Sony Reader Banned from Apple App Store

Apple has rejected Sony’s Reader app from its App Store because it sells content within the app, and lets users access content that they purchased outside Apple’s own App Store, the New York Times reports.

Apple has told Sony that from now on all in-app purchases have to go through Apple. That's the downside of curation. On the other hand, few would quibble about a news stand, bookstore, cable network or radio or TV broadcaster selecting the content it wishes to carry, so long as the content is legal, tasteful and generally accurate. Okay, at least legal.

Apple Rejects Sony Reader App

Amazon, Apple, And Their Future In Steaming Video

Not everybody thinks Apple or Amazon, not to mention others such as YouTube or Wal-Mart, can make a serious business out of streaming video. For that matter, perhaps it might be said that Time Warner doesn't think most media companies can really do so, either.

Nor is Netflix likely to have an easy time, from now on, getting access to the compelling content it needs to remain a viable provider of top -notch video programming. Content owners now see "streaming" as the key new business to protect, rather than the DVD business, as important as that latter business has been, over the last decade or two. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/media/13bewkes.html.

In the late 1990s the media industry embraced Netflix as a new distribution outlet for renting DVDs. Perhaps nobody clearly understood that the move might accelerate the decline in the sales of DVDs, which for years had been the lifeblood of the film industry. Now, with its success online, Netflix has raised fears that consumers may stop paying for cable television as well.

That new perception is likely to put the brakes on Netflix, to some extent, as well as others that might like to participate in the streaming business.

The studios and networks will see to it that the streaming business is not handed to Netflix, much less to Apple, Amazon or anybody else.

Amazon, Apple, And Their Future In Steaming Video - 24/7 Wall St.

Video Will be 66% of All Mobile Traffic in 2015

Worldwide mobile data traffic will increase 26-fold between 2010 and 2015, reaching 6.3 exabytes per month or an annual run rate of 75 exabytes by 2015 due to a projected surge in mobile Internet-enabled devices delivering popular video applications and services, according to the latest Cisco Visual Networking Index.

This traffic increase represents a compound annual growth rate of 92 percent over the same period. Two major global trends are driving these significant mobile data traffic increases: a continued surge in mobile-ready devices such as tablets and smart phones, and widespread mobile video content consumption.

The Cisco study predicts that by 2015, more than 5.6 billion personal devices will be connected to mobile networks, and there will also be 1.5 billion machine-to-machine nodes -- nearly the equivalent of one mobile connection for every person in the world.

Mobile video is forecast to represent 66 percent of all mobile data traffic by 2015, increasing 35-fold from 2010 to 2015, the highest growth rate of any mobile data application tracked in the Cisco VNI Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast.

Mobile traffic originating from tablet devices is expected to grow 205-fold from 2010 to 2015, the highest growth rate of any device category tracked.

Cisco Visual Networking Index Forecast Projects 26-Fold Growth in Global Mobile Data Traffic From 2010 to 2015

Next Jump Powers Enterprise Loyalty Programs

Next Jump, still a private company, will go public soon. Perhaps the most-notable partner Next Jump has is MasterCard, which in 2010 signed a three-year partnership with Next Jump to enhance its payment services.

Will Big Carriers Take Over CDN Business?

There's a general rule in the communications business that a specialist wants to find a niche that is unattractive to the tier-one telcos, but big enough to be very interesting for the specialist. Lots of services start out small, but then get big enough to draw the interest of the tier one providers, typically with unpleasant results for the niche providers.

Mobile phones, digital subscriber line (broadband access) and SIP trunking are just a couple recent examples of services the big tier one providers avoided until it was clear they were going to be significant.

One wonders whether the content delivery networks business, which has been such a niche, now is becoming big enough to matter to tier one telcos.

Light Reading Cable - IP & Convergence - Rumor: Akamai Got Kicked Out of France

Report Finds Windows Phone 7 Share Lagging Windows Mobile

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 appears to be trailing the older Windows Mobile operating system in sales, according to trhe NPD Group.

For the fourth quarter of 2010, NPD Group put Windows Phone 7′s share at two percent of the market, dead even with Palm’s webOS but lagging Windows Mobile (four percent), Research In Motion’s BlackBerry franchise (19 percent), Apple’s iOS (19 percent) and current market leader Android (53 percent).

Android enjoyed a quarter-over-quarter growth of nine percent, while iOS and RIM fell four percent and two percent, respectively. Windows Mobile dropped three percent. NPD Group’s Top 5 smartphones included the Apple iPhone 4, Motorola Droid X, HTC Evo 4G, Apple iPhone 3GS and the Motorola Droid 2.

Report Finds Windows Phone 7 Share Lagging Windows Mobile

Google’s Android becomes the world’s leading smart phone

Google’s Android has become the leading global smartphone, according to Canalys. Shipments of Android-based smartphones reached 32.9 million, while devices running Nokia’s Symbian platform trailed slightly at 31.0 million worldwide. But Nokia did retain its position as the leading global smart phone vendor, with a share of 28 percent. The fourth quarter also saw the worldwide smart phone market continue to soar, with shipments of 101.2 million units representing year-on-year growth of 89 percent. The final quarter took shipments for the year to fractionally below 300 million units, with an annual growth rate of 80 percent over 2009.

Google’s Android becomes the world’s leading smart phone platform

Mobile Banking Growth Requires More Work on Value Proposition

Lacking any clear differentiated functionality, mobile banking appeals most strongly to those consumers already inclined to use the mobile channel, Forrester Research notes. Unfortunately, this segment is dominated by those already using online banking. As a result, banks are not realizing the full benefit of switching customers to cheaper servicing channels, but instead are seeing cannibalization of one low-cost channel (online) by another (mobile), says Forrester Research analyst Emmett Higdon.

Forrester reports that mobile banking has undergone rapid adoption, more than doubling from five percent of online users in 2007 to 12 percent in the second quarter of 2010. By 2015, this number is predicted to nearly double again, with one in five U.S. adults using mobile banking.

To reach one in five U.S. adults, as Forrester predicts mobile banking will do by 2015, U.S. banks will need to enhance today's functionality significantly to create a unique value proposition that resonates with both online and offline consumers.

Steady Mobile Banking Growth To Drive Demand For Better Functionality

Zipring Launches New VoIP Servicemo

North American consumers can now join the public beta of Zipring—a simple, inexpensive integrated Voice over IP (VoIP) phone service that works with any phone, mobile or Internet device, requires no contract and is free to try.

Unlike other Internet phone applications and devices on the market, Zipring is based on open standards so it can be used with any VoIP software or phone device. Additionally, because Zipring leverages the internet, it can turn any Internet-based device—such as an iPad, iPod Touch, laptop or desktop computer—into a phone and enable users to make and receive calls to that device using their dedicated Zipring phone number.

“Zipring works with any phone on the planet,” said Erik Lagerway, VP and GM of Commercial Communications at Ziplocal, the company behind Zipring. “While we offer a free iPhone app, the beauty of Zipring is that users are not tied to it. They can integrate Zipring directly with any VoIP app or device available to them, unlike Google Voice or Skype, and enjoy zero roaming charges and inexpensive calling without a contract.”

Among its many benefits, Zipring has zero roaming charges and does not require a contract. Zipring features include visual voicemail, call recording, voicemail to email, web-based calling and account management, and no contracts.

Google, Twitter, SayNow Create App to Alllow Tweeting by Leaving a Voicemail

A small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company Google recently acquired, have created an app that allows anyone to "tweet" by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers ( 16504194196 or 390662207294 or 97316199855).

The service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.

Official Google Blog: Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard

Coupon and Group Buying Sites Might Change Retailer Budgets, Campaigns and Channels

Shopkick Inc., which makes a smartphone app that offers shoppers rewards and discounts for entering stores, said it has attracted 750,000 users since the app made its debut in August 2010, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The growing use of, and popularity of, such group buying offers might, if it continues, rearrange retailer advertising, promotion and media spending. If the purpose of at least some advertising and promotion is to get shoppers into stores, the coupon sites are doing that.

Moreover, about 10 percent of them use the app at least once a day, said Shopkick, which has signed Target Corp., Best Buy Co., Macy's Inc. and other retailers to its service.

The retailers pay Shopkick to be included in the app and featured in special promotions. Though it declined to be specific, the high profile start-up said that each store visit by a user of its app costs a retailer "less than $1."

Mobile Apps Draw In Shoppers, Marketers - WSJ.com (subscription required)

Android Tablets Start to Take Market Share

No surprise here: as Android tablets appear in the market, Apple is going to lose some market share.

App Battle Heats Up

Whether mobile apps are as strategic as most people think, or not, there is little question more resources are going into the battle.

Mobile 'apps' to be $58 billion market

Mobile applications downloaded from online stores will be a $58 billion worldwide business by 2014, as tablet computers such as Apple's iPad stoke the surging market, Gartner predicts.

The figure marks a huge increase on the $5.2 billion spent on mobile applications in 2010, technology consultancy Gartner said, predicting there will be 17.7 billion application downloads this year, more than double the 8.2 billion in 2010.

By the end of 2014, Gartner forecasted that over 185 billion applications will have been downloaded since 2008.

Mobile 'apps' to be $58 billion market

Payment Methods Changing

Consumer use of cash and checks are declining, use of debit cards and other payment systems climbing, while use of credit cards is flat, according to Nilson Report data.

That explains, only in part, why there now is interest in mobile payments.