As a mobile technology enthusiast, I like to see how it’s used in popular culture. Perhaps this obsession harkens back to my days playing Captain Kirk in the trees of my elementary school in the early 1970s, pretending to use that futuristic device known simply as the communicator.

Sometimes the use of mobile technology in pop culture can be hilariously absurd, as is the case with Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone in the 1960s Get Smart television series. Other times the depiction of futuristic technology can be much more prescient, as was the case with the communicator.

So when I went to see Star Trek this past weekend, in addition to seeing how one of my new favorite directors interpreted the favorite TV series of my youth, I was looking forward to seeing how mobility “evolved” in J.J. Abrams vision of the future. Like almost everything else in the movie, I wasn’t disappointed.

In what will undoubtedly be one of my favorite product placements of all time, Star Trek features a touch screen Nokia phone, mounted on the dashboard of an antique Corvette in the sequence where the audience first sees how James T. Kirk grows up.

I must say, there is nothing earth shattering about a touch screen phone and media player; I have that in my car for two years with my iPhone and its dock (how did Apple, one of the kings of product placement, miss this choice opportunity?). Perhaps the most futuristic aspect of this Nokia phone was how its classic ringtone evolved. But it was still great fun, as is the rest of the movie. If you haven’t yet seen Star Trek, it gets two thumbs up from me!

Five months ago we introduced the MoPR 500, an “index” of mobility industry stocks. We selected companies across a broad swath of the mobility industry, and “buying” one share of each, we assembled a list of stocks we could purchase for $500; hence the MoPR 500. We were inspired to create this index by forecasts of the stock market’s impending doom. Certainly a lot of what was forecasted as played out. But five months later, how are our mobility stocks doing?

We began at the close of market October 3, 2008 with an index value of $500.49. At Friday’s market close (March 6, 2009) the MoPR 500 was valued at $358.82, a loss of 28.31 percent.

For some context, at the close of the market on October 3, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was valued at $10,325.38. On March 6 the DJIA was valued at $6,626.94, or a loss of 35.82 percent. As we watched the ups and mostly downs of the market these past five months, we observed that our mobility index usually though modestly outperformed the DJIA.

Of our 27 mobility stocks, 26 went down in value. Standing alone was Broadcom (NASDAQ: BCRM). On October 3, a share of Broadcom was worth $16.63, and last Friday it closed at $16.97. Only a 2.04 percent gain, but in this volatile market, who wouldn’t take that? For the most part, Broadcom has traded consistently over $16 per share over the past five months. Perhaps part of the stock’s appeal is that Broadcom recently introduced multimedia chipset technology for mobile phones.

The next four best performing stocks in the top of the of MoPR 500 are:

• Sybase (NYSE: SY), purchased for $28.76 and trading last at $26.48 for a loss of 7.93 percent.
• Syniverse (NYSE: SVR), purchased for $16.11 and trading last at $14.14 for a loss of 12.23 percent.
• Verizon (NYSE: VZ), purchased for $31.24 and trading last at $27.28 for a loss of 12.68 percent.
• Neustar (NYSE: NSR), purchased for $18.83 and trading last at $15.63 for a loss of 16.99 percent.

It’s sad when three of the best five performers have double digit losses, but these losses are about half the average loss for the index and about a third of the loss of the DJIA.

Four of the five worst performing stocks comprising the bottom of the MoPR 500 cost about $3.00 per share. At such a low initial value, every cent lost makes the stock drop more percentage-wise. The sole exception was Clearwire, purchased for $9.92 per share. Clearwire is in the midst of a much-watched consumer WiMax service roll out.

The five worst performing stocks of the MoPR 500 are:

• Powerwave (NASDAQ: PWAV), purchased for $3.32 and trading last at $0.25 for a loss of 92.50 percent.
• Nortel Networks (NYSE: NT), purchased for $2.08 and trading last at $0.32 for a loss of 84.62 percent.
• UTStarcom (NASDAQ: UTSI), purchased for $2.88 and trading last at $0.70 for a loss of 75.69 percent.
• Clearwire (NASDAQ: CLWR), purchased for $9.92 and trading last at $2.82 for a loss of 71.57 percent.
• Alcatel Lucent (NYSE: ALU), purchased for $3.54 and trading last at $1.16 for a loss of 67.23 percent.

More information about the individual holdings can be found on our Stockalicious and Herdstreet portfolio pages, as well as our MoPR 500 Index page.

These last few weeks have certainly been crazy on the stock market. The only stock that seemed to do well the last two weeks was Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB). It made us wonder how mobility stocks would fare as compared to the rest of the market. So we’re trying an experiment.

We looked at some representative companies across the wide mobility spectrum — from wireless to Wi-Fi, from mobile entertainment to network infrastructure — and we put together a portfolio buying a single shares of as many of these mobility stocks as we could purchase for $500. So yes, the “500″ in the name means dollars, not the number of stocks in our index.

On October 3, 2008 the “MoPR 500 Stock Index” was valued at $500.49. How’s it doing today? See how our mobility stock index is performing by visiting the MoPR 500 Index page here on TheMoPRBlog. You can get detailed information about all the stocks her at our MoPR 500 index pages on Herdstreet and Stockalicious.

Google looks over shoulder after Nokia Symbian buyout. Big news this week with Nokia taking control of Symbian. Nokia is riding on the hopes of increasing the sales of mobile phones while boosting revenues from its wireless web services.  According to InfoWorld Daily’s Tom Sullivan, the move could damper Google’s Android. Still wondering what this means to the industry? Read “Seven things you need to know about Nokia-Symbian deal.”

If you think your broadband is slow, you’re probably right. Enter InternetforEveryone.org led by the FCC [?!] that wants universal access to high-speed, broadband Internet throughout the US. Thirty-five percent of homes with less than $50,000 in annual income have a high-speed Internet connection in the U.S. Moreover, nearly 20 million Americans live in areas that are not served by a single broadband provider; tens of millions more live in places where there is just a single choice for high-speed Internet service.

We’re in Awe: 15-Year-Old Girl Sends 15,000 Text Messages A Month. According to WEWS in Cleveland, a 15-year-old Ohio girl discovered her true talent recently – the ability to crank out 15,000 text messages in a month and keep an 3.0 GPA- all under a 9:00 p.m. curfew. According to WEWS, she didn’t realize how many text messages she sent every month until she went to the cell phone store to get her phone fixed.

“I just don’t look. I guess I had the phone a long time and I just know where the buttons are and I just hit them,” said the speed texter.

Mobile coupons finally a reality? According to MediaPost, Yahoo! is teaming with Coupons Inc. to offer mobile coupons through its Yahoo! Mobile service. The initiative would “create a national platform for large brand advertisers to distribute mobile coupons, which so far have mostly been tested only in local markets or niche categories.”

Mobile coupons, says the article, will rely on solely electronic means, such as a secure bar code system allowing shoppers to swipe mobile devices at the point of sale to get discounts or special offers.
Distribution of the coupons would involve different methods, such as e-mail, banner ads, SMS text-messaging and apps on Yahoo!’s mobile portal.

McMobile McMarketing. The Mobile Marketing Association newsletter landed in our mailbox this week. A mix of industry news, trends and upcoming events, the newsletter is always an informative read. Our favorite section is successful case studies of mobile marketing in action, such as a recent story on McDonalds and its use of SMS in Germany.

Via the SMS Lounge, McDonald’s invited customers to text their information which then registered them at their local McDonald’s. In the following months, users received a mobile voucher directly from the restaurant onto their phone every two weeks. The coupons – embedded in code – could be redeemed by scanning them at the restaurant.

Since its launch in July 2007, more than 10,000 participants have used SMS service. This first of its kind mobile couponing pilot achieved response rates up to 29% throughout Germany according to the MMA. Using SMS and mobile technologies to extend and build your brand is something we can get behind!

Wind Charged Cell Phones. Folks toting mobile phones to this year’s Glastonbury Festival 2008 in the UK later this week will have a free and green way to recharge their phones thanks to a charging station being set up at the festival by Orange. Measuring more than 7 meters tall, the free-standing recharge pod is a self-sufficient unit that taps into a wind generator and solar panels to charge as many as 100 mobile phones per hour. It’s actually the next iteration of a portable wind charger Orange tested out at last year’s festival through a partnership with Gotwind and will serve as a trial for using renewable energy sources on a larger scale at future festivals. Orange expects the recharge pod will charge thousands of mobile phones over the course of the three-day festival. [See Grace's post for more on Gotwind.]