Day 2 of the S60 Summit is kinda the "main event". For the attendees, it's a full day of demos, presentations, and networking. For the demoers like myself (over 60 demos in all), it's a looong day of standing on your feet in front of your demo. Again this year I presented S60.com, the S60 Blogs, and the Voice of S60 podcast.

Between the presentations, the attendees spent time visiting the demos on the expo floor. Everytime a attendee completed a demo, a star-shaped hole was punched on their info card. If they visited at least 15 demos, they were eligible to win some gifts (I forget exactly what). And if they visited at least 25 demos, they had a chance to win a Nokia N95.

Depending on the interest of the guest, I showed various parts of S60.com. I explained how we're building a community around S60 - I first showed the Application Demos, then through the other Application subcategories, then on to our new Application Wishlist which everyone was quite impressed about. I showed our S60 Phone gallery, then showed the My S60 section and explained the benefits of being a registered user. Then on to a quick look around the b2b section, then onto the blogs' Front Door and used Tommi's blog as an detailed example. After that I showed the Voice of S60 podcast, and finally the S60 Mobile site. (you need a mobile device to browse it, just visit s60.com and it'll take you there) Finally I gave them a S60.com business card and encouraged them to come visit. I think the guests were rather excited about our online efforts, but I'm surprised to see that many were so new to the site, blogs etc..

I'd love to tell you about all the great presentations and other demos, but I was chained to my own, but here's a schedule of the day with photos at the bottom... (or visit our Flickr page with all the photos)

Wednesday, April 25, 2007 08:00 - 09:00 Registration open at Hotel Melia Castilla reception.

Opening Keynote
09:00 - 09:15 Opening & Welcome
Matti Vänskä, Vice President, Mobile Software Sales & Marketing, Nokia

09:15 - 09:45 Extending the Internet
Lee Williams, Senior Vice President, Software Platforms, Nokia
• Today, S60 delivers a true internet experience to millions of S60 mobile devices with the S60 browser
• S60 development environment offers an easy and effective way to bring internet services and applications
fast to mobile
• Now S60 brings web technologies to mobile terminals, enabling millions of web developers to join the
fast-growing mobile developer community and take Internet and Web 2.0 services to the mobile mass market

Extended Service Provider Benefits
09:45 - 10:15 Using Convergence Services on S60 to Increase Revenues in Mature Markets
José Antonio Moujadami, Head of Applications and Open OS Devices, Telefónica
• Current Telefónica services strategy, the device and the Open Operating System role
• Device software platform strategy
• How open source could help operators to succeed
• Success stories and real examples on Open OS deployments

10:15 - 10:45 Role of Software Platforms in Bringing Innovative Services to Market
- Operator Perspective
Nabeel Mardi, Vice President, Terminal Platforms, T-Mobile
• Reviewing the current role of software platforms in portfolio and service delivery
• What are the future opportunities for software platforms?
• How does S60 weigh up against the competition?

10:45 - 11:30 Coffee break and Exhibition

11:30 - 12:00 Expanding Internet Services to Mobile Phones
Chengmin Liu, Executive Vice President, Tencent
• An overview of the Internet Service provided by Tencent
• How to expand Internet services to mobile phones with Tencent
• The Success Cases

Extended Markets
12:00 - 12:30 Future Opportunities in the Connected World
Shaun Collins, Managing Director, CCS Insight
• The challenges of a converging market opportunity
• An overview of the industry landscape
• Key industry players and their strategies
• Future services and the disruptive newcomers

12:30 - 13:00 S60 Reaching out for New Segments and Markets
Mikko Röntynen, Head of Product Marketing, Mobile Software Sales & Marketing, Nokia
• The S60 approach to enabling devices across segments and markets
• Key capabilities and the next evolution steps

13:00 - 14:45 Lunch and Exhibition
Extended Revenues

14:45 - 15:15 Location-based Service Mash Ups Using Maps
Michael Halbherr, Director, Experience Development, Nokia, Multimedia
• Mash up
• Navigation
• Content services

15:15 - 15:45 New Services Enabling New Revenues
Doug Ortega, Chief Operating Officer, Handango
• Growth of the smartphone market and how Handango gained the leadership position in the
smartphone content space

Closing Key Note
15:45 - 16:15 S60 Device Concepts for Meeting Different Lifestyles
Heikki Norta, Senior Vice President, Lifestyle Products, Nokia
• The Future Nokia Mobile Phones product range
• Key mobile experiences and applications in Nokia Mobile Phones
• How to maximize your business as a developer with Nokia Mobile Phones

16:15 - 16:30 Closing of S60 Summit 07
Matti Vänskä, Vice President, Mobile Software Sales & Marketing, Nokia

16:30 - 18:00 Expo, Cocktails and Prize Giving Ceremony

The Expo opens early, the demoers are frantically getting setup.

Minna Partanen demonstrates the evolution of the S60 UI, Jouni Juntunen (MRKTNGman) demos S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2

The S60 Summit traditionally kicks-off with a party in the evening. I was hoping to have some time during the day to do a little sightseeing, but alas I spent the day creating Powerpoint presentations. Fortunately the night before I had met up with Stefan Constantinescu of RingNokia.com for a few drinks, then he convinced me to head to downtown Madrid with him for dinner (I had planned to wimp out and goto bed early). Stefan is a great guy and great tour guide, he had already scoped out the subway and knew where to go.

So Tuesday evening at 6pm I meet up with a bunch of other great guys - Rafe Blandford of AllAboutSymbian.com, Matt Miller of ZDNET / MobileTechRoundup / Geek.com, and Michal Jerz of My-Symbian.com. They had just came from the S60 Press welcoming where they received a Nokia E61i for a few days. We hoped on the bus and had geeky mobile/S60 conversations while we waited out the lengthy 45 minute ride to the S60 Fiesta.

The S60 Fiesta started out with a traditional Spanish horse show followed by drinks, food, wine-tasting, a band, and a nice night of socializing. The horse show was held in a bullfighting-looking ring, and throughout the program we could hear the bull in his pen kicking and snorting. The horse show ran a bit long and I'm sure I wasn't the only one secretly hoping they'd let the bull out to end this thing so I could get a drink!

The weather was absolutely gorgeous throughout the day and evening, maybe 20C late at night, just perfect. There were some backdrops of horses and Spanish dancers, Nokians were taking photos of the guests in front of these backdrops then printed out the photos onto postcards then gave you some stamps to send home. Towards the end of the night the bar got a little crowded, so Stefan just grabbed bottles of champagne from behind the bar and served the rest of us himself, an excellent host!

We stayed until the very end, they had to come by and kinda force us to leave we could have just relaxed there all night. I believe Michal and Stefan went on to the official after party held at the "Crazy Horse" club nearby the hotel, but I went to sleep like a good boy cause I knew that Morning Phil would be very angry at Evening Phil if he didn't get his proper sleep. :-)

Here's some photos, or check out all of them on Flickr...

Stefan Constantinescu checks out the Nokia E61i and contemplates whether or not to give it back at the end of the week.

We arrive at the S60 Fiesta, Rafe Blandford points us towards the horse show.

We have to climb a ladder to see the show, there's no more room so Rafe tries to push Stefan back down!

Horses! Did you know the name "Phillip" means "Lover of Horses"? (seriously. but I prefer dogs.)

Stefan and Matt Miller wave to the horses.

From left to right: Matt Miller, Peter Schneider (S60 Operator sales), Michal Jerz, Rafe Blandford, Stefan Constantinescu, Esa Eerola (S60 European Marketing)

Michal Jerz's camera weighs almost as much as himself!

Stefan explores the wine cellar.

Well I'm off this afternoon to Madrid for the annual S60 Summit! 557attendees all together, up from 400 last year. Over 60 exhibits/demos, 18 speakers, and 24 members of the press - and some very special bloggers I'm really excited to be spending time with including Rafe Blandford of All About Symbian, Stefan Constantinescu of Ring Nokia, Michal Jerz of My-Symbian.com, and Matt Miller of ZDNet & MobileTechRoundup. So sorry that Darla Mack and Steve Litchfield are unable to make it. :cry: Next year guys!!

S60 Summit 07, the smartphone event of the year, will focus on S60 latest features and developments, as well as recent S60-based products, applications and services. S60, built on the Symbian OS, is the world's leading smartphone platform, with tens of millions of devices and thousands of mobile applications on the market. S60 3rd Edition is getting to volumes. 25 3rd edition devices are already announced and shipping in millions. Almost 1 000 3rd Edition compatible applications are already on the market.

Attendance to the event is free of charge and by personal invitation only . Please contact the event organiser at S60event@S60.com>> if you want to extend this invitation to other collegues of your's.

Together with the chance to network with leaders in the field, the S60 Summit ‘07 in Madrid will feature a seminar that brings together expert speakers from all around the smartphone industry, including Lee Williams, Nokia’s senior vice president for software platforms; Nabeel Mardi, Vice President, Terminal Platforms T-Mobile; Shaun Collins, Managing Director, CCS Insight and Heikki Norta, Senior Vice President, Lifestyle Products, Nokia. Matti Vänskä, Vice President, Mobile Software Sales & Marketing, Nokia, will act as the event’s host.

The comprehensive exhibition will showcase over 60 demonstrations about the latest and most innovative features and solutions for S60 that are emerging from Nokia and other key members of the S60 community. It will also demonstrate the latest and most innovative S60 applications from the Forum Nokia PRO developers.

The exhibition features over 60 demonstrations and will be divided into three areas:
• EXTENDED BENEFITS: S60 features, platform applications and technologies
• EXTENDED MARKETS: Features and solutions by the S60 Community partners (operators, licensees, PCC members)
• EXTENDED REVENUES: S60 3rd edition applications by Forum Nokia PRO developers
S60 Fiesta Party in the evening of April 24

The event kicks off with S60 Fiesta, our special get-together on the evening of 24 April, where you can enjoy a traditional Spanish atmosphere, a buffet dinner, entertainment, live music and networking.

As expected, a great response all around the web for S60 widgets, although a few bit disappointed that they'll probably have to wait till later this year to get their hands on the first widget-supported device - certainly an understandable disappointment.

There's one outspoken dissenter in the mix, and he happens to be one of my favorite tech writers, Andrew Orlowski of The Register. What I love about Andrew is his ability to ruffle peoples' feathers. He's provocative, but between his rants are always some real gems. He's perfect for The Register (or as I like to call it, "The FOX NEWS of the UK").

Andrew raised some excellent questions about widgets that have yet to be addressed - I've heard no official response for these yet. Although I probably should be waiting for our widget guru Ganesh Sivaraman to reply, I thought I'd take a stab at some of the concerns he and others had about S60 widgets...

For "Transforming mobility" read: "opening up a secure platform" and for "rich Web 2.0" experience read: "to Javascript worms, pop-up windows and stealth dialers". In other words, it's the presentation layer people who think they can solve infrastructure level problems - and this time, they're coming for your phone.

Security is absolutely a concern. But Web 2.0 is here to stay obviously - should the mobile world just leave out 2.0 technologies like AJAX? You most likely have AJAX support on your desktop browser, are you concerned about security issues? Sure! But you know that developers of your browser are working hard to fight it. So why would it be any different on the mobile? S60 3rd Edition has proven to be a very very secure platform, same goes for the browser. Call me naive but I faith in those "Fiddling Finns". (He, actually the browser guys are in Boston)

Widgets do little if anything to change security, in fact it could even improve it - If you have a S60 3rd Edition device, your device supports AJAX/Javascript - and widgets are essential just AJAX/Javascript and existing web technologies, so how would they change anything? The concern is when these widgets interact with other components of your device, such as the contacts or calendar for instance. Now I have idea whether or not they'll allow this kind of functionality, but my *guess* is that if they do, they'll be some sort of signing process put in place, which would actually increase security.

Today's announcement will do little to raise the morale of the bedrock third-party software developers who Nokia needs the most: the C++ and Java developers required for infrastructure, middleware and mission-critical applications.

I dunno about that. Widgets have their limitations, and that's were the C developers step in. Users might get hooked on a particular widget, then a "real developer" steps in and makes an app that does much more. Widgets will attract a larger audience to S60, and a larger audience means more potential customers for professional developers. Also, those "real developers" might want put C on hold and develop some widgets of their own, not all widgets have to be free.

It's just that Widgets sum up so much of what Nokia today is failing to get right. The company is floundering if it thinks Web 2.0 is its salvation.

Well I doubt anyone around here thinks Web 2.0 or widgets are our "salvation", not even close. They're just a few features of many that make up the S60 functionality ecosystem.

LOTS and LOTS of talk about yesterday's widgets announcement. Here's a round-up of all the chatter, if I've missed something let me know and I'll add it to the list...

S60.com - listen to the audiocast annoucement about S60 widgets.

Nokia.com - the official press release.

S60.com - some flash demos and more info on widgets.

Voice of S60 - yours truly interviews the main man behind the widgets, Ganesh Sivaraman.

MRKTNGman - gives us his thoughts on widgets.

Darla Mack - gives us the widget run down and coins the phrase, "Widget Widget World".

The Register - the usually pro-Nokia/pro-S60 Andrew Orlowski doesn't share my same excitement for widgets (to put it nicely). :-)

ZDNet - talks widget development and mobile TV.

RCRWirelessNews - does a quick mention of widgets.

Symbian-Guru - is a bit skeptical.

Ring Nokia - ...and so is Stefan.

Mobile Phone Development - some thoughts on widgets.

Some quick mentions here...
Software Journal
Tech Shout
Mobile Burn
MobileTechReview
PRNewsWire
Sys-Con Media

So if you haven't heard already, S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 will support widgets native to the platform. The very first mobile platform to support widgets in this way. The widget will load just like any other app, and will have the same look & feel as normal apps.

Widgets make use of existing web technologies like simple HTML or more complex AJAX - but even still, AJAX is way more simpler than Symbian C++. So the potential S60 developers out there just went from the thousands to the millions. We've all thrown together some HTML in lives, and now we can throw together S60 widgets. I sincerely predict mobile widgets to be a massive success and take us much closer to the "mobile revolution" we keep hearing about.

But some of you are saying to yourself, "I've tried widgets. They suck!" I've said the same, I've tried out Google's and Yahoo!'s widget platorm for the PC. Neat idea but...who the hell uses their desktop!?! I either have my e-mail open or my browser at all times - why would I want to flip back to my desktop? At least Yahoo! and Googe are integrating widgets into their portals, that makes them a bit more useful. But I think the mobile is the ideal location for these things.

How often have you said, "I wish I had an app that does XYZ for my PC"? Probably quite often, but you're very likely to find an app that does XYZ (and usually that XYZ is something rather simple). Now how many times have you said, "I wish I had an app that does XYZ for my mobile?" Maybe just as often, but there's less of a chance you'll find it. In steps widgets - the number of potential developers increase by x1000, alot more niche apps are available (and probably for free), which is perfect for today's "long tail" lifestyle.

If you want to learn more about widgets, be sure to check out today's podcast with the S60 Widget Guru, Ganesh Sivaraman. And visit S60.com for even more info. And later this week I'll release another podcast where I interviewed a couple guys who've already created S60 widgets, and they'll answer all your more detailed questions.

Be sure to visit S60.com this Monday at 1:15pm (CET - I believe that's GMT+2) for a live "audiocast" (heh, is Nokia afraid of the word, 'pod'?) hosted by CTO Tero Ojanperä. The details are a bit hazy, but sounds like he's going to make an important announcement...

S60 was the first to bring full HTML browser in mobile devices providing a desktop-like browsing experience.

Now, S60 cordially invites you to attend a live audiocast as Chief Technology Officer Tero Ojanperä, Nokia, presents how Nokia and S60 enhance the Internet experience further.

The audiocast takes place on Monday April 16, 2007 at 1.15 p.m. CET.

To listen to the audiocast log on at www.s60.com/business/newsevents/audiocast on Monday April 16. A related press release will be available on the same day after 12.00 CET at www.s60.com and www.nokia.com prior to the audiocast.

The audiocast together with the presentation will be available for view on demand approximately one hour after the audiocast.

And for those of you (like me) who aren't familiar with an "audiocast", my co-worker Maija gets us up to date...

I'm not sure if you are familiar with the term audiocast, however, unlike sound files like MP3, etc. that are played after they are downloaded, this is about streaming audio that is played within a few seconds of requesting it, and the data is not stored permanently in the computer. (Although we make it available afterwards in this case). So it's different from a podcast ;)

This is very handy - Read/Write Web put together 85 essential mobile search sites you'll need since mobile "is going to be "the Next Big Thing". (although, I reckon alot of these sites are already covered in S60's Mobile Search app)

Here's my favorites from the list of 85 that I use...

CNN Mobile http://edition.cnn.com/mobile CNN news' Mobile version
Google Mobile www.google.com/mobile/ Google' Mobile version
JuiceCaster www.juicecaster.com Share photos and videos with others with your mobile phone.
Nokia Mobile Search http://mobilesearch.nokia.com Nokia's Mobile search software
ShoZu www.shozu.com/portal/index.do Send and rceive photos, videos, videos and music on the move!
Widsets www.widsets.com Traffic, News, Blogs, Restaurants, Weather, etc.
winksite www.winksite.com Make it easy to publish mobile Internet sites
Yahoo! Go http://mobile.yahoo.com/go Build you own collection of Yahoo! widgets

Not sure if this exactly "real" or not, but a young girl tries a little experiment - she gives out her personal mobile number on YouTube and encourages people to call. I tried, looks like she's already disconnected...