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Last week we were at the Emirates Stadium with two of our clients from Betfair at the M-Football conference, a day of speeches and presentations on mobile’s potential as a media platform which adds to football fans’ experiences.

As a media platform, mobile has had… a number… of false dawns, a subject which many of the speakers acknowledged. But, driven by the iPhone, smartphones are not just now being snaffled in ever greater numbers, they are also being used. Have a peek at this nice slide – use of the mobile internet is now growing at a (much) faster rate than desktop internet grew in the 90s.

And with the content-fest that is the World Cup now just 139 days away, mobile marketers are smelling a big opportunity.

At Albion we reckon businesses like Betfair – online businesses which with no retail presence – are particularly well-placed to benefit.

But we also go with Tomi Ahonen, author and general guru on mobile technology: his view is that as a content platform (including branded content) mobile will be as different from the desktop internet as TV has been from radio. Mobile will borrow from what has worked online, just as TV thieved the soap opera as a format from radio. But mobile will invent its own new formats in the same way that TV invented new formats like music videos.

You can see the full M-Football line-up here and probably get some nickable slides from them if you ask nicely.

This week it was exciting to see Contagious magazine reprise their September coverage of the giffgaff launch with another great article on their website.

This time it was focused on the great user generated content that is coming out of the Tool Hire campaign.

giffgaff even made it onto the prestigious “If you only read one article…” spot on the Contagious homepage.

But proof positive that giffgaff is not just the reserve of trendy marketing types came when GMTV picked it out as the best example of a new brand catering for a generation of web savvy savers who are want to develop an active and mutually beneficial relationship with the brands and products they use.

Exciting times indeed for giffgaff, and we are really excited to be involved.

Interesting commentary in the FT today on crowd sourcing – it was good to see giffgaff being covered alongside some other success stories like Dell and Walkers.

The last Albion Society of 2009 took place yesterday at Patisserie Valerie, Spitalfields. George Magnus a Senior Economic adviser at UBS and someone who is widely credited with being one of the first economists to foresee this year’s credit crunch hosted the event talking about the ageing population; an The Age of Ageing.

For the first time in history life expectancy is currently rising and at the same time fertility is falling. This is increasing the number of dependents (people too old or too young to work) relative to the size of the workforce which is having major implications for economic growth and public finances.

George covered 3 potential solutions: increase the retirement age, (thus making people work longer), increase immigration (substitute workers from overseas for UK workers); improve Total Factor Productivity so that we can increase economic output even though the labour force will be smaller (get more from fewer people working).

In a room predominately filled with people below 60, it stirred up much debate as they conjured up thoughts of  their own futures. David Wethey from Agency Assessments raised the question of how far we will be able to solve the problem if we manage to address the prejudice of ageism?

The morning was wrapped up by one of our very own Senior Planners, Sam Ashken who highlighted the possibilities and opportunities an aging population can have for businesses and entrepreneurs – there are tremendous opportunities to target this ‘growing’ market  - answers on a postcard.

Have your say on the Game Changer of the last decade and vote now by going to goviral. One of our very own pieces of work has been entered The Skype Nomad