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Now that Mobile World Congress has wrapped, a number of digital analytics firms have parsed the data on social networks and blogs to determine which smartphones, tablets, operating systems and brands received the most buzz - and whether that chatter was positive or negative, in some cases.

A few general trends that were revealed included the following: nearly equal buzz for tablets and phones, Android's domination of the OS buzz on both phones and tablets, and Samsung and HTC coming out on top as the most buzzed about device manufacturers.  Do these trends match up with your experiences from attending or reading about Mobile World Congress and its related news?

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, Orange announced it will introduce its first NFC-enabled smartphone in the second quarter of this year to select European markets, with others soon to follow. The phone is a mid-tier Samsung Wave 578, which runs the Samsung bada operating system. As it turns out, it won't be the only new smartphone with NFC to hit European markets - Samsung's Galaxy S II, also announced this week, will include NFC technology, too.

At this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a task force consisting of a group of international mobile operators announced it will submit its plans for an embedded SIM solution to telecommunication standards body ETSI for consideration by month-end. The standard would allow for an embedded (as opposed to removable) SIM technology that could be remotely activated by operators at point of sale and afterwards.

The embedded SIM technology is not meant to replace the removable SIM cards such as those used in today's mobile phones, but it could be used in various consumer electronics devices to connect them to the Internet. It's the first step to building an "Internet of Things."

Just prior to the start of this week's annual Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Microsoft and Nokia shook up the mobile industry with the announcement that Nokia would abandon work on its MeeGo smartphone operating system (OS) and would begin shipping handsets running Windows Phone 7 starting sometime this year.

Eventually, said Nokia, Symbian handsets will be phased out as Windows Phone becomes the company's new flagship OS. So what does this mean for the developer community?

At this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Google's former CEO, now Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt delivered a keynote address where he revealed the future of the Android mobile operating system.  Currently, there are two distinct versions of Android: Android 2.3, code-named "Gingerbread" for smartphones and a newer, tablet-optimized version of Android 3.0 called "Honeycomb." Schmidt says that the two separate versions will be merged in the next release of Android.

"The world is shifting from a battle of devices to a battle of ecosystems," Nokia CEO Stephen Elop stated during his keynote speech at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. What he means is that it's no longer going to be about what manufacturer's device or model you use - it's going to be about what mobile operating system it runs. Will it be Apple's iOS or Google Android? Or will it be, as Elop certainly hopes, a Microsoft phone?

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is giving a keynote presentation at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It's his first major speech since he stepped down from the CEO position in January. His goal? To talk Android, of course, and more importantly, to convince carriers that Google isn't trying to make them just "dumb pipes" for Google's content.

Update: At least, that's been his usual MO at these events. This time, a healthy Q&A session at the end gave a much larger focus on Google as a company, both on mobile and off.

As rumored, HTC did launch two "Facebook phones" at Mobile World Congress this week: the HTC Salsa and the HTC ChaCha. No, they're not the Facebook phones - that is, they're not branded or licensed by Facebook itself - but they offer such deep integration with the social networking service, you may as well call them "Facebook phones," we'd say.

Here's another surprise - the phones may soon run a newer version of Android, which may or may not be code-named "Ice Cream."

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo gave a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress where he talked about Twitter's growth, its goals and even its fears. "Twitter should be instant, simple and always present," said Costolo. You shouldn't have to relearn how to use the service just because you switch between devices. "Twitter," he said, "should be like water." Once you know how to get water from the tap in the kitchen, you know how to get water from another faucet. Twitter should be that easy, too.

Social networking services like Facebook, Twitter and Instant Messaging have been turned into SIM-based applications that work via SMS text messages. For users of low-end devices, sometimes called "feature phones," "messaging phones" or even "dumb phones," these new technologies will soon enable them to keep up with their smartphone-toting counterparts by expanding access to the most popular social networks in use today.