The Firehouse

The first day I went to the Mobile World Congress 2009 in Barcelona, my meetings got rescheduled to other days, so my visit derived into a ruthless freebie hunt, initially I thought of taking stuff to replenish the always decreasing stock of pens at our firehouse, and toys for the kids, but after picking up some really cool stuff, I thought I would put together a freebie bag and auction it to buy equipment (of which we have a severe shortage) for our fire department.

• No ID holders. I already plenty of really cool ones, like the translucent plastic one from DEFCON 14, or one from T-Mobile with reflective 3M tape sewn along the edges. The exception to this rule would only be really cool ones.
• Same goes for pens – only cool or curious specimens.
• If confronted by booth personnel, ask nicely, most of the time people say yes, although you also get the occasional “no” (see Hall Of Shame below).

Here is a photo of everything I collected, there are a couple of things missing that I picked up on later days, such as a foam superhero figure (click for larger view):

You can also check out this photo on Flickr with notes placed over almost all the goodies. Here is the list of items I picked up, and which can be yours starting at $200 (remember, this is for charity!):

• 30cm dummy with an orange box as his head, wrapped in a pressurized plastic bag, from Spinvox. (thanks for giving me this guys!!).
• Miniature version of the above, in key hanger format, with stickers to place your initials on the orange cube.
• Pretty cool messenger bag, from Telmap.
• MWC 2009 ginger cake in the shape of a heart, from Infineon.
• Chevrolet Legends Volume 2 music CD, from Chevrolet.
• Leather bookmark, from NTT DoCoMo.
• Leather luggage tag, from mobitv.
• Yoyo, from gypsii.
• Green and black frisbee.
• Comic book-looking catalog, it’s actually really neat, from Spinvox.
• Notes block, from Comba.
• Bee sticker.
• No-slip dashboard pad, from LogMeIn.
• Emergency battery for various mobile phone brands, from LogMeIn. Cool gifts they had!
• Silicone frisbee with flashing lights in the center, pink, from Emoze.
• Genuine Cross silver metal pen, with a neat extend-retract function, from Digital Receiver Technology.
• Two keyring tabs, from Infineon.
• Keyring tab with a soft glass-cleaning cloth on the back, from Copilot Live.
• Three Swiss chocolates.
• Keyring beer opener, from Digital Receiver Technology.
• Letter opener, from Kapsch.
• Metallic phone tag, from Gemalto.
• Colourmania pin from Alcatel.
• Foam stress relief rugby ball, from Telecom.
• Foam stress relief heart, from Spain (yes, the government sponsored freebies!).
• Pack of jelly beans, from Mobile King.
• Keychain Rubik cube, from ICT in Hungary.
• Miniature bottle of olive oil, from Spain.
• Foam decision cube, from One Italia.
• ID/phone neck strap, with metallic buckle, from Sennheiser.
• Water bottle.
• Symbian Foundation flag.
• Roll-up blue sunglasses, inside a tube, from mdex.
• Energy drink can, from mobiletag.com.
• Foam superhero.
• 1Gb USB memory stick.
• Red rubber ball with LEDs that flash when bouncing, from Martin Dawes Systems.
• Box of mints, from Telenor.
• Two pin badges, one smiley, one surprised.
• Plastic glass cleaner, it cleans both sides of a set of glasses at once, from Gemalto.
• Cube-shaped 2009 calendar, from Alcatel.
• Zipper neck strap, from Alvarion.
• Chocolate coin, from Comverse.
• Official congress village map with exhibitor list.
• Official congress canvas bag with zipper.
• Official congress pass.
• Pen with fluorescent marker on the opposite tip, from Symbian.
• Pen with blue LED, lights up writing area, from Velti.
• Pen with crab-type clip, from Impetus.
• Corn-cob shaped pen, from Nortel.
• Assorted pens from various sources.
• Foldaway nylon frisbee from Opera.
• Coin bag from 7 layers.
• Chocolate in the shape of a SIM card, from mdex.
• A few miscellaneous items.

I would like to sincerely thank all the companies who gave up their goodies for this, sometimes in exchange for a smile, others for a business card.

Mobile World Congress Honorable Mentions

In first place, Spinvox. They handed out one of their pressurized dummies without a quirk, even though they were actually auctioning them (or so it seemed), and had only a handful at the stand. They had a really eye-catching stand, too. Spinvox creates technology for converting speech to text in six different languages, targeted at users that are active on the road. Thanks guys! Below is a picture of the dummy they gave me, click for a full-size version:

You can see other close-ups in my Flickr photo album.

In second place, Digital Receiver Technology. I saw the nice silver Cross pen, but thought it would be too much to take, so I asked for one of the keyring beer openers – and to my surprised, the guy at the stand reached for a Cross pen and gave it to me too!

In third place, LogMeIn, for providing really cool giveaways, and very useful ones too, such as a non-slip rubber mat for your car’s dashboard, which prevents your mobile from flying off, and an emergency battery kit for various models of mobile phone. I was deciding over various options for remote control of my machines, but I’m going to sign up with them now.

Mobile World Congress Freebie Hall Of Shame

There were those who had booth staff who I can only classify as assholes – there are ways to say no, and many did say no, but here are examples of ways not to treat people, even when they are trying to fleece you out of give-aways…wait, they are produced to be given away in the first place, right?

In first place, Pudding Media, who sells ads on mobiles, apparently. They had these nice multi-colored springs that you can make go down stairs. When I asked the one guy at the stand for one (I just gestured, as he was busy talking on the phone and took his time to even notice me), he said in a very pissed-off way “we’re not giving them away”, and shooed me away with his hand. Lame.

In second place comes none other than Yahoo!, with a stupid old bag sitting on the counter, on top of boxes full of pens, neck straps, and other stuff (you could see it all coming to the stand from one side). When I asked if she could give me any goodies for a charity auction, the reply was “we only give them away during meetings”. Yeah, you don’t care most likely, but you don’t get a link either.

Third place is for the booth staff of ICT in Hungary. Eventually they gave me a Rubik cube, but only after pulling off my hand the one I had taken from the big bowl full of them, and replacing with one from under the counter. I could not see what the difference was other than the color of the box, but the manners were not those of someone trying to promote IT for their country.

The Auction

If you feel like this stuff can interest you, why not bid? I will send, postage-paid, to the winner. The auction ends on March 18th, and you can bid by clicking at the top of my sidebar. Thanks for your support!

Today the 2009 Mobile World Congress got started in Barcelona. I was planning a couple of visits, but they got postponed at the last minute, so I went on a tour. Most impressive was the new iMate 810-F. This has to be the most rugged smartphone I have ever seen – with impressive specs, such as GPS, full QWERTY keyboard, QVGA display, a 624MHz CPU, 2Mpx camera, Bluetooth, and WiFi. And it also stands ketchup, salt, orange juice, and an array of crud and produce that was thrown at it live. Then, the demonstrator dropped the phone into a water bucket and washed it. He “rinsed” it by throwing it onto the stage, and he later faked tripping up and stepping on the phone. Finally, he picked it up and dropped it into a fish bowl while playing a video clip. In all, very impressive indeed. Yours for around $699, available in 3-4 weeks (got this straight from an iMate rep).

There wasn’t really anything else that caught my eye, other than the bigger stands being considerably more modest than years past, such as Motorola, Nokia, SonyEricsson, and other big players. They were also notably barren of any sort of freebie, not even leaflets! Congress tip for freebie hunters: go to Hall 2, the exhibitors there have tons of stuff.

If you are in Barcelona and want to grab a coffee, drop me a line in the comments.

While inside the conference you have to pay for WiFi, you could surf for free thanks to the Whisher ‘Red Bird’, which carried a mobile hotspot with a 3.8Mbps 3G connection.

The signal was encrypted, and we provided the password on flyers handed out by the bird. After three days, we had a total of 87 people connected through this hotspot, which we think is a pretty good number! There was certainly always people waiting around outside, without much else to do than check email or surf the web for a while.

Some news from the Mobile World Congress – apparently, in a week, Movistar Spain (owner of UK’s O2 network) will announce that they will get a 3G iPhone exclusively in Spain. At this stage, it’s only a rumor, overheard at the O2 stand.

Being based in Barcelona means I get to visit the Mobile World Congress without having to manage a logistics nightmare. Some visitors are staying at hotels over 100 miles away, and commuting every day to the event and back, it is really that busy. Everyone who means anything in the mobile world will be here, so if you’re in town and want to get together for a coffee or a beer (well, a beer and a diet coke, I don’t drink) and talk about wireless technology and how nice the weather is over here, drop me a line in the comments. Oh, and look for something weird around the entrance…there will be a little surprise from Whisher!