The latter falls under what Nokia calls the Share brand. I was pretty impressed by the demo I received. It's very MySpace and FaceBook like, but much more integrated into the mobile experience, from the ground up, for easy of use from the hand.

Forum Nokia is a system by which Nokia supports and encourages the development of more unique mobile applications, most of which fall into the long tail. It is also designed to help developers monetize their wares.

One member, Melodis, provides a voice-enabled search for music service that even allows you to find a track by singing/humming a tune into your handset.

Another member, knfb Reading, uses proprietary software installed on a Nokia camera smartphone to read text allowed to the visually impaired. Simply snap a picture of a document and it'll read the text to you aloud.

What's most remarkable about this application is that none of the processing is done on remote servers, but only on the smartphone itself. That tells you a lot about how powerful mobile handsets have become.

The Changing Face of Mobile Content
Another application of the technology knfb demonstrated to us showed how they could use it to recognize cold hard cash, literally. Take a picture of a five-dollar bill and the phone will tell you exactly what it is, whether the bill is facing up or down.

Looking at mobile content from another angle, you've got media manufacturers like SanDisk searching for ways to get folks more interested in their products, especially by making them more aware of their cross platform capabilities—for instance, showing how you can use the same SD card to move content between a camera, phone, mp3 player and a desktop. Part of its campaign includes the sponsoring of music events, like many other vendors, to help grow awareness of their brand, for example.

As we mentioned earlier, nearly all the companies we talked to, no matter what type, spoke of Apple's entrance into the market with the iPhone as an opportunity as much as much as anything else. Yes, because it raises the bar, but also - and mostly - because it raises awareness for consumers about all the different things they can do with their phone.

One of these companies was Handango, the major online software retailer for smartphones.

Handango is being shut out of the iPhone applications bonanza that's coming because of the way Apple setup the distribution method - all official native apps must go through Apple and the iPhone App Store.

Nonetheless, Handango asserted to us they only see an upside to the iPhone. Why? Because native apps on the iPhone will raise awareness of what folks can do with their phone, leading them to say to themselves, "I didn't know I could do that" with a phone.

Partially as a result of the iPhone, Handango expects we'll see a larger breadth in the type of content released for cell phones and smartphones. This significant change is also the result of what Handango says is the moving out of the early adopter phase of mobile content acquisition to what they call the early majority segment.

Last year, for example, Handango saw entertainment take over the top spot from utilities as the most downloaded type of content from its stores. Hence, mobile content is now as much about fun as utility. The huge growth in entertainment downloads represents the expansion of application acquisition to the early majority segment, according to Handango.

Interestingly, Handango re-iterated something we heard from others as well, that they see the focus of software delivery expanding beyond the carrier and OEMs. You're getting content packaged on physical goods, such as SD cards (a la SandDisk) and the integration at the point of sale of additional content.

So you're going to get the Best Buys of the world offering to install a content package or two by USB, Bluetooth, expansion card etc.—depending on what the user wants or needs—either as a value-add or for a fee when someone buys a new phone. It's the "do you want fries with that" model.

They can create content bundles. Say someone buys a Pink BlackBerry Pearl, one would think a fairly specific demographic, the retailer could have certain software packages at the ready to offer these consumers in advance.

LiMO vs. Android a Win for Consumers
I had some interesting talks with people about mobile Linux, specifically regarding the gPhone and LiMO, both of which could strongly affect how mobile content is delivered. Some members of LiMO are members of google's Open Handset Alliance (OHA), and others, like Qualcomm, works with both, but is a member of one (the OHA) and not the other.

The whole point of these consortiums is to reduce the amount of fragmentation in mobile Linux, a benefit to everyone, by creating a common set of APIs in the middleware platform for providers. With fewer platforms for developers, carriers and manufacturers to focus on, the more they can put their energies into improving the user experience and creating new content, including applications.