Can I get a drumroll please? Or maybe just the trill of a thousand ringtones to celebrate the selection of our Mobilize 2010 Launchpad finalists ? It’s hard to sift through the excitement around the mobile sector right now, so for the second year , GigaOM hopes to help cut through the hype and present 10 companies we think have interesting products and ideas in the mobile space. Neilsen estimates that by this time next year,  half the... 

I’m happy to announce that we have just opened our representative office for the Middle East and Africa region in Manama, the capital of Bahrain. Today, at a press conference held jointly with the Bahrain Economic Development Board, we explained some of the key reasons to why we chose Bahrain. Bahrain provides one of the most energetic environments to support and encourage innovation – it has a talented local workforce as well as... 

CommunicAsia is the region’s biggest consumer electronics event, and this year Skype is here in force. In an hour’s time (0930 SGT), Josh Silverman will take to the stage to deliver this year’s visionary address. You can watch it live above, or read on for some clues as to what’s inside. Innovation means change. Disruptive innovation means major change. And change can be scary and even threatening for some. But it is... 

Skype ’s Jonathan Rosenberg is speaking at eComm on Monday (11:15am). He’s one of Skype’s thought leaders, the company’s Chief Technology Strategist. I was really hoping he’d announce how Skype will play in ViPR land. His talk blurb goes in another direction : Social Sharing 2.0: The Rise of Real-Time. Social sharing through sites like Facebook and Twitter has seen meteoric rise in the last year. Exciting as that... 

As you know, Skype is serious about giving small businesses the tools they need to succeed. As part of this commitment and in support of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan , Skype today announced a public/private partnership with SCORE to help accelerate small business growth through access to broadband. Skype and SCORE “Counselors to America’s Small Business” will help increase small business success through access to broadband,... 

GigaOM’s flagship conference, Structure, returns on June 23rd and 24th for two days of deep insight into the Cloud Computing industry. Taking place at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco, Structure 2010 promises to be our best Structure conference yet. The $1.4 trillion IT market is undergoing a massive shake-up due to Cloud Computing. From the chips that power the compute clouds to the broadband that transports the computation... 

Here’s the Say It Visually! whiteboard guide to Skype mobile on Verizon Wireless phones. Positioned as freeing you from your PC (the way, um, mobile phones do). Bonus points for unlimited Skype-to-Skype calling from your phone with your flat rate Verizon data plan. On YouTube . tags: explanation , communications , verizon , wireless , mobile , sayitvisually Call me at +1-510-316-9773 , Skype me , follow @skypejournal and @Phil  Read More →

Skype into the event: 877-883-4690 (United States and Canada) or +1 706-758-5386 (international). Conference ID: 64218465 Verizon Wireless And Skype To Unveil Skype mobile At CTIA WIRELESS 2010 In Las Vegas 03/22/2010 WHO: Verizon Wireless, the leading wireless provider in the United States, and Skype, the company with the software that enables the world’s conversations WHAT: Verizon Wireless and Skype will hold a news conference during CTIA... 

I went to the Game Developers Conference yesterday. Team voice chat is now a commodity, a feature you can buy/rent for your game from companies like GameSpy . Players of team games don’t like in-game voice chat. They want to talk with teammates outside of the game before team play (planning, coordination, training) and after (after-action reports, peer feedback). …  Read More →

The Startup Bus to SXSW Interactive 2010 is now rolling south by southeast. “12 strangers will board a bus in San Francisco. At 60 miles an hour and over 48 hours, they will conceive, build and launch 3 tech startups in time for a SXSW party in Austin.” Can you bootstrap a company and squeeze in a decent portability policy? The Bus startups will try. The DataPortability Project wants to make your …  Read More →

Heather MacPhie is an Olympic freestyle skier, who competed in the Ladies’ Moguls in Vancouver this year. I invited her to write about her experience of the Olympics and of Skype. Watch out for the second post about her competition day in the coming weeks. One of my favorite things about the Olympics is the sense of connection. Athletes, staff, family, fans, and Olympic enthusiasts from all over the world coming together …  Read More →

Mark Spencer’s speech to the Spring 2009 Emerging Communications Conference at the San Francisco Airport Marriott . His slides on Slideshare . eComm2010a looks hot and may sell out . I’ll be speaking , and so will thought leaders from Skype, Google, Cisco, and a host of others.  Read More →

Our mobile team are all headed to Mobile World Congress , in Barcelona next week, and have a little goodie for everyone in Barcelona – and in fact anywhere in Spain. If you’re in Spain, you’ll be able to get one session of WiFi access, on us, for up to 15 minutes, thanks to Skype Access . All you need is Skype 2.8 for Mac or Skype 4.2 beta for Windows . When you launch Skype, you’ll be asked if you want to take advantage... 

Next week in Barcelona is Mobile World Congress – the world’s biggest mobile industry event. We’ll be there in force, and will have a couple of exciting announcements to make. Russ Shaw, VP and GM of our mobile business, gives a few hints in the video above. You can also join us at our tweetup for drinks and a chance to talk to everyone from engineers to marketers about the week’s announcements. It kicks off at 1730 on Wednesday... 

Will networked automobiles be the next platform for green apps? That’s just one of the possibilities we’ll be looking at on our panel “The New Networked Car” at the Green:Net 2010 conference , which will be held on April 29th at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco. The next generation of electric cars will fuel up from the power grid and have one of several operating systems, broadband provided by wireless...