Panelists:

• Brett Henry, Vice-President, Marketing and Vice-President, India, Abacus International
• Andy Gstoll, CEO, Mobilizy, Wikitude World Browser
• Andrey Deriabin, VP and CEO, Arrivedokmobi Inc, UK
• Stephen Fitzgerald, Chief Operating Officer, Sabre Hospitality Solutions

So, day One at WIT proper and it’s the last session before lunch – On The Move, Part One (my experience is that the sessions either side of lunch can be tough).  Still, we have Brett Henry who normally keeps people’s attention so let’s see how we go …

Brett is the moderator.  First things first:  Another shameless Twitter plug!

Brett gives an overview of what’s going on with Mobile and talks about some compelling applications available on devices.  Brett tells us about when he and Siew Hoon recently met with Guy Kawasaki.  He told them that Twitter was the most important thing of the moment and people ignore it at their peril.  Brett talks about the ‘real-time’ nature of Mobile – particularly Twitter.

So here come the panelists:

Andy Gstoll – Brett talks about Andy as running the hottest start up on the planet.  The other guys are Andrey Deriabin and Stephen Fitzgerald.

Things kick off with a video on how Wikitude World works. Looks la bit like Layar to me but my friend Bojan tells me that you can have multiple data layers at once and this makes it quite different.  Andy Gstoll then gives us a brief history of the product and explains to us where the product is today.  Andy says that it’s about real information and sharing experiences.  Andy talks about a ‘shift’ in the tools we are using to communicate.

Stephen’s up next.  He starts by sharing a few trends with us: Mobile Tagging and its various applications – marrying print media with digital media for example.  Mobile tagging with SMS will happen more and more he says but the most interesting application is Augmented Reality.  He shows us a neat app that tells us how where and how much apartments are.  We are not far away from real time rates at a hotel displayed via AR he says.  Real time availability at restaurants looks pretty cool too.  Google Goggles is an idea where the ‘app’ recognizes an object you might take a picture of.

Andrey’s turn.  Arrivedokmobi does not have a mobile interface as such he tells us.  he tells us that mobile traffic cost and roaming charges is a limiting component in his business.  Most people just 

don’t use International Roaming he says.  If you fire up Google Maps for example – “bang” he says, “twenty five dollars”.  Charges can run into thousands of dollars in just a couple of weeks.  “Wi-Fi, of course, lacks the continuous user experience – it’s fragmented”, he says.

Brett goes on to say that we can view mobile from a too narrow perspective. We need to think more broadly he says and form a part of all aspects of strategy – sales, marketing, customer support etc.

Gstoll tells us that they are doing what they can to come up with ways to avoid roaming charges – locally held data, for example. Fitzgerald adds that one of the greatest challenges is the rate of change – taking a picture of a building will be a search and how can we keep up with that?

The panel shares their favorite mobile apps with us.  Currency converters seem popular.

Andy (G) is convinced that AR will be everywhere soon and all over our devices.  He would say that wouldn’t he? But I think he could be right.  AR is very exciting.

Thank you to Brett and the panel

Lunch Time!!!!!!!!