We're reporting live on the all the winners as they are announced...
Tonight, we're hosting the sixth annual ME Awards at the glitzy Royal Garden Hotel. There are over 300 excitable content execs here, eating, drinking, laughing and waiting to see who's won what.
21.50: The ME Awards intro begins with a showcase of all the names involved in tonight's grand old London event. The Black Eyed Peas was the song of choice, presumably it was chosen by editor Tim Green. He's a big fan.
22.00: Host for this evening Terry Alderton takes to the stage in gangster fashion to a spot of music from Fatman Scoop (yes that really is a stage name) to warm up the crowd. An attack on stage signs and pretty much every demographic followed. He also continued to reveal some rather snazzy sparkling sneakers.
22.18: Betfair is confirmed as the winner of the Best Gambling Company award. It's reward for deep commitment to mobile – its app was among the first ever to be made available on the UK and Ireland Apple app stores in 2010, and its been reaping the benefits ever since.
22:20: Ooh, Julia Dimambro is pleased. The self-confessed princess of mobile adult content has been in mobile for eight years, and won this award in its first outing in 2006. She should be proud. Cherry remains wholly privately owned with no external investment and in profit. The firm is active in over 40 countries worldwide, and powers portals for partners using its 'Digital Erotic Retailing' platform for marketing and retailing. Julia's words: "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
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22.22: EA Mobile storms back from its year off winning Best Games Company (Chillingo got the gong last year - and was then sold to… EA Mobile). Votes were no doubt cast to recognise mobile revenue in FY11 of $230 million, up 8.5 per cent.
22.24: The Layar team goes augmental – as it should. It's claimed the Best Location Company award, which Foursquare won last year. They're probably overlaying the applauding awards audience with all manner of fancy graphics.
22.26: Two in two for Facebook, claiming the Best Social Media Company award again. They couldn't make it here but sent a statement about how much they and their users love mobile. You can say that again. Their mobile base passed the 350m mark this yeat. That's just under half the total. Tim Green collects on their behalf.
22.29: PapayaMobile wins some recognition for steady progress in social gaming. It's bagged the Best Games Service Provider award for a service with over 25m Android users playing over 300 different games at an average ARPU of $22.60/month. Nice job for the newly hired Europe team. Wonder if they'll claim the credit, and a bonus?
22.30: Second Best Music Service Provider award for Spotify, and another recognition of its progress in turning people on to its streaming music ideal. It now has two million paying customers – adding 500,000 between June and September. Music to its ears we're sure. As we write there's speculation it's planning a move into movies…
22.32: A hat trick of wins for UK-based HTC owned Saffron in the Best Video Service Provider category. It is now helping to power the major new HTC video service, Watch. But it has forged many new partnerships in the last year, with NBC Universal, Microsoft, and Blockbuster, among others. Arguably most successful of all is Media Hub, created for Samsung US.
22.34: Bango takes the awards back to the beginning. It won Best Transaction Provider in 2006, and now it's back for more. Things have changed a bit since then. In 2006 Bango got the gong for supporting off-portal mobile sites with payments. Now, its platform delivers micro payment capabilities to everyone from the indies to BlackBerry App World.
22.36: A second Best Web Publishing Platform win for Netbiscuits. The German company's tech is behind over 20,000 sites and apps, which collectively deliver over 8bn pages views a month. We're feeling very sorry for Wapple, which has sponsored the award and is getting all the post-event drinks it. Sorry guys. Votes is votes!
22.38: Grapple is named the Best App Developer. This year it became the public face of app development thanks to an appearance on UK TV in The Apprentice. Grapple has created over 200 bespoke apps for more than 60 clients, and it's just opened in New York. Phew.
22.40: InMobi pockets the Best Ad Network award. The first company to win it that isn't called AdMob. The firm moved squarely into the front rank of global mobile ad networks this year, doubling its global network from 7.5 billion to 47.3 billion impressions a month. Next year should be interesting: InMobi raised an eye-popping $200m war chest in September.
22.42: What a year for Fetch Media, which has just scooped the Best Marketing Company award. It's barely two years old, but already forging a major reputation in the space. It the first UK firm to run iAds, geo targeted display ads and a dynamic music campaign with Shazam.
22.44: Who'd heard of 24MAS 12 months ago. Not many of us. But it has capped an amazing year by winning the Best B2B Content Provider award for providing content and ad services to Voda, Orange, Adidas, MTV and others.
22.46: Getjar sees off Apple, Amazon and Appitalism to bag the Best App Store award for the second time. The firm has continued its long march from geeky developer resource to mainstream consumer service. Giving away otherwise paid for apps didn't do it any harm.
22.48: Big roar from the Samsung table, after the Korean firm wins its first ever ME Best Handset Company award. It earned it in a year it became the world's biggest smartphone maker. Its Galaxy S II took on iPhone and took five months to sell 10m.
22.50: Orange takes a bow after being named Best Operator for the first time. The award recognised a series of innovations this year, including a partnership with unlimited music streaming service Deezer and a landmark trial with Barclaycard of full NFC mobile payments.
22.52: Tim Green takes to the stage to reveal Steve Jobs may be alive. That, and Siri appears to love the ME Awards. It's a pleasure knowing we have the support of Apple. Tim then went on to present the surprised and delighted Simon Buckingham the Outstanding Contribution to Mobile Entertainment. He deserves it, not least for buying the ringtones.com URL for £20 and then selling it last year for £750,000! Now he's on a similarly upward trajectory with his Appitalism app store.
23.00: Terry Alderton closes the presentation to rapturous applause and everybody leaves to enter the after party for refreshments.
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