Yospace, 2ergo and Picochip occupy the top 3 places in this years 50 To Watch in Mobile league table, compiled by O2 in conjunction with Real Business magazine. The ranking honours UK companies in the mobile space for their level of innovation, management track record, financial performance and market potential.
Yospace, which tops the ranking, specialises in user-generated content for mobiles and mobile blogging. The company was recently bought by Emap for a maximum 14.4 million. Second placed 2ergo, styles itself as a provider of convergent mobile communications solutions, or as Real Business describes the company, a back end specialist. Third-placed Picochip is a fabless silicon chip designer.
Arieso, a technology company which removes network black spots, finished fourth, while Mobile Interactive Group was ranked fifth, and Sponge sixth. Other names in the table familiar to regular readers include box (12th), ROK (18th), Marvellous Mobile (27th), The Light Agency (30th), and Trinity Mobile (32nd). 4D Interactive (36th), Bingo (38th), Mobiqa (42nd) and  Cognima/ShoZu (50th).
The final 50 were selected and ranked from a list of over 200 companies who asked to be considered, by a judging panel made up of Ken Blakeslee, Chairman of WebMobility Ventures, Christina Domecq, Founder of SpinVox, Eden Zoller, Principal Analyst at Ovum, and Mike Short, Vice President of research and development at O2.
Short said the judges had identified four themes among this years entrants: user-generated content, b2b, location-based services, and mobile ticketing (including mobile couponing), while Zoller paid tribute to the diversity of the companies expertise, and Real Business Deputy Editor Charles Orton-Jones said the magazine was delighted to have compiled the list for the second year.
It includes the most promising UK companies, offering highly innovative and advanced mobile applications he said.
You can get a full list of the 50 to Watch in Mobile on the real Business website.