[CeBIT] Mobile Muse at CeBIT

Cradling laptop bags while busily chattering into mobile phones, Bedouin workers travel nomadically between internet cafes stopping briefly to drink in equal doses of bandwidth and espresso, momentarily satisfying an unquenchable urge to stay caffeinated on the go. On Wednesday, Igor and begin our ultimate Bedouin experience, traveling to CeBIT in Hannover, Germany to observe trends in mobile media creation.

So why all the fuss to attend a conference in Germany during the height of the university semester? 

For us, CeBIT was the beginning. I will never forget writing my first mobile blog entry on a mobile WiMAX demo at the Nokia show booth in CeBIT last year. Looking back, mobile blogging seems trivial. But at the time I was blown away just by the fact that I was using the real internet on a cellphone. Convinced I was holding the future in my hands, I would soon experiment using my own mobile phone and the power of GPRS to blog during bus rides between European cities. The mobile internet had me hooked from on the go. Igor and I returned to Canada intent on intent on spreading our new found excitement for all things mobile in Vancouver. Our efforts culminated with the formation of Mobile Monday SFU and invitations to blog on Mobile MUSE.

It is my hope that this year’s CeBIT will throw gas (and hopefully long lasting wood) on our flames, rekindling and expanding our interest in mobile and offering new insights into worldwide mobile use. 

While we will flesh out the specifics of our field research during the day long crawl between Vancouver and Hannover, we have identified some questions to focus our research on mobile media creation. Particularly we will be looking at the exact moment of media creation and following it the decision of whether to share media and how specifically which technologies are used in its sharing. What exactly causes people to use their mobiles to create media? What specific situations and environments? Do any rules of etiquette, written or unwritten, govern the decision to create media? When media is created, how is it shared? With whom? Which technologies are employed in using sharing? What barriers exist to sharing media with friends, family and colleagues? We believe data collect in this matter could be focused into a guide for encouraging interaction with mobile projects in Vancouver.

In terms of research, CeBIT provides a distinctly non-standard demographic audience. As the world’s largest trade fair focusing on telecommunications and IT developments, it should come as no surprise that gadget freaks, innovators and entrepreneurs dominate the show room floor. Thought they are not representative of the ‘typical’ mobile user, techie power users represent a distinct early adopter demographic. They are leaders in mobile in their respect countries. The applications they choose and subsequently use will shape the upcoming mobile market. Studying the varying success of mobile applications and technologies will be invaluable to creating mobile applications targeted specifically for Vancouver.

Secondly (and perhaps unavoidably), as passionate mobile users, we will be on the lookout for unique trends in mobile development. What we will not be doing is chasing down gadget specs for new devices; other sources will be doing that better and more frequently than we could possibly hope to. Instead we will be focusing on the little guys, students and small companies promoting interesting projects for potential investors. While our questions in this area will be primarily guided by our observations on the show floor, I intent to explore the effect of the iPhone on cellphone design. Again, the world wide prospective of CeBIT will lend an interesting view on the progress of global design trends. 

Our trip represents an amazing opportunity to learn and return knowledge to Canada. To supplement our usual blog entries we will be experimenting with using YouTube to post video interviews. Please leave feedback on what you think of our efforts and help us guide and shape our research!

-jb