I was planning on liveblogging Eric Schmidt ’s keynote speech here at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, but a serious lack of any kind of Internet connectivity threw a wrench into those plans. I’m not too bummed about it though, because the whole thing was frankly quite boring. Apart from some history lessons about the convergence of telecommunications and cloud computing, all we really got from Schmidt and fellow Googlers was that Android handsets are now seeing over 60,000 shipments on a daily basis, and some previews of add-on features for existing Google mobile products that were cool but not earth-shattering in any way. I’m sure it’s nice for German speakers that they’ll soon be able to search Google using their voice in their native language, and the upcoming real-time translation element for Google Goggles is impressive. But having Google’s Chairman and CEO fly over to Spain to mostly read from his notes and basically tell the audience of 1500 people (and many more thanks to the live video streaming) that mobile is going to be big and that the company is very committed to making its mark? Nothing short of underwhelming. The question is: does it matter, really? Having had numerous conversations with developers, handset manufacturers, mobile software companies and yes, even operators at this show, I get the feeling Schmidt really didn’t have to make a big splash at the event. Android is taking care of that job quite nicely, and I’m sure that’s just the way Schmidt likes it. I have more thoughts on this that I’ll post shortly, but I would also invite you to check out MG Siegler’s take , which is slightly more critical than most of the stuff I’ve heard about Google and its Android plans here at MWC. CrunchBase Information Eric Schmidt Information provided by CrunchBase

When the mobile payment service Square launched in December, VeriFone rushed to get its own version on the market. A couple weeks ago, they accomplished that with the launch of PayWARE Mobile . Now they’re looking to take out their competitor the good old fashioned way: out-spending them. VeriFone is already heavily advertising its PayWARE Mobile product with huge ads in New York City taxis. As you can see in the picture, VeriFone is paying for big screen real estate on the screens that are in the backseats of all cabs in the city now. The ad shows a large picture of the device (a piece of hardware that you attach to your iPhone) and promises users that not only will they be able to accept payments with the iPhone with it, but that they will “never miss a sale.” Obviously, this is the same thing Square does , but Square is a startup (co-founded by Twitter creator Jack Dorsey ), whereas VeriFone is a large global company already making a ton of money in electronic payments. That said, Square has some money too, thanks to its $10 million round of funding, and $40 million valuation before it even launched. But it seems highly unlikely that Square would use any of its funding to counter these ads. Instead, Square is going to have to keep touting the fact that their system is built for anyone to use, whereas VeriFone’s requires that you have a merchant account. [thanks Brian] CrunchBase Information Square Information provided by CrunchBase

With more than 140,000 apps on the iPhone alone, there is a real need for services which help you find the best apps. Apple’s iTunes ratings and genius recommendations only go so far. One startup attacking this problem is French-Israeli AppsFire , which just raised its first angel round. AppsFire was co-founded by former TechCrunch France editor Ouriel Ohayon and Yann Lechelle. The investors are a group of successful French entrepreneurs (yes, they exist), including Marc Simoncini (CEO of dating site meetic.com), Jacques-Antoine Granjon (CEO of Vente-Privee.com), Xavier Niel (CEO of French ISP Free), and entrepreneur and angel investor Jean-David Blanc (who also recently invested in Square). The amount raised wasn’t disclosed but it is believed to be in the low seven figures. AppsFire offers a simple utility app which makes it easy to share iPhone app recommendations with your friends. Since its beta launch last summer, more than 10 million apps have been shared, leading to hundreds of thousands of clicks to iTunes. It also highlights apps through its AppStar Awards . Recently, AppsFire started promoting its own short link for iPhone apps, http://getap.ps/, which opens up iTunes on both the iPhone and desktop computers to a specific app’s page. While you are waiting for iTunes to open up, information about the App appears on the landing page, developers who use getap.ps will get analytics on conversions and other stats. This America Life ( http://getap.ps/thisamericanlife ) and DailyMotion ( http://getap.ps/dailymotion ) are already using it. The startup plans to move beyond the iPhone to other mobile devices with growing app markets such as Android and Blackberry. It also recently launched PasteFire , a way to share other things such as Web links, emails, phone numbers, and photos to and from your iPhone. It will start to give users app recommendations based on the content they copy in PasteFire as well. The whole focus of the company is to help people discover new apps and drive more downloads and sales of apps. Competitors include Appolicious , 16App s, and others.

Chances are you’ve never heard of Netbiscuits – I sure hadn’t. But the company operates one of the world’s largest B2B web software platforms enabling thousands of publishers to create, manage and generate revenue from mobile websites. Netbiscuits serves the mobile Internet programs for brands like Yahoo, MTV, and eBay, and well known digital agencies such as Razorfish, Isobar, and ad networks like Google-owned AdMob. To give you an idea of its size: globally, Netbiscuits claims to deliver more than 1.5 billion mobile page impressions on a monthly basis. This morning, the decade-old company announced that it has partnered with Universal Music Group to help the music company expand its line-up of direct-to-consumer mobile content and services, after a successful test run centered around a mobile website for Bon Jovi in November 2009. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Netbiscuits will essentially be aiding UMG in setting up and operating artist-branded mobile websites, which will give fans the ability to interact with other fans and to make purchases directly from their handsets. Based on the mobile websites, Netbiscuits also enables UMG to set up hybrid apps for several major platforms, including the iPhone, Android, and Windows Mobile devices. UMG also plans to utilize the text messaging service that comes integrated within the Netbiscuits platform, providing music fans with SMS alerts whenever their favorite artists are in town.

Let me start off by saying this: I really rather like the default Android homescreen. It’s simple, it’s functional, and above all, it’s endlessly customizable. Thanks to Google’s “do anything” approach to handling app development, end users have countless tools to trick out their phones anyway they want. That, as anyone who’s ever used MySpace knows, is a double-edged sword: the end results are usually range from the rare and wonderful to the terribly tacky. The guys over at Larva Labs have taken a different, almost Facebookian approach. Instead of allowing users to directly get their hands dirty, they completely stripped down the Android into a sparse, information-oriented design they call SlideScreen, which looks something like a mashup between WinMo 6.5 today screen and HTC’s minimalist TouchFLO style. I was given the chance to play with a nearly final build of the app, which is slated for general release within the next few days, and for you info junkies out there, this may be exactly what you’ve been looking for. Read the rest of this post at MobileCrunch > >