Recently the winners of the MobileMonday Peer Awards were announced, coinciding with the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. We covered the 25 nominees here. The award recognizes early stage and emerging Mobile Web start-up companies.
Buzzd, a provider of local real-time search information for bars, clubs and restaurants, won the jury, audience and community awards under the ‘early stage’ category.
Buzzd’s win again shows that location-based services will be the killer app for the Mobile Web. Everyone has known that for a long time – and it’s why Google Maps is so popular on the mobile phone. But Buzzd is an excellent example of how start-ups can help popularize the Mobile Web, by providing a useful location-based service. Aiming it at a young, hip demographic doesn’t hurt either!
Buzzd is finding its way in the Mobile Web world via partnerships with Citysearch, Helio, Flavorpill and Time Out New York. There’s a good demo of how the service works here – but basically it allows you to find an event near where you are, then ‘shout out’ to friends to meet you there. There is a social networking component, whereby you can meet other users at the events. Here is a screenshot from the demo:
Other winners at the MobileMonday Awards included mobile search service Taptu (see ReadWriteWeb’s review of Taptu) and open source email and messaging company Funambol – who both won in the Emerging Community category. Local Spanish favorite Kimia, a rich media content provider, took out the audience choice.
