160 Characters, the independent mobile messaging forum, today announced the winners of the third annual Global Messaging Awards, the only industry awards that are solely dedicated to mobile messaging.
This year’s winners were selected from countries spanning four continents, clearly demonstrating the continued evolution and innovation of messaging services and applications across the world. Mobile technology companies in UK continued to demonstrate excellence picking up three of the seven awards, whilst companies from Canada, USA, Singapore and Argentina respectively won the remaining categories.
The ceremony took place at the distinguished Fredericks Restaurant, Islington, London, following the first day of Informa’s Global Messaging Congress and marks the huge contribution that messaging applications and services contribute to the mobile industry, providing recognition for the most innovative companies in this space.
2006 Winners
Most effective device or software for data input
Zi Corporation (Canada) - Decuma Version 4 Decuma® combines handwriting and predictive text technology on devices that render them prone to poor and shaky handwriting. Presenting the award on behalf of the judges Ken Blakeslee said that “usability was absolutely key to this category and was well demonstrated by the Decuma combination of handwriting and predictive text.”Best SMS and/or MMS Network Infrastructure
Mobile Interactive Group (MIG) (UK) - Votewinner VoteWinner™ is MIG’s broadcast product developed specifically for processing high volumes of SMS votes at high speed. It has been used for all mainstream competitions and votes on ITV including The X Factor; I’m A Celebrity & Dancing on Ice. In addition, VoteWinner™ was selected to manage the phenomenal number of SMS messages sent as part of the Live 8 ticket text lottery in June 2005. Mike Short commented that “this was a highly fought category and Votewinner illustrated scalablity, innovation and reach and together with some of the more recent applications they have delivered it stood out.”Best messaging application: consumer
Bubble Motion Pte Ltd (Singapore) - Bubble Talk BubbleTalk is a 'Click, Talk and Send' asynchronous Short Voice Messaging Service (SVMS) that works across operators and networks. This is a non intrusive talk and listen messaging alternative to the 'type and read' text messaging service provided by SMS. Bubble Talk is deployed in Malaysia , Singapore , Indonesia, India and Hong Kong where it generates millions of messages every day. “Consumers take to applications that they can easily understand and meets their communications needs and Bubble Talk’ has already shown success with its innovative voice messaging” said Ken Blakeslee presenting the award.Best messaging application: business
Mobiqa (UK) - Mobi-tickets for the Red Bull Rail Storm Mobi-tickets™ were used as the the only form of tickets available for the Red Bull Rail Storm (an international urban rail snowboarding competition) at Trafalgar Square, London, on 20th November 2005. To date a major headache has been the distribution of paper tickets at the sporting events around Europe, which has proved expensive, complex and very people intensive. Commenting Mike Short said that “when SMS started no one envisaged that barcodes would end up being used. Mobi-tickets is a good example of how mobile can be used to improve event management.”Best messaging application: public sector/not for profit
Greenpeace (Argentina) - Green lobby mobileactivism The Zero Waste campaign was the first initiative of Greenpeace Argentina in which mobile-activism was the primary tool used to achieve a goal. Through different “guerrilla” marketing tools, Greenpeace asked people to join us as “mobile-activists” sending a SMS to our number and then encouraged them to support and promote the campaign. SMS was also used to arrange spontaneous meeting points and demonstrations. The result: the government of Buenos Aires will implement a Zero Waste policy that will, by 2010, reduce urban waste sent to landfills by 50%. Presenting the award, Mike Grenville said that “there was enormous potential for mobile to be used to deliver interactive services for both public sector and NGOs. The consumers have the phones and are very well used to mobile messaging and Greenpeace Argentina is a good example of what can be done.”
Best new mobile email and/or IM application
Thumbspeed Inc (USA) - 3MC Mobile IM More than 60% of mobile IM users use more than one community. Thumbspeed set out to create a user experience that encourages extensive use of IM on mobile phones across multiple communities. 3MC utilizes a patent-pending, multi-community (MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ) tabbed GUI, making it easy for users to simultaneously login to all of their accounts and switch between communities with just one click. “Making it easy for mobile messaging to be used across communities is an important step to stimulate growth” said Ken Blakeslee presenting the award.Biggest impact of mobile messaging
Spinvox (UK) - Voicemail-to-text service SpinVox is the world’s first voicemail-to-text service for mobile and landline phones. The service converts voicemail messages into texts and sends them straight to your mobile phone, as if the caller has sent you a text. You can instantly see who called and what they said, then call or text back at the push of a button. Dror Bin, VP and General Manager MS Division at event sponsor Comverse presenting the award said that “Spinvox have taken an existing technology and using its merits taken it to the next level. It showed a spark of innovation and brings together the convenience of voicemail and texting.”Judging Panel
The 2006 awards judging panel contains leading industry leading lights including Mike Short, Chairman MDA and VP Technology for 02, Ken Blakeslee Chairman, WebMobility Ventures, Angel Gambino VP commercial strategy and digital media, MTV Networks UK, Marek Pawlowski, editorial director at PMN and MEX conferences, Graham Trickey, Technical Director, GSMA, Guido Gybels Director of New Technologies, RNID, Paul Walsh CEO, Segala, Philippe Herbert Partner of Banexi Ventures Partners, Jim Black director of MX Alliance and Mike Grenville, founder and chairman of 160 Characters.Mike Grenville, 160 Characters said: “Every year there are certain sections of the industry who claim that SMS will be replaced by the next big thing but SMS volumes continue to rise.
“Organising these awards for the third year running, I have been impressed at just how inventive some of the applications for SMS have been from companies around the world. Really simple applications of SMS which help every day people in every day situations and it’s that ubiquity of SMS which makes it the most popular form of mobile data available.”
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