Meet the 8 consumer/app startups for the MobileBeat 2011 competition

It’s that time of the year again: VentureBeat’s MobileBeat 2011 conference is coming up on July 12 – 13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. This year our theme is “Who wins in the 4G nirvana?” We’ll be focusing on the rise of 4G and what it means for every aspect of the mobile industry.

This year we’re looking to showcase the top 16 companies with the coolest mobile ideas. Today we’re announcing the 8 consumer/apps finalists, yesterday we announced the 8 infrastructure finalists.

At the MobileBeat event on July 12-13, the finalists will demonstrate their product for five minutes on stage. Then an expert panel and the audience will choose the winners of the competition. Winners will receive our coveted Tesla award (named in honor of Nikola Tesla, the scientist who discovered early mobile communication) along with other prizes yet to be announced.

Here’s our list of consumer/apps mobile startups:
Tappmob — aims to create simple mobile apps that can do a lot with just one tap
SpeedySwipe — lets you take a picture of a credit card with your phone to complete a mobile transaction
Cross Travel — launching the world’s first whitelabel platform for hotel and trips bookings
DealNet — built a platform to serve daily deals coupons and other offers as location-based mobile ads
Gamzee — develops HTML5 games and will be on the upcoming Facebook mobile platform at launch
Akibot — a robot assistant that helps you be more productive with your smartphone
Polkast — allows you to connect your devices directly using local bandwidth and storage
Onavo — reduces the amount of mobile data you use so you never have to worry about the shock of a big data bill

We’ll also have a contest for GamesBeat 2011, you can view the 8 finalists for the “Who’s Got Game” contest here. For sponsorships, send a message to sponsors@venturebeat.com.

We’ll be exploring the most disruptive mobile trends at our fourth annual MobileBeat 2011 conference, on July 12-13 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. It will focus on the rise of 4G and how it delivers the promise of true mobile computing. MobileBeat is co-located with our GamesBeat 2011 conference this year. To register, click on this link.