Regular readers of this blog (or any of you that have frequented my about page and/or follow me on Twitter) will know that as well as my main role over at SpinVox, I also write and co-present over at the Mobile Industry Review (MIR).

Pre-show discussion, Covent Garden – Photo by Josh Russell

Last week Ewan Macleod, Owner and Editor-in-Chief at MIR, announced that all future content had been bought (in the name of research and analysis), and as part of the bargain, the site in its current iteration would be discontinued.

As of March 27th 2009, any and all content created by Ewan will only be available for corporate clients via a new subscription-based model. Details of which are below, from the man himself:

“[The] new client is unwilling to subsidise our existing audience of readers (300-400k last month) so the content that I’ll be creating – reports, video interviews and day-to-day industry news and analysis – will become proprietary from 27th of March. After this date, the public version of MIR will no longer be updated.

The nature of the agreement allows for corporate subscriptions to [MIR] content at £12,000 per annum, plus applicable taxes. I’m able to offer the first 10 subscriptions at half price until the end of the month…”

Sad times.

I joined MIR (previously known as SMS Text News) way back in November 2007; I had just posted my initial teaser post regarding that year’s Future of Mobile event and Ewan called me up asking if he could have the full write up for his site.

Needless to say I agreed. The post was written and both Ewan and I were pleased with the response. Between us, building on that that initial conversation, a new weekly column – ‘Whatley on Wednesday‘ – was born.

- Whatley Wednesday -

Later on, when we moved into the realms of ‘other’ media; starting with audio then later moving into video, the site really started to develop and, by the time the weekly videocast developed into a fully-fledged show, the format was in the bag along a brand new name: Mobile Industry Review.

Along with the infinitely knowledgeable Ben Smith and the always engaging Dan Lane, I really felt that the Mobile Industry Review was going places.

We were able to provide an entertaining look into the global mobile industry and maintain a credible voice by incorporating various sources from both inside and outside the microcosm of mobile.

The informed, editorial opinion was well respected and it will be missed greatly.

Through MIR I’ve established some great contacts, played with some awesome phones (some not so awesome) and last but by no means least, made some real friends.

Filming the show @ Mobile Monday, London - Photo by Rebecca Cottrell

Ewan has given me an export of all my work to date and I will be importing all of it into http://whatleydude.com later on today. Apologies if this clogs up your RSS.

Also, any fans of the MIR Show should save the MIR Vimeo channel in their favourites. Although there will be no new episodes in the future, I’m told that the MIR TV back catalogue will remain online for posterity.

Finally have no fear, I’m still very much a Mobile Geek and I’ll still be keeping my eye on what’s coming next in the world of all things Mobile.

All that’s changed is where that output will live.

Until next time,

James.

…YEAH he does

- Beautiful, Huh? –

Although I’m not about to start setting a precedent for talking about myself in the third person…
The man they call Whatley, he say No.
Heh.

Anywhoo!

It’s been a while hasn’t it?! One week and one month to be precise.
Cor! I have been slacking!

To be honest, ‘slacking’ isn’t really a fair description. I have been just a leeetle bit busy, y’know?
You’ll see…

Got a helluva lot to catch up with and well, this post here – this one – the one you’re reading right now, is more of an introduction. A Prologue if you will…
Last night, not long after I got in from Frankfurt, I started compiling all of the media (photos, videos etc) that I’ve taken over the past month or so and have actually, finally begun to make sense of it all… it’s nearly ready for sharing! Excited? Much?!

However, as you can no doubt imagine, there is a LOT to get through -

First there’s the conferences: Nokia’s Openlab in Finland, Web 2.0 Expo in New York, Blog World Expo in Las Vegas, ad:tech London, Future of Web Apps London aaaaaaaaaaand most recently – Voicedays in Wiesbaden!

And even though I’ve already put up some of the above over on the SpinVox Blog, Big Talk – namely part of the The US Tour and My Voicedays Presentation – I still have plenty to say on each, so don’t think you’re getting short shrift..

Crazy Crazy Crazy…

THEN of course, there’s the ma-hoosive list of really cool stuff that I’ve been playing with lately – from Alfie’s uber-cool ‘Find Me‘ project (best. thing. ever.), to messing about with ‘Hotel Visualisers’ (no really – they’re actually quite cool), from enormous Bean Bags (like – HUGE), to some brand spanking new phones (super swish), and back once again to some cool BBC-based activities (which I really can’t talk about right now – but I will). Tops.

So.. The Plan:

The mission from here on in – for now at least, (until I clear my back load), is to try and blog once a day. I need to get this thing moving and the more time that passes the more information I have stored up that I simply have to share…

(plus there’s the small matter of my head *actually* exploding if I don’t get it all out soon)

And that is my promise to you dear and loyal readers.
Watch this space.
One post a day.

Starting.

Now.

P.S. For those of you that don’t know – aside from my day job at SpinVox, I’m also part of the team behind the Mobile Industry Review.. and each week we produce a 30min show about, you guessed it, the mobile industry…  You can catch the show, every Monday over on the TV pages of the website.

I normally keep that stuff separate but this week’s show really is our best one yet -
So, here it is, reprodcuced for your viewing pleasure…
I hope you like it:

Click here to view the embedded video.

See you tomorrow!