I’m going to CTIA next week in San Diego, California.  I have a plan to record a bunch of interviews focusing on anything related to mobile money as well as new apps for the consumer.  I’d like to meet anybody with a new consumer app or any service related to mobile money.  From NFC to new payment apps I’m interested in what you’re doing and if you’re a developer with a new exciting app I want to help spread the word about it.  So contact me at Jeb@TheMobilePerspective.com if you’re interested.

PS I like hardware as well.

Hours before I was flying home from Israel recently Dvir Reznik had just flown back to Israel from Amsterdam I believe and I was anxious to meet up with him.  He is the head of marketing at Onavo, it’s one of the most likely companies I see succeeding in the next 12 months.

Onavo is solving a huge problem for people with smart phones, data consumption.  There are limits on almost every plan you can get here in the US and Onavo compresses the data that’s being used, so 100mb may only consume 40-60mb over your phone.  Don’t ask me how they do it, I would have to turn you over to the Mossad if you found out.  But in all seriousness you should watch this video on your computer while you’re downloading Onavo on your iPhone, 3G iPad or Android device.  It has kept me from going over my allotment of data every month since I’ve installed it.  Keep in mind this is great for when your traveling to keep your roaming bill down as well as when you’re at home and don’t want overages.

Back in the early summer somewhere near the beggining of June I was in San Diego for the Uplinq conference put on by Qualcomm.  I was introduced to Craig Braun and thought the company he works for Shorthand Mobile has something very interesting going on.  They are brining data usage to people that may not usually be able to afford it utilizing sms in a very unique manner.  Watch the video and I think you’ll understand.

Samuel Keret the VP of Biz Dev at Waze (one of my personal favorite companies in the mobile space) gives us a few minutes.  Thank you to Ewan MacLeod of Mobile Industry Review for letting me film during his interview.

Waze has been doing some amazing things for a while now and from the inside stuff that I hear about them, it’s only getting better.  My source, not Samuel, was going over some numbers and it’s darn impressive.

I have been eyeing PowerMat for a while now and really like what they are doing.  I haven’t tried out any of their devices at home yet but I plan to.  Their CEO on the other hand has a PowerMat infused kitchen from my understanding.  For starters PowerMat is a contactless charging system for electronics.  I’ve seen it work with all kinds of phones iPod touches and what it does it does well.  It charges your phone by just placing it down on the PowerMat pad.  It’s not at all complicated for the consumer but the technology is amazing.  In the video below Maya Cohen tells us that PowerMat is expanding to put their pads in airports and cars for starters.  Plus Qualcomm may start including their technology in their phones so you don’t ever need a plug again.  Talk about saving on wasted chargers.  As for the CEO’s house, I hear he doesn’t plug in his mixer, he just charges it when he puts it down on the counter.

Anyways, check out the video below for a little insight.

I’ve known about these guys for a while now and love what they are doing.  In a nut shell they’re giving you the ability to find what you’re looking for at stores including directions to get to that product.  I’ll let Nathan Pettyjohn’s describe Aisle411 in a little more detail.

BTW Nathan, my apologies for taking so long to get this up.

A Friend of mine has a son named Jacob who’s recently started a blog.  He interviewed me for his science project on 3G speeds from AT&T, but that’s for another post.  He just posted a new blog about his interview with the CEO of Kajeet, a mobile phone service for kids.  I’ve reposted it below and hope you like it, if you do then head out to his blog and leave a comment.

Following my recent post comparing two companies that sell phones for kids, Kajeet and Firefly [What Kids Want in Phones], I had an interview Monday, April 5 with Daniel Neal, the CEO of Kajeet together with my friend Emma, and I would like to share with you a little about what I learned from his 14 years in the telecom business.

The first thing I wanted to know was how do families find out about Kajeet? He explained that he places a lot of links on Google, does some radio advertising, and also puts advertisements on websites. In fact, the day after my interview, I was watching videos on YouTube and a Kajeet ad came up!

As a kid who loves technology, I then wanted to know how often does Kajeet update their phones? Mr. Neal told me that they try to update their phones 3 to 4 times a year.

With many of the big phone companies today adding the Android OS to their phones, I was happy to hear that Kajeet is also planning on adding Android phones to their line-up, and one might even come out this year.

I really wanted to learn from him about how do kids manage to convince their families to buy them a Kajeet phone? His answer was that kids usually keep asking and asking for a phone. He said that what makes Kajeet special is that when parents finally go online to find phones for kids, they find out that Kajeet has especially designed many things to give the adults lots of control of the phones and their phone plans. For example, he explained how he has set his own kids’ phones to not be able to call anyone except for their parents during school hours, but can text as much as they want after school.

My friend, Emma asked some excellent questions about what are the popular phones with kids today. Mr. Neal talked about how the Sanyo 2700, LG Rumor and LG Rumor 2 are popular because they all have full QWERTY keyboards that make them good for texting. She also asked about the differences between the Katana phones, and he explained that besides the design changes, there is a new higher tech chip in theKatana II which includes 4 times more memory and helps the phone also weigh less. He told us that the first phone the company had at the beginning was the Nokia 2155, and how today he does not have any phones from Nokia on Kajeet because that company has decided for now to focus on the rest of the world and not the US, but he thinks that Nokia will be big again in the US within the next two years.

At the end of our interview we had a fun conversation about the unique logo they have for the company, and he laughed and asked us what we thought, and then told us that they call the logo “KJ” and it is a smiley face. We also found out the company’s name is taken from the first letter of each of the 6 kids of all the three people who started the company.

I really enjoyed speaking to Daniel Neal, and I liked how much he thinks about what us kids want, and even said that some people say that he is still a kid at heart himself.

I had a great chat with Di-Ann Eisnor of Waze back at Mobile World Congress over a month ago then we got to hang at CTIA and I’m just now getting around to putting up my content from the trip.  I really like what Waze is doing and if you haven’t checked them out be sure to do so.  It’s an amazing social mapping program that creates the maps from the trips it’s users take.

Thanks for your time Di-Ann and best of luck with Waze.

I got to spend some time with Raam Thakrar and Ed Hodges from Touchnote.com during CTIA and had a blast.  They were a ton of fun, we talked about how irresponsible we’ve been at work to Middle East politics and I got to learn all about what Touchnote is.

I get to see all kinds of mobile phone apps and sometimes have businesses pitched at me.  Touchnote is the very best app I’ve seen of late.  I believe these guys have a really great product and have a good chance of going all the way with it (Raam, Ed call me I have some ideas for you).

I imagine people getting a BT message when they arrive at a resort offering them Touchnote and they can just tack on $5 to their room and get to send out a few postcards.  Come on this is genius.