Credit Crunch or Economic Tsunami evident in Asia Mobile Congress

Yikes – Mobile Asia Congress was quiet. I know it was only the second ever mobile Asia congress but it was quiet. The keynotes were packed but I think there were just too many side tracks that deviated away from the meat of the event.

The exhibition peaked on the second day and I heard rumours about how in one hour on the second day there was more interest and traffic than on the whole first day.

The media room was a shoebox and I don’t believe that there were 200 journalists there – sorry if there were but I didn’t see them.

I sat next to Amobee’s Patrick Parodi for lunch and even he said that everyone was “worried” about the economy and the market. I thought that interesting as Amobee recently won a start-up award for innovation and it has backing from operators –but word on the street is that an early mobile advertising backlash is coming.

Why?
Well – price is the driver and the cheapest rates wins – hence the success of Yahoo! and AdMob.