Michael Mace continues to deliver the goods over at Mobile Opportunity with a great article and some original analysis on mobile data and handset segmentation. Mr Mace argues the existence of three main handset segments (entertainment e.g. NGage, communication e.g Treo, and information e.g. PDA) and that what lies intersecting all three is the "Zone of Death". IMHO, the "zone of death" presents the biggest opportunity IF the device manufacturer can get the UI and marketing right, and I dont mean market it as a Swiss/army phone. Surely, the mass market needs a credible combination of all 3 capabilties? Communication, Entertainment and Information are converging right? (2ndLife, WOW, Habbo, Pica etc)
Paul Fisher of FirstCapital has written a great overview of VC activity in Europe during 2006. This was a great read as most of the coverage I see is about the US with little to no European specific coverage (except TornadoInsider). Looking at who raised what and from who is also interesting - I'm still amazed that one of my favourite mobile services Zyb only raise 0.6m - a very slick backup service that works on most mobiles - i'd happily pay for that.
And while were on the subject of VC, AlarmClock Euro has a good summary of mobile-related 3i trade sales and an interview with Snr Partner, Ian Lobley.
I noticed that Steve Ives (former founder of trigenix which was sold to Qualcomm in 04) has started a mobile search company called Taptu - nothing to see but one to watch.
And again, while we're on mobile search, i came across a refreshing approach to mobile content search from MogMo - take a look.
