Swedish Beers in Barca sponsors announced

Just in case you haven't heard, Swedish Beers is coming to Barcelona for MWC. Yes, it's that time of year again and everyone who is lucky enough to be heading to the sunshine and frolics in Barcelona is organising their MWC social life. The Swedish Beers crew *will* be in town as many of you already know and we'll be living it up at Belchica courtesy of our very generous sponsors Trutap - David and Carl, PINoptic - Colin and Jenny, MyMart - Adam and Ben, and Admob - Russell and Andy. So the first few beers will be on them. The proceedings kick off at 7pm and will go on until late (the bar's open very late so we won't get kicked out) so feel free to drop by and say hello, or should I say hola, during the evening.

Like last year's Swedish Beers in Spain in a Belgian Bar, on the night the very generous sponsors (this year's are David, Carl, Colin, Jenny, Russell, Andy, Adam and Ben) and the Swedish Beers crew (that's me, Steve, Anton and Gillian) will be the ones armed with the beer tokens. So come and search us out to claim your free beers.

It'll be the usual eclectic mix of media, marketing and mobile types but since we're in Barcelona for the night, it's a chance for our friends from outside the UK to join the fun too. There's sure to be lots of familiar faces as many of the London regulars will be there, but we're looking forward to welcoming new folks too. So if you fancy a drink and a chat and a mingle with the nice Swedish Beers folks, then come along and join in. You don't have to talk about mobile and you don't even have to drink beer if you don't want to, but it would be nice if you were friendly and enjoyed hanging out with other friendly folk who happen to have a passing interest in things mobile. There's no RSVP required unless you'd like to. If we're full when you arrive, don't panic, just come back a bit later. Folks will be coming and going all evening I expect.

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THE LOWDOWN:

Where: Belchica, Villarroel 60, 08011 Barcelona. Entrance on Gran Via de Deputacion. Metro L1 Urguell (so very near Congress).

When: Tuesday 12th February 2008 19:00h onwards

What: Swedish Beers Mobile Networking Drinks

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ABOUT OUR LOVELY SPONSORS without whom the night wouldn't be possible

*Trutap* is an easy-to-use free mobile service that for the first time, globally, combines all the elements of a young person's social life into one application. With trutap users can easily connect and converse with friends and family, wherever they are, whenever they want. trutap currently operates in over 200 countries across the world and will operate in more shortly. Carl and David will be with us and if you want to know what they look like, their pictures can be found here! I'm quite sure David and Carl will keep you amused as well being Swedish Beers old-timers.

*PINoptic* applies its Visual Probabilistic One Time Password (VPOTP) next-generation software to high security authentication applications. This delivers an easy to implement yet innovative, universal security solution with the strength required by even financial institutions. PINoptic maintains user simplicity through the use of pictures and symbols which appeals to a global market with differing literacy levels. Applications range from financial through to internet, mobile telecoms, corporate IT and access control. PINoptic's vision is to become a defacto security standard and replace 99% of existing pin and password systems by 2012. Jenny and Colin will be on hand to explain all and it's pretty cool. Oh, and they'll have tokens for free beer.

*MyMart* is leading the way in mobile retail by providing mobile shop technology and services for operators, agencies and retailers. Adam and Ben are looking forward to building strategic relationships at the mobile world congress. They're also interested to chat about wheree mobile retail may be heading. Adam and Ben will have beer tokens in hand and are generally fun to hang out with too. And no, they won't try and sell you anything on the spot via one of their mobile shops... Well, I don't think they will anyway ;)

*Admob* Founded in 2006 (on my birthday as it happens! Ed), AdMob is the world's largest and highest quality mobile advertising marketplace, serving more than 2 billion mobile banner and text ads per month. Founded in January 2006, AdMob allows advertisers to reach their customers on the mobile web and enables publishers to increase the value of their mobile sites. AdMob offers advertisers the ability to target and personalize advertising to their customers in 160 countries. Sample AdMob customers include Coca Cola, Starbucks, MSN, Paramount Pictures, Reuters, MTV and many more. AdMob serves ads for over 3,000 mobile web sites, including ESPN, CBS, Weather Underground, Maxim and Peperonity. Russell (genunine old skool mobilist and blogger), Andy and I expect a few more from their crew will be around to hand out beer tokens and generally chew the fat.

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CHECK US OUT ON FACEBOOK TOO
Join the group - you'll be in good company and get more details about this event
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The Swedish Beers crew: Helen, Steve, Anton and Gillian

The Swedish Beers crew are back in Barcelona in February

Yes, it’s that time of year again when the world’s mobilists land in Barcelona to obsess about all things mobile for a few days for the GSMA's Mobile World Congress (the conference formerly known as 3GSM). So of course, the Swedish Beers Posse will be in town too and we're running our Swedish Beers Mobile Networking event too and would love you to join us.

So if you're friendly, enjoy mingling and have a passing interest in mobile, then mingle with the nice Swedish Beers folks. Don't worry, you don't have to talk about mobile technology, handsets or whatever and you don't even have to drink beer if you don't want to but we would like you to be friendly and enjoy mingling with us.

We have some lovely sponsors lined up and the first few beers will be on them - more details as they're confirmed.

Where: Belchica, Villarroel 60, 08011 Barcelona. Entrance on Gran Via de Deputacion. Metro L1 Urguell (so very near Congress and the same place we went to last year).

When: Tuesday 12th February 2008

Time: 7pm onwards

What: Swedish Beers Mobile Networking drinks

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Helen, Steve, Anton, Seth and the crew who are too numerous to mention!

Swedish Beers Mobile Networking, Weds 12 Sept 07

Right, slight change of plan...

We're back to the Nordic Bar, our usual haunt, on Wednesday 12th September. We'll be in the back bar from 6ish for all the usual chat, mingling and talk of mobiles, marketing, media and life in general. And if the last few events are anything to go by, we'll probably overtake the whole bar pretty quickly. You'll find the Nordic Bar on Newman Street which is the North side of Oxford Street, nearest tube Tottenham Court Road or Oxford Circus.

Unfortunately, the bad news is that our sponsor has had to postpone their sponsorship of Swedish Beers as they're not quite ready to shout out about the wonderful things they're up to. So it would be *really* marvellous if another generous sponsor could help us out with the bar. Otherwise, it's buy your own drinks night. And if it's the latter, it will be your challenge to find someone who has a works expense account to buy drinks for you all evening ;)

But seriously folks, the Swedish Beers night goes on and do get in touch with me if you're up for sponsoring the bar. Probably best to call my mobile, +44 794 053 8802, if you're interested as I'm away from the internet until Tuesday afternoon and time is quite short as Swedish Beers night is only two weeks away.

So, the night is definitely on, we're just waiting to see if someone will generously sponsor the bar to help the evening go with a swing and at the same time meet loads of folks who will think lovely things about them *and* benefit from lots of lovely publicity and immense good mobile karma for their efforts.

So see y'all there on the 12th September, from 6pm in the Back Bar at The Nordic Bar.

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p.s. If you plan to use Oxford Circus on the night, please note that the Victoria Line is undergoing maintenance right now and is closed from about 10pm every night. Don't worry, all the other lines are fine and the buses still work, it just might take you a little longer than usual to get home that's all, as you find an alternative route. More info on the TFL website.

A date for the diary - Wednesday 12th September

Our next event Swedish Beers Mobile Networking event will be on Wednesday 12th September 2007 in a new venue and courtesy of a fab new sponsor. Watch this space for more details coming soon.

We've started a group on facebook as well if you're interested. Feel free to join up.

And finally, I'm planning ahead for the two events after the one in September and actively seeking sponsors - I'm currently toying with the idea of doing a bash in the Winter, probably in late November or early December and then our annual jaunt to Barcelona in February for the Mobile World Congress (was 3GSM). Please get in touch with me if you're interested to discuss further.

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Oh What a Night! Again!

A huge thank you to everyone who came to Swedish Beers last week. It was, by all accounts, a rip-roaring success and we were incredibly busy with both old and new faces and everyone seemed to have a good time. Some of the feedback to me personally was lovely:

"Wicked event, you really move the (mobile industry) crowd!"

"Thoroughly enjoyed the evening and met some great people...This dude had a great time and is eagerly looking forward to the next one!"

"Well that worked then didn't it! Congrats on a really good night out!"

"Wow! When's the next one?"

"Thanks for a very good event last night at Nordic Bar"

"many thanks for a successful evening – it was a warm welcome from a good cross section of UK/London’s mobile community"

And a HUGE thank you to our very generous sponsors Tanla Mobile who were out in force making everyone feel thoroughly welcome.

Did we manage to stick to our tried and tested formula "drink beer, talk mobile, drink more beer, talk nonsense"? Well, you'd have to ask those who were there from as far afield as Australia, Italy, USA, Germany and Finland including [drum roll please]...

Sky, Skype, Phoniq, News Optimus, Financial Times, Warwick Worldwide, Yahoo!, Google, Vodafone, BeepMarketing, O2, Leiki, flytxt, ARN Consulting, Sony Pictures, Respond Mobile, Otodio, MBlox, Fathom Partners, W2Forum, OITG, Mobile 365, Arcarnus, Bango, Telemix, PNC Telecom, Phuser, Gisdata, Metastorm, ShopQwik, Renzoo, Xtract, Mbites, Mobile Entertainment Magazine, VSC Consulting, W2Forum, ENO, Mercury Mobility, Minick, MIG, Chinwag, Masabi, Mobizines, Future Platforms, Hotxt, Colibria, Ymogen, Admob, m:metrics, LinguaFranca, AdInfuse, Moblog UK, PeekabooTV, ICSTIS , Informa, Pitch, and a ton of other people too. If you were there, feel free to add a comment below. Indeed, perhaps you can fill in some gaps on the photos on flickr as to who's who? And if you have any photos yourself, please either let me have them or add them to the Swedish Beers group pool on flickr.

If you want to find out about the next one via email, then please add your email address to the Feedblitz box on the left-handside or click the feedblitz link here.

See you at the next one!

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Our next Swedish Beers event in London is NOT on Thursday 5th April

It's on Wednesday 11th April instead and is proudly sponsored by Tanla Mobile.

Yes, it's that time of year again when we feel the need to drink beer and talk about mobile. And after the success of our last Swedish Beers event in Barcelona, we thought it was about time we had another one in London at our usual haunt of the Nordic Bar in W1.

So if you have a passing interest in things mobile and like to chat to other people from media, mobile, creative, tv, and marketing about where mobile fits into the bigger scheme of things, then Swedish Beers is for you. It's a friendly and informal event, no powerpoint, no speeches, just networking with interesting people and chatting about mobile things (or not!).

The Swedish Beers Mobile Networking proceedings kick off at 6pm on Thursday 5th April Wednesday 11th April (that's the day most of us break up for Easter) (that's just after the Easter break) a sponsor will be announced shortly so with a bit of luck the first few beers will be on them (we hope - if you're interested in sponsoring, then please let me know... it's a fab way to raise your profile within the industry). And our proud sponsor is Tanla Mobile.

See you there!
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Helen, Steve and Seth

Barcelona was a blast

So much so, that it's taken me all this time to recover! No but seriously, we all had a thoroughly good time at Swedish Beers courtesy of our friends Gabi at MyStrands and Alex at Colibria. We had a fabulous turnout - definitely our best yet - with Belchica rammed full of mobilists from all over the world (UK, USA, Spain, Germany, France, Sweden and even Australia) and it was a pleasure to welcome them all. Companies who joined the fun included Sponge, Mixipix, flytxt, Admob, Leiki, TekoLondon, FT, The Times, ZoneMedia, MoMedia, Intelli-call, WeLoveMobile, ARN Consulting, Mobiq, RespondMobile, Tanla Mobile, BeepMarketing, M-Trends, Mobhappy, Techdirt, Midnight Communications, QArea, Vodafone, Future Platforms, Briing, Rok, 5th Finger, m:metrics, zingmedia, w2forum, hotxt, and loads more besides. There is photographic evidence up on flickr and we were even filmed for German TV by 3Sat - how cool is that!