OCE Discovery…Hope to see you there

Plastic Mobile will be at the OCE Discovery today. We are looking forward to seeing Ontario’s highlighted & fostered highlighted. We are impressed that they are hosting a 3D conference, collaborating with FilmOntario, the S3D gaming Alliance, and 3D FLIC to present Ontario Projection: Advances in 3D.

OCE attracts close to 2,500 attendees and more than 325 exhibitors and Discovery showcases leading-edge technologies, best practices and research from sectors such as health, manufacturing, digital media and cleantech, including energy, environment and water.

We are here all day, if you’d like to arrange a meeting at the conference, my email is melody[at]plasticmobile.com

Plastic Mobile team had a great trip to South by Southwest Interactive. Austin, TX was buzzing with over 20,000 people traveling from around the world to attend the festival. We hopped from one panel to the next keynote speech to the various industry parties. Most importantly, we enjoyed connecting with talents in the digital space.

Over the last few years, SXSW has become a launch pad for many start-ups. Social networking tools like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc all got their popularity boost from this festival. For the sake of mobile, here are some highlights from this year’s SXSW:

1) Group Messaging: Before the festival began, the hot thing expected for 2011 was ability to message an exclusive group of people. After SXSW, we still don’t think group messaging got its sex appeal (yet). It’s still a tool that people will find useful on the specific occasions. Beluga, Fast Society, Kik, Yobongo, and GroupMe were all contenders in the group messaging app battle. According to an infographic published in TechCrunch, GroupMe won at SXSW. Now, I’m not sure if the results were skewed since GroupMe were serving free beer and yummy grilled cheese sandwiches. Marketing is king at SXSW.

2) iPad 2: Opening day of SXSW fell on the same day that the iPad 2 became available in the US. Apple made it convenient for the fellow SXSW tech aficionados to get their hands on the latest tablet by opening up a pop-up store in the heart of downtown Austin. Yes, iPad 2 was heavily talked about at the festival. Plus, we saw a lot of tablets being held up in the air, as people were testing out its camera feature. (I hope this doesn’t become a trend) As expected, the iPad 2 was pretty much sold out…well, they only had 64G version in Austin.

3) Mobile app creator. Everyone wants to create a mobile application. Many bloggers and online publications have the influence but not the budget to invest on a mobile application. New platforms are coming out help alleviate that problem – so people can produce high-quality apps at an affordable price. Plastic Mobile will soon be launching its mobile platform called Joomo (pronounced “You-Mo”). It’ll create applications for all platforms on smartphones and tablets based on a site or blog. Learn more about Joomo by checking out our site (it’s in beta): www.joomo.com

4) QR Codes: The movie Source Code with Jake Gyllenhaal premiered at SXSW. Microsoft was a sponsor and used its Tag technology to promote the film. Essentially, Microsoft Tag is a form of QR Code where you scan the barcode and it’ll direct you to a specific site. The Source Code tag, took its users to a social game on Facebook. The game itself was based on the movie. Are we seeing a new trend for Hollywood in order to promote its films?

5) Deals: As Groupon leads the race on the daily deals space many other mobile applications are jumping on the bandwagon. Facebook has announced that they are testing daily deals in a few US cities. The co-founder of Foursquare, the geo-location mobile app, said in a SXSW presentation that they are aggressively looking into offering more deals for its users. All I have to say, let’s move away from the discounts on spas, massages, or bootcamp sessions. New deals please!

Music… film…and mobile! A match made in heaven – well, or at least Austin, Texas.  It’s huge, it’s an event; it’s the South X Southwest festival. An orchestra of multimedia and entertainment, and Plastic Mobile will be there!

We are incredibly psyched to be one of the cutting edge companies converging on the Lone-Star State to mix, mingle and show off our great stuff amongst 36,000 key industry reps.  From March 11 to 15 Plastic Mobile will be doing it’s thing at SXSW Interactive; an expose of cutting-edge technology from around the world, with all eyes on the latest and greatest in digital, video game, and interactive breakthroughs.

We will of course be networking, learning and having loads of fun, while keeping our eyes and ears open for fresh new mobile ideas and opportunities.  SXSW happens once a year, a “can’t miss” exhibition of all things tech; and Plastic Mobile’s on its way! Stay tuned to hear about all the highlights once we are back.

Only one more sleep till the EXTRAVAGANZA!