It is my pleasure this week to host the 51st edition of The Carnival of The Mobilists, a weekly collection of the best writing about Mobile from the top Mobile websites and blogs.

I’ve been keeping up-to-date with the Carnival over the last year and it’s great to see that, as it enters ‘Year 2′, it’s still going as strong as ever. Not only are there new contributers every week but the sheer number, and quality, of entries has grown with each edition. This week is no exception with the virtual-mailbox overflowing with great entries. So in order to get all the articles showcased I’ll dispense with the usual fanfare, themes and Carnival photos and give you what you came for. Content is King after all.

I’d like to kick things off with the results from the recent Carnival Survey conducted by Michael Mace at the Mobile Opportunity Weblog. What are our favourite Services? Who is our favourite device manufacturer? All is revealed at Mobile Opportunity.

Next I’d like to highlight this weeks newcomers to the carnival. First up we have Tom Hume, a veteran mobile blogger, who gives us an insight into the problems the major Operators could face as Instant Messaging gains popularity and why they’d prefer we stick to SMS. Our second newcomer is Leonard Low of Mobile Learning who takes a look at how camera-phones could be used to access and share educational resources between students by way of 2-D barcodes. Both Tom and Leonard have set the bar high with their first entries and I’m sure we’ll se more great stuff from them, and other newcomers, in the future.

It’s been hard to sort all of the weeks entries into categories but a couple did stand out, the first of which was Mobile Devices. Steve Litchfield of AllAboutSymbian starts us off with an investigation into the visibility of various Smartphone screens in sunlight, paying particular attention to Touch-Screen devices. Which screen is best for sunny days on the beach? Click through to find out. Barry Welford is also interested in Screens this week looking at different trends in screen size with the mobile industry going smaller and the desktop industry going bigger. Jennifer Miner of Suite 101 takes a look at the new Blackberry Pearl. Find out what she thinks of RIMs attempt to appeal to the mass market. David Beers covers the Palm Treo 680 release and what it could mean to the future of the Palm OS.

Mobile Gaming was another topic that came up this week. A second entry from AllAboutSymbian (I figured both entries deserved a mention as they were by two different authors) comes from Krisse who takes an indepth look at what we can expect from the next generation of Nokias N-Gage platform. Arjan Olsder spotlights Cheeky, one of the first mobile game manufacturers, and chats with its CEO to find out why it is now fighting for survival.

Third World Markets was also a topic of interest this week with news from Kenya and Thailand. Justin Oberman points us to a video about the Mobile Landscape in Kenya and how the mobile has influenced life there. Meanwhile Stephanie Rieger give us an insight into the world of mobile in Thailand. From call pricing to popular content to accessories, Stephanie gives us an interesting look at one of the Far-Easts biggest mobile markets.

However the most popular topic of interest was one that I’m personally very interested in, Content for The Mobile Web. Dennis Bourique kicks us off with a rant about the importance of validation when delivering content to the Mobile Web. He goes on to explain how you can avoid missing out on delivering to over 10% of Mobile Web users. Meanwhile Ajit Jaokar takes a dive into the world of Mobile Porn to find out just why it’s so popular. He pays particular attention to “Cherry Sauce”, a winner at the recent Mobile Entertainment Awards. Russell Buckley takes a look at Mobile Web Stats over at Mobhappy. He isn’t impressed with the lack of data available or with the fact that The Mobile Web hasn’t made it into the mainstream media yet. Is a Mobile Web Day the answer? Our next Mobile Web story comes from Murali over at The Cellular Lifestyle. He reviews various services that will enable to keep up-to-date with your favourite blogs via your mobile, something that will interest anyone reading this post. Rob McLaren is more interested in the need for offline functionality this week. He plays down the speculation that the “Internet Cloud” will replace the desktop and makes a case for the continuing need for offline content.

Elsewhere Scott Shaffer of the Pondering Primate Blog ponders whether Google could sell premium Keywords and link them to specific sites. Patrick Altoft at Mad4MobilePhones uses Googles new Co-op service to create a search engine for their Top 50 Mobile Websites. Darla Mack brings our attention to two new peer-to-peer network application for S60, one for the Gnutella and the other for Bit-Torrent. File sharing on your Smartphone has never been this easy. Tomi Ahonen at the Communities Dominate Brands weblog gives us a very indepth look at why Social Networking will become a “killer app” for 3G mobile. The guys at 66-Mobile give us an introduction to the new Nokia N95, the latest “Multimedia Computer” from the Finnish company. And finally we have Thomas Menguy whose piece from the Everything and The Mobile Software Universe takes a look at the importance of the mainframe to the mobile industry.

Finally we come to the Post of The Week, and yet again it has been a tough choice. After a lot of thought I decided to go with the entry from Andreas Constantinou of the Vision Mobile Blog. His analysis of Customisation vs Personalisation was a very interesting read and it helped that this was a topic that I’ve been giving a lot of thought to over the past couple of weeks. Congratulations Andreas!

And that brings this weeks Carnival to a close. I hope you have all enjoyed reading the articles as much as I did! If you are interested in contributing to the next Carnival then please visit the Carnival of The Mobilists Website for instructions. Next weeks Carnival will be hosted by the excellent AllAboutSymbian.