Mobile advertising awards sneak-peak: Smaato Nominees revealed

The Smaato Mobile Advertising Awards are fast approaching – and Smaato has revealed a sneak-peak at the nominees and VC partners who will be there. This is the big leagues, and the nominees reflect the best of the mobile industry.

What’s the story?

Smaato is one of the biggest mobile advertisers in the world, and its SOMA platform aggregates over 40 advertising networks to 6,000 publishing partners. Every year, it hosts the Smaato Mobile Advertising Awards to honor outstanding ad-supported players in the mobile industry, whether it’s an app, website or service.

Who are the nominees?

You can scroll down to see the full list of nominees, but we’ve taken a representative selection here to show the general quality and breadth of the applicants:

Layar Reality Browser – one of the highest profile mobile augmented reality companies, Layar won the Vodafone Mobile Clicks start-up challenge in 2009, and was recently used by Verizon to advertise the Droid.

AccuWeather.com – the AccuWeather mobile site is one the top 10 visited on mobile, according to Opera. The mobile weather service recently announced a major advertising deal with Ringleader

Cellfire Grocery Coupons – Cellfire launched QMobile Coupons in June, combining mobile coupons with a way for brands and mobile app developers to market themselves

eBuddy Messenger – this IM aggregators has consistently been in the most downloaded apps for both iPhone and Getjar

FishLabs – this mobile games developer focuses on quality games, but also has a very strong ad-supported ethos

Foursquare – the most popular and successful of the “check-in” mobile social networks, Foursquare has launched some high-profile mobile advertising tie-ins with the fashion world

Nimbuzz – aggregating mobile IM with the most popular social networks on the market, Nimbuzz offered its service completely free to users, and is now building in revenue from ad-support

SPB Mobile Software – SPB is one of the biggest creators of mobile software in the world, and has been running since 1999. It won a Smaato Award last year for ad-support on its free-to-use Windows Mobile TV app

Spotify – one of the leading music streaming apps, Spotify offers two streams for the service – a paid version, and an ad-supported free version that plays audio ads

The Venture Capitalists:

Smaato has also announced the VC partners that will be present at the event, and who will meet the Smaato Award winners: Frank Boehnke (Wellington), Tim Chang (Norvest Ventures), Niall Davis (aeris CAPITAL), Tim Draper (Draper Fisher Jurvetson), Joerg Sievert (SAP Ventures) and Frédéric Veyssière (Innovacom).

The full list of nominees:

4Square Labs, AccuRadio, AccuWeather.com, aka-aki, Aloqa, AroundMe, audioBoo, Barcode Scanner, Brightkite, Bubble, Bump, Buzzd, bWeather, Cellfire Grocery Coupons, City Sense, Compass, cooliris, delivr.com, Doodle Jump, eBay Mobile, eBuddy Messenger, Evernote, Facebook, Fandango Movies, FishLabs, Flirtomatic, Foursquare, Fring, Google Sky Map, Gypsii, Handmark Pocket Express, iCarly: Sam’s Remote Lite, ICQ, iheartradio, imeem Mobile, itsmy, Jumbuck, Kyte, Last.fm, Layar Reality Browser, Liquid Air Labs, Lufthansa, MapQuest 4 Mobile, Meebo IM, Mobiluck, moblr, Moco Space, moTweets, My Tracks, NearbyNow, Nimbuzz, NYTimes, Orbster, pageonce, PandaHome, Pandora Radio, Qeep, Qik Video Camera, RadioTime, RjDj, Rummble, Seesmic for Twitter, Shake, Shazam, Sherpa, Shozu, Skyfire Mobile, SMS2.0, Smule, SPB Mobile Software, Spotify, Squace, Tonchidot, TuneWiki, TV.com, virtual, Twidroid for Twitter, Twikini, unlike networks, USA TODAY, Venista m-Joy, Waze, The Weather Channel, Worldmate, Yelp, YomoMedia.

Deadline for submissions is August 20th, 2010.