Richard MacManus on ReadWriteWeb’s Mobile Summit

Unconferences are really great because you can create a session about something you know a lot about on-the-fly, or sit in on a topic where you don’t, but still contribute from your own perspective and world, which is often more valuable to the group than you might think. I’ve been to quite a few over the last couple of years and always find something of interest and have AHA moments, largely because it’s so organic. All the sessions are created in real-time. What you create may change after you see the flow of the event, learn about who’s there and who can contribute what value along the way.ReadWriteWeb’s second unconference — focused on Mobile — was held yesterday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Their first one — the Real-Time Web Summit — was held last October.

They had two main tracks at their Mobile Summit: Development and Business. The list below is taken from ReadWriteWeb’s summary of some of the tracks they explored….bear in mind that it was an unconference, so people randomly put up topics they wanted to learn more about and/or lead.

*Geo-location Services – what can you do using location as a platform?

*Commerce & Marketing – as more and more consumers use smartphones, how can businesses utilize this channel?

*Content, Publishing & Recommendations – the technologies and best practices.

*Mobile Social Networking – how to tap into communities on mobile devices.

*Internet of Things – the emerging opportunities from sensor and RFID data.

*Augmented Reality – the technology and business applications of AR.

*Native App vs. Browser Based – Including iPhone, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian.

Below is a video I shot of ReadWriteWeb’s founder Richard MacManus talking about unconferences, general trends in mobile and what’s on the horizon.