Cookery Course and Dinner with Thomas Husson Senior Analyst Jupiter Research and Mo Hamza Senior Reporter Informa

I always get nervous when I meet other people in the industry (news and analysis)  - especially those that have strong reputations.

Before I went to the Mobixell conference in Spain, I knew Jupiter’s Thomas Husson (briefly) from my old days at Current Analysis – I remember we spoke in depth about the scoop – way back then of Vodafone ditching FAST to support Google (mobile search).

But I had never met Informa’s Mo Hamza and I didn’t know him. It was only Mobixell’s Avichai Levy who spoke highly of him.

So we all had a great dinner together in a beautiful vineyard in Rome, (with Mobixell) . It was lovely. I got to know Thomas and Mo quite well and it was fun hearing different perspectives of the mobile advertising, marketing agenda.  The fact that we were all brought together for this exclusive event was also interesting as we disagreed on a lot of stuff – but could all justify our different perspectives.  It was strange too as I am now out of the “analyst scene” and put in the “we don’t know what to do with her” brand of bloggers – instead of categorised as either a journalist of an analyst.
Or maybe I am making that up – because both Mo and Thomas said I was still an analyst just with a different hat on.  I was flattered that they also enjoyed reading GoMo.  In fact, Thomas and I had a really interesting conversation about moconews getting sold to the Guardian for USD 30 million and Jupiter being sold to Forrester for USD 23 million. I think that Jupiter was under-sold. But it does show how blogging and social media based news sites such as moconews are changing the media agenda.
So, to cut a very long and delightful dinner short. I am no longer an analyst: but being in social media for business is nearly the same thing (just daily and free!). Thomas is a pure industry analyst. He is very personable and honest and he asked some questions during the event that were very concise. I would say that he was one of the top industry analysts in the mobile messaging/ multimedia space.
Then Mo and I became best friends when Thomas left the next morning and we even spent the afternoon together in Frascati when the event finished. He is a senior reporter and he gets scoops but is also an analyst with his knowledge on regulatory issues.
Because I don’t have enough cash (yet) to steal both Thomas and Mo from their respective positions - I am thinking about inviting both of them to write a feature for GoMo once in a while – but look out for information and writing from them – I think Thomas said he even had a blog (will find out).

I meet a lot of analysts and only a few really know the market.