During Mobile World Congress 2012, TheFonecast.com was invited to record a roundtable on Privacy in Mobile Applications. This event was hosted by MEF, the global community for mobile content and commerce, and was supported by SNR Denton.

Our recording is now online at TheFonecast.com and on the MEF blog.

Mark Bridge writes:

Excuse me a moment while I climb onto my soapbox.

Right. Ooh, it’s busy up here.

For a number of years, various companies have worked on computer-powered dictation and transcription services. Now Apple has entered this space.

Mark Bridge writes:

Mobile financial services were making the headlines yet again last week. Not once. Not twice. No, we noticed at least three separate (and all pretty big) stories to talk about.

First came Nokia’s planned withdrawal from its mobile money service, which will leave around a million people in India looking for a new mobile wallet.

Mark Bridge writes:

The new iPad has a better screen. Higher-resolution. Clearer. High Definition. Just what everyone wants, right?

Apparently not.

Mark Bridge writes:

Back in the 1960s, Hertz was the number one hire car company in the USA. Avis was trailing a long way behind. Looking for a new advertising campaign, CEO Robert Townsend spoke to Bill Bernbach - the ‘B’ in ad agency DDB - and a few months later “We try harder” became the Avis tagline.

“Avis is only No.2 in rent a cars” the headlines admitted. “We try harder. When you’re not the biggest, you have to.”

It’s a message I was reminded of when I met Andreas Bernström at Mobile World Congress last month. Andreas is CEO of Rebtel, the world’s second-largest mobile Voice-over-IP company. With Skype seen as market leader for VoIP services, I asked Andreas whether Rebtel also needed to try harder.