Native Twitter App for BlackBerry Coming

Historically, the ability to make and receive telephone calls from a device in your pocket or purse, anytime, has been the killer application for mobile phones. Recently, other killer apps have emerged. For many smartphone users, the killer app was email in the pocket or purse.

Recently, access to the mobile Web, or perhaps the App Store could be seen as the key driver of iPhone adoption, while now social networking has emerged as the first consumer killer app for smartphones.

You could get a debate about whether users prefer to have a discrete application to get to their social networking sites, or are just as happy using their mobile browsers. But lots of people, and lots of suppliers, might vote for the application approach.

Now BlackBerry seems to be close to getting its own RIM-supplied Twitter app. There are other Twitter apps available for Blackberries. UberTwitter and TwitterBerry, SocialScope and Tweetcaster, are examples.

But the BlackBerry blog "CrackBerry" says an official RIM Twitter app is under development as well.

Apparently the RIM versiion will be integrated with other core BlackBerry applications and be tied in to the address book, browser and device setup wizard.

If one wanted to know why an official RIM version might get traction, as opposed to any other app, it likely is the degree of integration with other BlackBerry apps. We'll know soon enough.

Twitter Usage Exploding

By available measures, Twitter growth has flattened, although some say the data does not include all Twitter usage from third party sites.

Usage, though, is another matter. It keeps growing, suggesting that Twitter has an established base of users that find it useful. In December 2009 Twitter processed more than one billion tweets per month, according to Pingdom.

January passed 1.2 billion, averaging almost 40 million tweets per day. This is significantly more than Twitter was processing just a few months ago.

Pingdom's data does include all tweets made using Twitter's own sites and third-party sites and applications as well.

December 2009 was the first month Twitter processed more than one billion tweets (with 1.036 billion tweets). But January 2010 had 16 times as many tweets as January 2009.

Activity on Twitter has doubled since August 2009.

Pingdom has no data on the total number of active users.

http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/10/twitter-now-more-than-1-billion-tweets-per-month/

60,000 Free Apps Now Available to Sprint Feature and Smartphones

Sprint, in a partnership with GetJar, the world's second-largest app store, now offers a catalog of more than 60,000 free applications, now available to all Sprint customers with feature phones,  RIM BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices.

"We are opening up the world of apps to customers who may not have a smartphone," says Len Barlik, vice president of wireless and wireline services for Sprint.

"Our partnership with GetJar means that all Sprint customers will now have access to thousands of applications ranging from popular apps such as YouTube and Google Maps to more niche applications that address their business needs," Barlik says.

GetJar offers applications ranging from games and entertainment to education and health, plus . Facebook Mobile, Weather Channel Mobile, ShopSavvy and Loopt can be easily downloaded to most Sprint handsets.

Customers can simply click the link in the "downloads" category of the Sprint portal to access GetJar's site and browse the applications.

GetJar is the world's second largest app store with more than 750 million downloads to date. The company provides more than 60,000 mobile applications across all major handsets and platforms to consumers in more than 200 countries.

Users Prefer Flat-Rate Pricing. Duh!

Mobile internet users across the United Kingdom and United States prefer flat-rate pricing, a new survey by YouGov has found. That finding should surprise nobody in the U.S. market, given the development of the whole Internet access business since AOL dropped metered billing and went to flat rate packaging.

Unsurprisingly, respondents said they would use the mobile Web more if flat rate access is available. That does not necessarily suggest consumers would reject flat-rate plans that are tiered for usage, even if any rational consumer would say they prefer a low flat rate for unlimited usage.

Smartphone users might be used to low rate, unlimited access, but users of mobile PC dongles and cards are well accustomed to the idea that usage and price are related for "buckets" of usage.

Some 4,324 consumers,18 or older, were polled as part of the study.

In the United Kingdom, 33 percent of respondents  reported that they don't use the Internet despite having access on their phone, while 25 percent of U.S. respondents with an Internet-ready phone say they do not use that feature.

The study also found that users want Web sites and services optimized for their specific mobile device, especially if it means that they could more quickly access the services they want. About 32 percent of respondents say that would increase their usage.

About 51 per cent of all respondents said they were only prepared to spend up to three minutes surfing for a specific piece of content on their phones, emphasizing the importance of navigation and usability.

About 13 percent of U.K. users, and 17 percent of U.S. respondents now access the Internet more than once a day from their phones. About 27 per cent of U.K. consumers and 28 percent of U.S. consumers surveyed now use the mobile Internet at least once a week, if not more.

$1 TV Episodes for iPad?

Apple could begin selling U.S. television shows for $1, half of its charge on its iTunes digital media store, on the iPad, the Financial Times reports. If Apple does so, it would mean at least some U.S. content owners have decided to take the gamble of offsetting lower retail price points with higher sales.

As powerful as "free" might be for many products, $1 likewise has proven to be an enormously
successful price point for mobile application store downloads, for example. Also, Redbox DVD
rentals are priced at $1, and that price point has been gaining traction.

Apple has been selling TV episodes for about $2 each on its iTunes store, while high-definition fare that displays well on a TV set sells for $3 an episode.

Video entertainment has been a big part of thinking about what new market the iPad might be able to create, between the smartphone and the notebook or netbook PC.

Apple also has been in discussions with content owners about a “best of TV” subscription service, perhaps offered at about $30 a month, that hopefully would create a new niche in the market as well, more than one-off downloads and streaming but less than the full channel line-up that customers can buy from cable, satellite or telco providers.

The trick, of course, is to create a new niche that does not automaticaly cannibalize the value of other existing channels. That is likely one reason why Apple has not tried to create a subscription TV service for its Apple TV device.

Send SMS Messages to Multiple Recipients Using Google Voice

One of the differences between email and texting, aside from the SMS character limitation, is sending a single message to multiple recipients. Google Voice now allows such multi-party text messages.

Users just click on the SMS button at the top of their Google Voice inboxes, enter names or numbers (separated by commas) in the "To" field, write messages and click "send."

Replies from each recipient are threaded into separate conversations, so users can keep track of them in their Google Voice inboxes. To prevent spam, Google sets a maximum of five recipients per message.

It's useful.

Google to Build Fiber to Home Test Networks

In the latest version of its Internet access demonstration projects, Google says it will build some wholesale fiber-to-the-home networks. James Kelly, Google project manager, says Google is looking for communities interested in becoming trial sites, and will be accepting requests for information until March 26, 2010.

Initial plans call for building FTTH facilities serving 50,000 people, perhaps as many as 500,000. That's a bit indefinite. Assume a typical household has about 2.5 people in it and one could see perhaps 20,000 to 200,000 homes connected.

But there are lots of unanswered questions. It isn't clear whether Google means "a network passing X number of homes" or "a network serving X number of homes." Those are very different sorts of numbers if Google builds anyplace where a strong cable operator and a strong telco provider already are in business.

As a demonstration project, Google would learn as much serving 20,000 potential customers as 200,000. Frankly, there is very little that is unknown about the cost of building a fiber-to-home network, really. What Google might be interested in is the business case for a wholesale broadband network that didn't have to supply voice and traditional video services.

But again, there is very little that is unknown about that business case, either. We know the cost to build the network and operate it as an ISP. You can derive commercial rates by looking at what is charged in the local, regional or national markets, multiply by take rate of homes passed and you'd have your scenario without digging a single trench.

Kelly says "we are going to try out new ways to build and operate fiber networks and share what we learn with the world."

There likely is not much to be uncovered about the process of building FTTH, so Google likely means sharing what it learns about the business model for wholesale networks, which a few have experimented with in the U.S. market.

Broadweave, which operates in Provo, Utah, is an example, though it is unclear whether the firm will continue to allow wholesale customers to use its network. The current thinking seems to be to operate as a typical retail triple-play provider, rather than as a wholesale provider of access to third parties who may wish to do so.

Broadweave Networks took over a project originally started as a municipal FTTH network, paying $40.6 million for the assets, and struggled in 2009. The company drastically slowed its growth among residential customers to save on the high cost of new sign-ups in the spring of 2009, reports the Daily Herald.

Broadweave began asking prospective customers to foot part of the $1,000 installation bill in an effort to discourage new customers and effectively slow growth while the company grapples with ongoing financial concerns.

The company is instead decided to focus on commercial accounts and reactivation of former customers who already have optical drops in place.

The flow of new customers reportedly was slowed from hundreds a month to "tens or dozens" a month.

Google might attempt to prove the thesis that an FTTH wholesaler can make money strictly as a supplier of access services to third party partners who simply lease capacity on such networks. The big question always has been whether any such network actually is viable in markets where there are strong cable and telco competitors already in place.

Google previously has built limited municipal Wi-Fi networks as well. It isn't clear what Google believes it might have learned from those experiments.

In truth, the gambit most likely is simply another tool to be used in Google's lobbying for setting of national broadband policies, and not much more.