Another year at Mobile World Congress ends; the team comes home both exhausted from the long days (& nights) and energised by meeting so many interesting and enterprising people.

Looking at the mobile trends, many manufacturers have now jumped on the Touch UI bandwagon. For Taptu, that’s great news; we love a touchy-feely interface, since using your fingers to point at menus is so much more intuitive than having to scroll and click.

There are however a few cases where we couldn’t believe our eyes at how Touch UI can be used so poorly. Regardless, it’s encouraging that more manufacturers are considering the simplicity of touch; it’ll just take a while to polish it and make it most user-friendly rather than purely “flash, spin and float around” eye candy. Just before MWC, we published a whitepaper on Touch UI, which Bob Last mentioned on the TechCrunchTalk panel on Mobile Disruption.

The second noticeable trend was the clear focus on apps, apps and more apps. Everyone is opening their own app store, following Apple’s success. It’s exciting to see to think that every device platform could develop its own hub for applications, as it’s something I always felt was missing back in my S60 days, but the take-up will depend highly on the quality of the user experience in browsing the apps available. If every platform has a high quality app store, users will have more fun and developers will get the recognition they deserve. What could possibly go wrong?

Shiny gadgets and business exchanges aside, some of the other highlights of our week include the bear machine, which was so popular with visitors to our stand that it broke by the third day. Don’t worry, we still gave away the teddy bears for the rest of the week.

The team thoroughly enjoyed hosting drinks on Tuesday evening, and we want to thank everyone who popped by! Celia’s Killer Pink Cocktails were such a hit, we were asked for the recipe and we thought we’d share it here:

Celia’s Killer Pink Cocktail

• 1 part raspberry liqueur
• 2 parts triple sec
• Top up with chilled dry white wine

Serve with a pink stirrer and enjoy!

Twelve hours later, top up body with two headache-relief tablets, a glass of water and a bacon buttie.

Manning a stand for a few days can also lead to discovering new skills in your colleagues, as we did with Bob when he started juggling teddy bears to entertain people walking by!

In summary, we thoroughly enjoyed our time at Mobile World Congress and cannot wait to see what partnerships, funky app releases and friendships the next few months will bring as a result of this event.

Next week, Taptu will be at Mobile World Congress, one of the biggest events of the year in mobile – and a great opportunity to go galavanting around beautiful Barcelona.

As we’ll be busy galavanting working very hard, meeting the mobile community and demonstrating the latest version of the Taptu service, we’ve called in the help of Gemma, Caroline and Philip, from Racepoint Group. They will be blogging on our behalf, snapping pics of the event, and sharing their MWC experience.

Remember, if you’re at the event, you’re welcome to join us on Tuesday evening for a drink; from 5 to 7pm in Hall 7, Stand D42. Be sure to say hi to our lovely office manager Celia and ask to see her pink Taptu shoes.

In two weeks, we’ll be at Mobile World Congress, one of the biggest events of the year in the mobile industry, to meet industry colleagues and demo the next version of Taptu. Come see us and we’ll be happy to give you a sneak preview of it.

If you’re also intending to be in Barcelona for MWC, we hope you’ll be able to join us on Tuesday evening from 5 to 7pm for drinks in Hall 7, Stand D42, as we’d love to meet you.

Otherwise, pop by our stand at any time: you’ll be greeted by our white and pink bar and, believe it or not, a Teddy Bear Grabber machine where you can get a Taptu bear. If you’re lucky, your teddy may contain a winning ticket for an iPod Touch. There are three to be won during the week!

[More teddy bear antics? You'll find them on Flickr.]

Already two months into 2008, with one of the biggest mobile events of the year behind us, we’ve reached maximum velocity. Without wanting to toot my own horn too much, we’ve done lots so far this year at Taptu. We launched the latest version of our search engine – just in time to play with it at MWC – integrating Twitter and email sharing to make it easier to pass on the results you find. And best of all, we’re having a great time doing it.

Before we jump into this week’s generous dose of writing, I’m taking the liberty of highlighting SkyDeck’s posts as a must-read for everyone. Dan at SkyDeck sounds the alarm on a seriously dodgy company called SJA Mobile (Part 1 & Part 2), who presents itself as a mobile billing service but strikes me as being nothing more than a thinly veiled scam preying on unsuspecting customers who don’t check their bills closely enough. British Telecom once pulled a similar trick on me, but this one hits the bottom of the barrel in terms of disgusting business models. If anyone can help shed light on how SJA Mobile can continue to operate with such unethical processes, please shout!

Now, on with the Carnival…

C. Enrique Ortiz reflects on local applications and getting the most out of a mobile handset, mentioning Google’s local search for Nokia handsets, the long-awaited-and-still-nowhere-to-be-seen iPhone SDK, and the Java ME apps that still seem to be in demand. Diametrically opposed is Mike Mace’s entry on the death of the mobile app, citing splintering platforms, shrinking distribution channels, and rising costs as the killers.

Tarek Esber flags up that, to ease the pain of the fragmented device market, DeviceAtlas has been created by dotMobi, in partnership with Volantis, Nokia, Vodafone and more.

Dennis writes an insightful post on Android’s significance: It won’t have a slick iPhone-like UI, it won’t be the end-all and be-all of mobile advertising monetisation questions, but its “sandbox” approach to allowing self-signed and “safe” Android apps will hopefully boost the mobile apps landscape.

Mobile 2.0

In more than 140 characters, Howard Rheingold at SmartMobs jots down why he’s completely hooked on Twitter, today’s freelancer’s water cooler.

Ajit Jaokar deconstructs how Mobile Web 2.0, a much talked about idea, will be implemented in practice, breaking it down into 11 different possible implementations.

Post-MWC Thoughts

Rudy recaps on the Mobile Monday Peer Awards, which recognised 27 startups from 18 countries during MWC 2008, John Puterbaugh reduxes on the event’s announcements, and Martin reviews the clever WiMAX demos he was privy to in Barcelona.

At SMS Text News, James Whatley throws around some ideas on how Nokia’s currently disjointed applications could be linked together to create a more enjoyable user experience. He also notes Nokia’s rather disappointing answers to some of his questions on stats and synchronising personal information.

Finally, once you’ve had enough of reading, you can listen to Paul Ruppert at Mobile Point View, who shares his podcast with Andy McGuire, GSMA VP, Mobile Innovation Marketplace.

Enjoy the reading and join us next week when the Carnival will be hosted by Mark at Ubiquitous Thoughts!

Following Mobile World Congress, everyone’s got a lot to say about what they think is the Next Big Thing in mobile, so the VisionMobile-hosted Carnival of the Mobilists is a busy one this week.

Go ahead and have a read here, but make sure you also polish up your best entries for next week’s Carnival, which will be hosted right here on the Taptu blog!

The past few weeks have been extremely busy in the Taptu offices, as we put the final touches to a whole heap of new features. It’s far more than just a lick of paint, as the search engine becomes a search and share engine. What on Earth does that mean, you must wonder?

First, let me dispel a misconception about Taptu. Tons of people during MWC asked me what phone they needed to be able to download the latest version of Taptu. Even after repeating that it’s entirely web-based, requires no installation and can therefore be used on just about any phones, some looked incredulous. At that stage, I promptly (but politely) yanked their own phone out of their hands to show them that Taptu was already on their phone, waiting for them. So there you go. No downloads, ever. Just a simple URL!

Now, back to those new features we’ve cooked up…

We now index far more content than before, in many more categories above and beyond the original music, video, images, wiki range. You’ll find news, sports, blogs, lyrics, travel and many more! Each search result is neatly labelled (a bit like the linen in that overly organised friend’s closet, “single sheets”, “double sheets”…) to help you find what you need faster and without any extraneous clicks.

When you click through to a single result page, rather than throw you out in the cold straight to the destination site, we give you a summary page, big on information but teeny in file size. This means you can decide whether it’s the right destination without waiting for the complete site to load. Quicker and simpler.

Once you find the information you’re looking for in the search results, it’s time to unleash it into the wild. Share what you’ve found to Gmail contacts, email it to anyone or broadcast it to your Twitter stream. When you next check Taptu on your phone, your past shared searches will still be around if you want to view them again.

So try it out and let us know what you think!

We’re now all home after an eventful week at Mobile World Congress, spent meeting new and interesting people who love the mobile web as much as we do, looking out for new phones and services, and eating great Spanish tapas.

Since launching many new features on Monday, we’ve made the news a few times.

TechDigest says “We’ve been getting excited about Taptu for months now, so it’s fantastic to see they won the Global Community Award at the MoMo Peer Awards last night at the Mobile World Congress, rewarding our confidence in this small English start-up to no end.”

Mike Butcher from TechCrunch UK agreed that “if the future is social search – as many think it is – then the future must also be mobile social search, since the mobile is such a social device.”

Fritz Nelson from Information Week writes about MWC and the lack of innovation since last year. However, he highlights Taptu as one of the mobile service that have caught his attention. “Taptu, a startup based in the U.K., also has a compelling story — perhaps even more so. It builds not only relevance into its results, it brings those results to within a click of accessing. It presents results based on a ranking of social popularity, provides categories (like blogs, news stories, videos), a nifty little summary of the item, and then a one-click way to share it.”

Susi Weaser from Shiny Shiny, writes “It’s good to see that there are people out there who haven’t just accepted Google as the only option when it comes to internet searches. In particular, Taptu have vowed to take on mobile searching, with their easy peasy service.”

Peggy Ann Salz from MSearchGroove posted an article on the new features we launched at MWC, but also interviewed Steve, our CEO, in a podcast about where he thinks mobile search is heading.

The Dutch Cowboys interviewed Steve at the stand, also capturing a bit of the atmosphere of the conference in their video, and Heise Online congratulated us on the Mobile Monday award we received and are very excited about!

Here’s a translation of the Dutch Cowboys’ text for those who, like me, may be Dutch-impaired (kindly provided by Raimo from Mobile Monday Amsterdam)

“The readers of Dutchcowboys know that Search is one of our favourite things. Moreover web 2.0 and Social media play more and more an important role in things we are involved in. For this reason it is a pleasure to hear an entrepreneur and visionary talk about all this even more so that it is happening on your mobile. Closer it cannot get.

Some will think that this is however the millionth promise that search on a cellphone will make it entirely. While the device manufacturers still struggle with the (business)model around mobile search Taptu might have the correct answer. Listen to the passionate Steve Ives who speaks about his social mobile search application Taptu.”

Over the course of the past few days, something has really hit me when chatting with other mobile addicts and watching visitors walk over to our stand, while I’m perched on a bar stool at our stand: Very few of the people at this conference are using a single device to answer all their needs. The iPhone for web browsing, the N95 for video shoots, the E61 to get that quick blog post done. Pockets bulging with shiny gadgets.

Unquestionably, Mobile World Congress is not a reflection of normality or the average mobile user, and most people don’t have the money, the need or the interest to have multiple devices, but as mobile geeks, we can’t seem to find a single device that ticks every box.

I’m not sure we’ll ever reach a point where a phone does everything we want to to do without being the size of a briefcase or some crazy “Go go Gadget phone”, and if there is such a device, it certainly isn’t being unveiled here this year. Simplicity is compromised by cramming too many options in a menu, portability is hindered by screen or keypad size, and so on…

What would your dream device have and not have?

Last night, we were invited to the MoMo Peer Awards, as we had been nominated to represent the London chapter in the Emerging Startups category. I’m thrilled to say that we won the Global Community Award, which Jari Tammisto, CEO of Mobile Monday, handed to Bob who’s our Biz Dev guy.

We’re chuffed to bits about the reception we’re getting here, and we’ve met some really lovely people since we’ve been here. If you’re also at MWC, come say hi at the stand!

This weekend, we’re packing our suitcases and heading off to (*checks weather forecast*) sunny Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, arguably the biggest mobile conference of the year.

We’ll have a fabulous white and pink stand, fully equipped with drinks and a handy place to charge your mobile phone. If you’re also attending, we’d love to meet you, so pop by stand 7D42, in the heart of Hall 7.

You’ll find us attending a number of events throughout the week as well:

• Mobile Sunday Barcelona,
• Mobile Monday Peer Awards where, thanks to you all, we’ve been selected to represent London in the “Early Stage” category,
• Swedish Beers on Tuesday evening
• And for the girls attending, see you at Women in Mobile Data on Wednesday afternoon!