Merry Christmas!

Wishing all our Swedish Beers buddies and sponsors a wonderful Christmas and a fabulous New Year.

Hope to see you all at 3GSM... probably on Tuesday 13th February. Watch this space for details to be announced in the New Year.

Skal

The Mega Christmas Bash was a blast

And a huge thank you to Ian, Matthew and their team at BBC Backstage for being wonderful hosts. A big thank you as well to our generous sponsors who helped the evening go with a swing by providing us with food, drink and raffle prizes - Admob, Skills Matter, ConnectMeAnywhere, O'Reilly, Trusted Places, Techcrunch UK, and Chinwag.

It was also good to catch up with friends old and new - Priya, Deirdre, Seth, Sam, Mike, Nicole, Andrew, Anusha, Paul and Matt, Jan and Savka, Stu, Sarah, Rob, Andy, Ian and Matthew, Margaret, Catherine, Sasha, Sheila, Ben, Rune, Devi and Ribot, Gillian, Julia, Trevor and about 300 others! Suffice to say, I spent the day rather quietly today whilst grimacing at some of the photos of the night appearing on flickr.

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About the sponsors:

Trusted Places
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TrustedPlaces is a social network around people’s interests and favourite places. It is the people’s, local guide to original and undiscovered bars, excellent restaurants and traditional pubs that constitute the hidden gems in cities like London. Find out what’s great (or not) in your neighbourhood.

Skills Matter
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Skills Matter provides the UK’s largest selection of training on Open Source technologies and agile software development and is a leading provider of training, mentoring and skills based transfer.

Chinwag
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Chinwag is the UK's leading online community for the new media and digital marketing industry, including the uk-netmarketing email discussion group -

Tech Crunch UK
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TechCrunch UK & Ireland is here solely to help promote local entrepreneurs and events by reporting and reviewing them. The last twelve months have been very exciting seeing the UK community take shape once again and gel together. Since its inception 4 months ago, TechCrunch has co-sponsored a number of other events and participated in many more. The BBC Backstage Party is both the culmination and celebration of many people's hard work and energy over the last twelve months. TechCrunch is very pleased to be a sponsor of this celebration.

O'Reilly
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Josette Garcia and Craig Smith from O'Reilly look forward to seeing old friends and making new acquaintances on December 9th. We'd love to hear about any projects you have or suggestions for new books, blogs or blags.

AdMob
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Are delighted to be a sponsor. In addition to their sponsorship AdMob gave away over $10 000 of mobile advertising funds on the night.

Connect Me Anywhere
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ConnectMeAnywhere is the clever way to stay connected with overseas contacts without the expensive call charges. ConnectMeAnywhere's vision since its launch has been to offer smart solutions to take the pain out of making international calls and to make its user experience as effortless as possible.

BBC Backstage
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This event would not be possible without the hard work and community focus of BBC Backstage. BBC Backstage may have started off as a developer network, but its growing and maturing into the destination for creative and talented people, who want to remix BBC data.

Mega Christmas Bash 9th December in London

Ok, so I'm a bit late writing about this - what with being away in Budapest and busy with clients. Anyway, excuses to one side...

There's going to be a big Christmas Party being hosted by BBC Backstage at The Cuban Bar on Saturday 9th December in conjunction with Swedish Beers, London Girl Geekdinners, Geekdinners, London Perlmongers, London Webstandards Group, London Ruby User Group, Open Rights Group, London 2.0 , Mobile Mondays and London SEO.

It's already over-subscribed (we've got over 500 names so far) however, having run many a networking event, there is inevitably a drop-out rate so it's worth putting your name on the waiting list. I also think that some folks will come early and leave early and some will come along later and leave at closing time (1am). So we should be able to accommodate everyone with a bit of luck. For insurance purposes, I believe the venue needs a list of all names in advance so get your name on the list sooner rather than later.

Oh and if you're interested in sponsoring some drinks and or food at the event, please get in touch.

Oh what a night!

Swedish Beers 5th Birthday Party was a blast and a big up to Bango who very generously sponsored the bar and helped the proceedings along very well.

We had our biggest turnout to date with friends old and new. We had visitors from far and wide, Mobhappy's Carlo from Austin, Texas, Noodlepie from Asia via France, the Future Platforms crew had travelled en masse from Brighton, and the Bango team travelled from Cambridge. Wow, we're honoured you folks made the effort to join us.

If you weren't there, you can read about it over at Ewan's blog - there are a fair few posts and some seriously dodgy pictures. Ewan, I recommend photography lessons ;). Tom also took a few pix which aren't *quite* so dodgy and we're still waiting for Ribot's masterpieces.

Thank you to everyone who turned up and helped make the party such a success.. Emap, Fathom Partners, IPC, Vodafone, Nokia, Gareth, UIQ, ARN Consulting, NMK, Antersite, Mobhappy, Chinwag, Juvino, ZingMedia, BT, Equal, W2Forum, Sponge, Allaboutsymbian, Telecom Express, MoMoLondon, HW&H, Ben, Leiki, Communicating Media, AlienPants, Sendmytxt, Gemalto, Noodlepie, Morpheme, Rob M, Phoniq, RespondMobile, Textfo, Buddyping, Mi-Pay, Mobmart, MoblogUK, Shopqwik, Mindmatics, Airplay and many more who I just didn't get to meet or didn't take their card or who have just slipped my mind - cut me some slack, it was a busy night!

Our next bash will be a joint Christmas Party with a few of the other key London networking groups and is on Saturday 9th December somewhere in London. Venue and details to be announced shortly. It'll be a big bash so put the date in your diary now and watch this space for more info....

In the meantime, if you still need a fix of mobile networking, then come along to the next MoMoLondon event on Monday 6th November. I'll be talking about mobile trends alongside an esteemed panel. Should be interesting!

Til next time

Skål

It's a party :)

Ok, so the nights are drawing in and the weather is on the turn and we're into Autumn. But never fear, Swedish Beers is here! And not only that, it's our 5th birthday (how time flies) so come and help us celebrate with a beer or two on Tuesday 17th October courtesy of our wonderful sponsor for the evening Bango (http://www.bango.com). If you fancy a drink and a chat, have a vaguely passing interest in things mobile and media then Swedish Beers is for you. No presentations, no speakers, nothing formal - just turn up and mingle.

Swedish Beers – Tuesday 17th October, 6.30 pm at the Nordic Bar.
Swedish Beers is held in London at the Nordic Bar at 25 Newman St, London W1 – (nearest Tube – Goodge St or Tottenham Court Rd). The Nordic Bar’s web page is at http://www.nordicbar.com/. You’ll find us in the back bar.

About our sponsor
Bango helps content providers maximize their mobile revenue opportunities. The mobile internet is opening up a huge potential market for content providers and using Bango's open, global platform, you can take advantage of this opportunity immediately. Bango removes the complexity of selling content off-portal by understanding the direct-to-consumer market and what content providers need to be successful. Follow the lead taken by MTV, The Sun newspaper, Discovery Networks and Sony BMG to build a profitable, direct relationship with consumers on mobile.

Check them out at http://www.bango.com and of course, I'm sure a few of the team will be with us on the 17th. As will a fair few of their clients I expect.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Skål

Helen, Steve and the team from Bango

Swedish Beers 5th Birthday Party

It's Swedish Beers 5th birthday in October so our next bash is the birthday one and we hope a good one. It'll be on Tuesday 17th October at our usual venue, the Nordic Bar and we'll be announcing sponsor details soon. Just wanted to let you know so that you can put the date in the diary and join us in our mobile networking and Swedish Beer drinking celebrations.

Skål

Swedish Beers was a blast last night

We had a great time at the Nordic Bar last night with folks from all kinds of industries, roles and companies - News Optimus, Emap, Mi-pay, Admob (our lovely sponsor), Zone Vision, Phoniq, MTV, BeepMarketing, Future Platforms, O2, Telecom Express, Intelli-call, Supersonic Films, Sentinel Entertainment, Botonics, Luup, Retail Internet, Perfect Path, Deloitte, ARN Consulting, the lovely KDD and Siobhan and loads more who I just didn't get round to talking to.

It was also very cool catching up with my two old bosses from ZagMe days - Bill and Russell - it was almost like a family reunion!

Big up to our fab sponsor for the night, Admob. Russell Buckley, who's heading up Admob's European division did a sterling job of paying for a lot of drinks and generally being lovely to everyone. So a very big thank you to him.

Our next event will be in October when it's our 5th birthday and we're on the hunt for a sponsor or two. Watch this space as they say...

Skål

Swedish Beers Mobile Networking on Weds 14th June

The rain may be pouring, we may be on drought alert in the South East but the beers will be flowing at Swedish Beers at the Nordic Bar, Newman St W1, on Wednesday 14th June, 2006 courtesy of our wonderful sponsors Admob. So if you fancy a drink and a chat about mobile, media and anything else that takes your fancy, then Swedish Beers is for you - no presentations, no speakers, nothing formal - just turn up and mingle. We'll be there from 6.30pm in the back bar. The first few beers are on Admob - look out for Russell at the bar.

About our sponsor:
AdMob is a start-up headed by Russell Buckley in Europe, who will be coming to the event too (in fact, you might have read Russell's blog over at Mobhappy - he's a bit of a mobile veteran). AdMob is an advertising network for mobile websites. They serve text-based, pay-per-click ads on their partners’ websites, when they are seen on a mobile handset. So far, their beta advertisers have experienced 4 times the ROI as online campaigns. So well worth a try, we'd say.

AdMob is looking for more mobile website owners and more advertisers to try the channel – especially content sellers. Talk to Russell on the night, sign up at their website or drop him an email.

About the Nordic Bar:
The nearest tubes are Tottenham Court Road or Goodge Street or Oxford Circus. Newman Street is one of the streets off Oxford Street on the north side and it's in a basement. Check out the website for more details. We'll be in the back bar from 6.30pm on the 14th June.

About Swedish Beers:
It's an informal networking event for people who have an interest in mobile and like a chat over a beer or two.

Looking forward to seeing you there.
Skål

Helen, Russell and Steve

Belated round-up of our last event

It was pretty good by all accounts [here and here and here]. People travelled from far and wide to attend (well Birmingham and Brighton at least). And we had around 70 people or more chatting about all things mobile over a glass of Swedish Beer. Big up to our sponsors, Major Players, who put a goodly amount of cash behind the bar to oil the proceedings. And thanks to everyone who came along including - Future Platforms, Phoniq, MoblogUK, Warwick Worldwide, Sliced Bread Animation, Sponge, WinPLC, Osney Media, Abadi Films, BT, RespondMobile, BeepMarketing, Mobile Networking, Mobile Mondays, Mi-pay, New Media Edge , Echovox, ARN Consulting, mbites, Ionsquare, Intelli-call, MonsterMob, Zone Vision and lots more besides who I just can't remember or simply didn't get round to chatting to . I didn't get chance to meet everyone I'm afraid, but there's always next time (probably in June or July sponsor permitting - anyone fancy sponsoring the next one?).

skal

Swedish Beers next mobile networking event Tuesday 4th April 06

We'll be at the usual venue - The Nordic Bar in Newman St, W1 - and the drinks for the first hour or two are courtesy of the lovely recruitment folks over at Major Players. You'll find us in the back bar.

If you've not been before or just need a reminder of what Swedish Beers is about, it's for anyone with a passing interest in mobile. We get all kinds of folks along from developers to aggregators, film makers to publishers, content creators to network operators, consultants to journalists and lots more besides.

It's not a formal affair - no powerpoint, no speeches, just turn up and mingle and be prepared to talk to strangers!

Hope to see you there.

skål

Swedish Beers Mobile Networking in Barcelona at 3GSM

We've decided to have a Swedish Beers meetup on Wednesday 15th February whilst we're in Barcelona as a few regulars are going to be there anyway. And we wanted to facilitate further networking and a little partying at 3GSM too...

If you'd like to come along (assuming you have some vague interest in things mobile which you probably have if you're going to be in Barca for 3GSM), then here are the details:

Location - Café Viennese in Casa Fuster. The hotel is located on the Passeig de Gràcia, just above the Avenida Diagonal and next to the famous Jardinets. Thanks to Rudy De Waele for recommending such a great venue. You can find information on the hotel at their website .

Time - 19:30 to 21:30 on Wednesday 15th February.
Vibe - Casual

We're not looking for a sponsor this time so bring your expense accounts!

Let me know if you can make it - either leave a comment here or drop an email to swedishbeers [at] beepmarketing [dot] [com].

Skål