Mobile advertising company Smaato Inc. has announced the winners of the Smaato Mobile Advertising Awards 2009.

To recognize excellence in the world of mobile applications and the mobile Web, winners of the different categories were announced at the awards ceremony this month, which attracted more than 200 mobile developers, entrepreneurs, venture-capital professionals and investors. The overall iPhone category winner was Waze, while the overall Apps category winner and the Motorola Android category winner was Aloqa.

"Aloqa is proud to win the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award,? said Sanjeev Agrawal, CEO of Aloqa. ?By providing consumers a compelling search and discovery experience, Aloqa creates win-win opportunities for relevant, targeted advertising that is non-intrusive and value added for users globally.

?Thank you Smaato," he said.

The overall Mobile Web category winner was Flirtomatic, which also won a booth at M-Days.

?It?s an honor to be picking up this award and to have been recognized by such an esteemed panel of our mobile peers from around the world,? said Gary Cohen, general manager of Flirtomatic North America. ?We?ve been experimenting with a lot of different functionality in the service this year and our users have taken to most of it.

?But every day we learn something new about our members and the aim remains the same?to give our users the best experience possible,? he said.

The Microsoft Windows Mobile Phone category winner was SPB TV.

"This seems to be a week of awards for us?we?ve already received a few of them last Monday from Handango, the leading online sales platform worldwide,? said Sebastian-Justus Schmidt, CEO of SPB Software. ?Besides several awards for products, we have won the overall category and the best developer of the year in Windows Mobile.

?To get this Smaato award today is a big honor for us,? he said. ?We did the best we could do.

?We are proud of all these awards and we regard them as an obligation to keep working hard on useful and feature-rich applications."

Smaato awarded the overall winners free travel to Barcelona and booth space at the Mobile World Congress 2010, as well as various opportunities for publicity.

In addition, the winners of the Microsoft Phone Category and the Motorola Android Category will receive prizes by sponsors Microsoft and Motorola.

All 15 Finalists received DeviceAtlas licenses sponsored by dot.Mobi.

With about 250 nominees and registrations from all corners of the world, judges were shown a diverse range of applications and content from a mix of cultures and ethnicities.

The three overall winners will be introduced to eight of the top VCs in the industry, tapping into their knowledge and networks to give them help for the future.

Introductions will be made to these leading Venture Capital partners from U.S and Europe:

?    Frédéric Veyssière - Innovacom
?    Jörg Sievert - SAP Ventures
?    Mark Kvamme - Sequoia Capital
?    Matt Murphy - Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
?    Niall Davis - aeris CAPITAL
?    Rich Wong - Accel
?    Tim Chang - Norwest Venture Partners
?    Tim Draper - Draper Fisher Jurvetson

The Smaato Awards 2009 featured a jury of influencers of the mobile community:

?    Bambi Francisco (vator.tv)
?    Bena Roberts (GoMoNews)
?    Caroline Lewko (WIP)
?    Giselle Tsirulnik (Mobile Marketer)
?    James Cameron (Camerjam)
?    Jim Cook (MobiAdNews)
?    Kei Shimada (Infinita)
?    Lubna Dajani (Mobile Monday, NYC)
?    Mark Wächter (Mobile Monday, Germany & BVDW)
?    Michelle Sklar (bnetTV)
?    Peggy Anne Salz (MSearchGroove)
?    Ragnar Kruse (Smaato Inc.)
?    Rudy De Waele (dotOpen/mTrends)
?    Tomi Ahonen (Author)
?    Trey Harvin (mobiThinking)

As a special prize, a free booth at M-Days 2010 was awarded to Flirtomatic and Yoose.

"We are absolutely thrilled to be the winner of the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award,? said Christian Geissendoerfer, CEO of Yoose. ?A huge thank-you to the judges and the Smaato team to give us this prestigious award and the industry recognition for our mobile location-based couponing affiliate platform.

?We're very much looking forward to the opportunity to demonstrate at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and explain to the mobile community how we can help monetize your offers with hyperlocal, targeted ads in the form of coupons," he said.