MIAMI - According to a Pearson executive at the MEF Americas 2010 Mobile Content and Commerce conference, mobile plays a key role in the company?s initiatives, helping it transform education in the last few years.

The executive, along with his fellow panelist agreed that the mobile ecosystem has transformed over the years. The session was moderated by Ralph Simon, chairman and founder of MEF Americas and CEO of The Mobilium International Advisory Group.

?Mobile is increasingly growing in the Pearson product portfolio,? said Juan Lopez-Valcarcel, director of digital product and consumer technology at Pearson, London. ?With the Financial Times we have a paid subscription ? we?re not afraid to ask for consumers to pay for subscriptions.

?That app has more than 450,000 downloads on the iPad platform,? he said. ?We offer a premium brand with certain types of content that you can?t find elsewhere and we build that relationship with the consumers."

Other panelists included James Min, managing director and head of media banking at Montgomery Capital, Joao Paulo Firmeza, director of Portugal Telecom Inovacao, Portugal,  Marco Argenti, vice president of media at Nokia, New York, Richard Berger, senior vice president of global digital strategy and operations at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Culver City, CA, Ron Czerny, CEO of Playphone, San Jose, CA, and chairman of MEF LATAM.

Mobile changes everything
According to Mr. Lopez-Valcarcel mobile presents an opportunity for many of its products, including Penguin books.

?We?re very excited about mobile platforms, especially touch screens,? Mr. Lopez-Valcarcel said. ?Think about how intuitive tablets are for kids.

?We developed a lot of children?s stories for the device,? he said. ?The most exciting and lesser known is education.

?Education had been going through a large transformation in the last few years.?

Many teachers are increasingly using social platforms in classes.

In addition, more publishers are developing textbooks for tablets such as Apple?s iPad.

Make it social
PlayPhone?s Mr. Czerny agrees that social plays a big impact in the mobile channel.

?Mobile social games are amazing ? it?s incredible,? Mr. Czerny said. ?Social games are an incredible new platform for the Internet and mobile devices.

?There?s still a long way to go from social games, its growing,? he said.

Getting through the clutter
Sony?s Mr. Berger is working on developing applications that engage the company?s users, but with so many applications already in Apple?s App Store and the Android Marketplace, it is sometimes difficult for consumers to break through the clutter and find what they are looking for.  

?Something that we?re concerned about is the clutter,? Mr. Berger said. ?There are so many apps out there.

?In a world where there?s an app store and there?s complete clutter ? how do you get to the top?? he said. ?We work closely with Apple and there?s an initial piece there, but how do you stay up there?

?That?s where the social aspect comes. Once it goes viral you have the opportunity to stay or grow and I think building in social and viral features are important.?