Reprinted from mobilejones.com

There are so many announcements, new initiatives and discussions about mobility kicking off in 2006 that it well could be called "the year of the mobile."  Most exciting are all the applications, devices and network services that enable media creation and sharing from the edge of the network - that's you and me.  The list below includes new launches and announcements in 2006, only.

Everyone is getting into the game of enabling mobile creation and consumption of personal and/or social media.  The Mobhappy crew included the growth of blogging and mo' pho' blogging in their predictions for 2006, but that prediction may be understated.

Handset Moves

Sony Ericsson announces inclusion of Google's Blogger on their new "CyberShot" cameraphones to be released in the second quarter of 2006.

Nokia releases the updated version of LifeBlog 2.0 for their N Series multimedia phones at Cebit last week.

Applications & Services

Rabble, a social networking and media sharing community, first launched on Verizon Wireless is now available to Cingular's customers too.  Combined that's over 100 million subscribers who have access to a mobile personal and social media tool set.

The cat escaped early and before Six Apart could make the announcement themselves their acquistion of  Splash Blog makers of a blogging service for mobile phones hit the blogosphere.  This is great news for users of MT, Typepad and Live Journal.

MySpace makes mobile SMS alerts available through Cingular.

Mobile video blogging goes real time and professional at Fromdistance. 

Fromdistance's mobile video blogging (MVB) solution is an end-to-end platform for media companies and content aggregators. It enables production and publishing of text, image and video content for Internet and TV with just a single mobile device.

Mobile Operators

UK mobile operator, 3, reports that 4 million mobile user created videos have been downloaded.  Users are encouraged to record video with their phones and upload them to 3s servers and in exchange the creator is paid $.01 for each time their video is viewed.  The total compensation for creators has topped $175,000.

Helio, the MVNO JV between SK Telecom and Earthink, announced an exclusive deal with MySpace to enable mobile social networking and blogging.

Sprint launches Picture Groups which allows their subscribers to upload and share cameraphone photos and combines the service with a Cafe Press like service.  You'll want to have a multi-megapixel cameraphone for photos that go on mugs, t-shirts and what-not.

And so begins 2006 The Year of Mobile Social Media.  So many announcements, applications and services, and it's only the first quarter.  If you're a personal or social media evangelist or enthusiast, mobility will enter your vocabulary this year.  It's only logical that user created media must be mobile as the events of the world don't take place at your desk.

Can you hear me now?  I'm eager to see how and where mobile appears in blogging and web conferences and gatherings.  This is going to be a breakout year.  See you there.

x-posted at mobilejones.com