The five key trends from the 2011 Mobile World Congress

Continued expansion of 3D content and the growing power of social networks were just two of the trends seen at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

With the congress in its final day and most of the major announcements already made analysts and consumers were poring over this year’s releases to see what can be expected during the next 12 months in telecommunications and technology. 

There were two minor announcements yesterday, with Motorola confirming that its Xoom tablet will cost $US800 and $US600 for the Wi-Fi version while Twitter co-founder Biz Stone denied recent rumours that his company is valued at $US10 billion.

“We’re not valued at $10 billion dollars,” he said in response to rumours that Google and Facebook had been courting the firm.

“Twitter is not for sale,” he said. “We don’t have a shingle out on our front that says ‘Twitter. For  Sale.’ We’re not for sale and we haven’t been. We’re very, very interested in building an independent company.”

With the main part of the conference over and little left to announce these are five of the key trends to come out of this year’s MWC that tech fans should be watching closely:

Tablets

If 2010 was the year of the iPad 2011 is the year of the copycat. A range of manufacturers – including Samsung, HTC and Motorola –announced details of upcoming tablet devices, with most of them running Android software, and LG announced a device of its own.

It’s clear that those companies are taking tablets seriously. Many are running Android Honeycomb software, which is built specifically for tablet devices.

With Motorola pricing the high-end Xoom at $US600 it seems that segment of the market is clearly focused on taking down Apple.

Integration with Social Networks

With a substantial number of users updating Facebook statuses and tweeting from mobiles both companies are ensuring their software is not only available as apps, but deeply integrated into smartphone operating systems.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said during his keynote address that while there would be no official Facebook-branded phone there would nevertheless be dozens of “Facebook phones”.

And it’s already begun. Manufacturer HTC has announced two new phones that will feature Facebook buttons, allowing users to share anything they’re looking at – photos, articles or any other content.

That represents a key shift in mobile software because until now those platforms were only available as apps and seeing smartphone markers saying the platforms are so important that they’re prepared to integrate them fully into a phone’s framework is a big move.

Twitter wants in on the action as well. Chief executive Dick Costolo said during his speech that with 40% of tweets now sent from mobiles integration is necessary to promote the platform further.

“It has to just work the same way everywhere it is used,” Costolo said. “We want to be able to tweet from any app without having to fire up another application.”

Consumers should expect more phones this year with dedicated buttons or systems to share social network content.

Speed

The processing power needed to make next generation smartphones run properly is astounding. This year’s MWC saw chip manufacturers Intel and Qualcomm introduce new circuit boards to keep handsets running new software quickly.

Intel announced its new quad-core chips and Qualcomm announced a new line of SnapDragon processors to enable lightning fast performance on smartphones.

But speed wasn’t limited to what’s inside a handset – the number of gadgets promised to run on 4G networks increased. Samsung said its Galaxy handset will use 4G and LG said its handsets will run on the next generation network.

Marry that with Telstra’s announcement of investment in a 4G network back home, along with similar announcements from Audi and Alcatel which promise to put 4G connectivity in cars and it’s clear that the next generation of mobile phone speeds is coming fast.

3D Content

3D content was more of a gimmick last year but after a raft of announcements from the Consumer Electronics Show it seems that manufactures are intent on bringing 3D content to the end user.

LG was the main pioneer this year, announcing that its smartphones and new tablet will display video in 3D with users able to record video in 3D content as well. A partnership with YouTube means users can upload videos directly from the tablet.

The fact that new smartphones are allowing users to view 3D content without glasses is a big step forward and it shows that perhaps that new trend isn’t the gimmick some thought it might be.

Consolidation

The smartphone war has become a three-horse race. With Nokia’s announcement that it would finally abandon the Symbian operating system and instead use Windows Mobile for all handsets the smartphone sector has become much more interesting.

Despite Google chief executive Eric Schmidt saying the internet giant tried to persuade Nokia to go with Android, Windows Mobile has been given a huge advantage because Nokia is the leading distributor of handsets worldwide.

Analysts expect the smartphone sector to be dominated by three major players – Apple, Google and Microsoft – and some are tipping smaller players, including HP’s WebOS and RiM’s BlackBerry, may be the next systems to leave the market.