personal computers.
• Jumptap, the leading mobile advertising solutions provider,announced that it was awarded Patent No. 7,548,915 by the United States Patent Office on June 16, 2009. The patent relates to a method for presenting an advertisement in association with a web page displayed on a mobile communication facility, the method comprising the steps of.
• An interesting interview with one of the brains behind Snaptu.
• mobi-app got 800,00$ from carmel ventuers and the israeli cheif Scientist. the company has developed mingler - a social network based on bluetooth connection.
• Israeli operator, Mirs, owned by motorola, is working on launching the Android-powered Opus 1, which will be fairly limited in that data access will only be via Wi-Fi, and voice will be supported through iDEN network.
• Comverse announces that Sotelco, a new Cambodian mobile operator, has launched the Comverse® ONE™ Billing and Active Customer.
• meet mo-tip, a new mobile tipping service from logiamobile.
• Israeli smartphone ad network Toda!Cell has raised $1 million in its first round of funding led by Israeli VC AfterDox.
• Amdocs , the leading provider of customer experience systems, announced the availability of the Amdocs Mobile Money Hub, a SaaS (Software as a Service)-based solution for enabling service providers to support any payment or banking process over the mobile phone in real time.
• Amdocs has signed a six-year agreement with Finland-based telecommunications company Elisa Corporation.
• Looking for information or contacts in Israel mobile industry? contact me at geva@kraoz.com

• Israeli operator pelephone has launched a new music service. over 250,00 songs are available for streaming on the p.c and for easy download to mobile. the service costs 5$ a month.
• Telikom PNG, a government-owned telecommunications operator serving Papua New Guinea, has selected Gilat Satellite Networks’ SkyEdge and SkyEdge 2 platforms to provide a broadband satellite communications network covering hundreds of sites.
• Gilat Satellite Networks is in preliminary talks to acquire WiMax equipment maker Airspan. The story in calcalist newspaper said the talks are at a very early stage. Pink-sheet listed Airspan, which has a market cap of just $5 million, competes with Alvarion.
• Amdocs, the leading provider of customer experience systems, today announced Gartner, Inc. has ranked Amdocs the worldwide market share leader in the Telecommunications Software Management Systems marketplace based on total revenue for 2008.
• Elisa Corporation, Finland’s leading provider of wireless, wireline, broadband Internet and cable TV services, and Amdocs , the leading provider of customer experience systems,  announced that they have signed a six-year managed services and billing consolidation agreement.
• Eurocom Group, owned by chairman Shaul Elovitch is reportedly interested in acquiring MIRS Communications Ltd. from global corporation Motorola. Elovitch is also interested in buying Partner Communications Co. Ltd.
• Sources inform “Globes” that global corporation Motorola will open an information center for investors interested in acquiring MIRS Communications Ltd..
• The CEO of Pelephone told an emergency meeting of local communication industry figures Friday that arguments against mobile operators subsidizing the iPhone were made “by a CEO who didn’t succeed in bringing in the device.”

Looking for information or contacts in Israel mobile industry? contact me at geva@kraoz.com

• Leading full service mobile gaming solutions provider from israel Spin3, powered by Microgaming, the world’s largest online gaming software provider, has translated its mobile casino offering to enable leading mobile casino operator and existing client 777Mobile to enter the Ukrainian market.
• Avi Zaldman from Leumi Partners, tells Israeli newspaper “calcalist” that that the investing firm is interested in buying Israeli operator partner from Hutchison.
• An interesting interview with Mo’minis founders. Mo’minis is a mobile games strat-up, that focuses on creating a studio for small developers.
• Israel’s national airline, El Al, recently finished a trial of mobile barcode boarding passes - and has announced that it will be implementing the system at Ben Gurion Airport soon.
• JaJah, the Voip start-up from israel (and austria), and ,modu, a company from israel that developed a new handset, are among  the “50 strat-ups that can make it” list made by bussiness week.

Nadav Gur, CEO of worldmate, writes a very interesting blog about the problems in the appstore for applications like worldmate (an application that saves time and money for world travelers). Worldmate was launched recently on the iphone.

His main points are:

• There are dozens of thousands of smartphone users who think WorldMate is worth at least $100 per year
• A rational ROI analysis shows that WorldMate is worth at least $100 per year
• If WorldMate is to make money on the iPhone platform – It can’t do that on a few dollars per user.
• Apple’s App Store set-up triggered a consumer behavior called “Price Anchoring” which makes iPhone users believe that a price of $1-2 is adequate for apps, without any real rationale
• This makes it very hard to build a scalable business on selling iPhone apps.

These are very intersting points, that are relevent offcourse to a lot of applications. Perhaps The new abbility for in-app billing, will help worldmate and other apllications that are a bit more usefull than the i-farts of the world.

worldmate is developed by mobimate - a mobile company from israel that operates since 2000.

Looking for information or contacts in Israel mobile industry? contact me at geva@kraoz.com

• WeROK, The ad-funded mobile portal, has announced that it will now be adding free mobile games to it’s offered services - which already included low-cost SMS, with free mobile email, free mobile TV and mobile social networks. The games wii be supllied bu the israeli company inneractive, which developed in-game advertisement system. The mobile can be found by using we-fi, another comapny from israel - which developed a global wi-fi map.
• Israeli paper calcalists reports that Hutchison, the owner of israeli operator parnter, is asking for 1.4 billion$ for the comapny. A few local bussines man have already shown interest in the company.
• One1, israeli service company, won an ota-cdma contract in India.
• Samsung will launch 12 new touch handsets in Israel until the end of the year.

Looking for information or contacts in Israel mobile industry? contact me at geva@kraoz.com

Alvarion , an Israeli maker of WiMAX and wireless broadband equipment, said on Wednesday it had won a 5-year, $100 million-plus contract from U.S. broadband wireless operator Open Range Communications Inc.

The contract, to boost broadband access in rural areas, spans 17 states, 546 rural communities and would reach up to 6 million people, Alvarion said.

Through the network, Open Range plans to begin offering fourth generation (4G) services to un-served and underserved customers across rural America in the fourth quarter of this year.

Looking for information or contacts in Israel mobile industry? contact me at geva@kraoz.com

The iphone is coming to israel. Both pelephone and partner announced today that they will start selling the iphone in 2009.

Partner., the Israeli provider of cellular operations for Orange, and Israeli provider Pelephone, both recently reached agreements with Apple Sales International to purchase and sell iPhones in Israel. Orange’s agreement stipulates that the arrangement will last at least three years.

Looking for information or contacts in Israel mobile industry? contact me at geva@kraoz.com

What does your company do?