Android Gaining on Apple, Says Report

ReadWriteWeb: "

• 92 countries generated more than 10 million request in May 2010, up from 27 countries in May 2008
• Nokia leads in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe
• Apple leads in North America, Oceania and Western Europe
• In May 2010, smartphones generated 46% of traffic in the AdMob network, up from 22% 2 years ago
• 24% of May's traffic was via Wi-Fi
• Mobile Internet Devices (including the iPad, PSP and iPod Touch) consistently have accounted for 10% of traffic over the past year
• 57% of Apple devices in AdMob's network are outside the U.S.
• Traffic from the Android platform has grown 29% month-over-month since May 2009
• iOS and Android users spend 79 minutes per day using apps
• iOS and Android users download about 9 apps per month"

Appcelerator's Mobile Developer Survey, June 2010

Appcelerator: "
- Interest in tablet application development has spiked since Apple's iPad debut in April.
- When stack ranking platform potential, developers give the long-term edge to Google.
- While iOS and Android maintained a high level of interest, second tier platforms lost ground.
- Large organizations are expressing even more interest in mobile than smaller ones.
- Porting applications across platforms is the number one developer pain.
- Multitasking tops the list of iPhone 4 features."

Scapegoating Craigslist Is Not Going to Solve the Problem of Underage Prostitution

AlterNet: "Speier is not asking for a hearing about the problem of underage sex trafficking. She’s asking Congress to investigate Craigslist, despite the fact that the site has not broken any laws and has made countless changes to address the concerns of law enforcement officials, politicians and human rights activists."

Misreading Tehran: The Twitter Devolution

Foreign Policy: "But it is time to get Twitter's role in the events in Iran right. Simply put: There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran. As Mehdi Yahyanejad, the manager of 'Balatarin,' one of the Internet's most popular Farsi-language websites, told the Washington Post last June, Twitter's impact inside Iran is nil. 'Here [in the United States], there is lots of buzz,' he said. 'But once you look, you see most of it are Americans tweeting among themselves.'"

It's Official - Apple Kicking Google Out of iWorld

John Battelle's Searchblog: "Apple this week 'clarified' its policy with regard to third party networks, and it's hard to read it as anything other than a direct declaration of war with Google."

Android Ad Impressions Rise 77 Percent In April, iPhone Sees 8 Percent Drop

Techcrunch: "Although the Apple OS had a month-over-month decrease of 8% it still remained the leading OS on Millennial’s network in April with 62% share of Smartphone impressions. RIM’s BlackBerry remained the second largest OS on Millennial’s network for the ninth consecutive month with a 3% increase month-over-month and a 17% share of impressions. Android’s took a 10% share of impressions for the month of April."

Apple Solidifies Its Lead Among U.S. Music Accounts, As Mobile Merchants Fade

Billboard.biz: "Apple's iTunes store, which emerged in 2008 as the top U.S. music account for the first time, widened its lead last year over former market leader Walmart."

Google's Overhauled Search Page Has New Tools, New Look

Bloomberg: "Microsoft Corp.’s Bing and social media sites Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. have made a case that Google’s search, based on relevance- ranking, is outmoded"

Duke study: TiVo doesn’t hurt TV advertising

Triangle Business Journal:: "• He says about 95 percent of people still watch television live and, as a result, cannot fast forward through the commercials.

• Even those without a DVR can skip commercials by using the breaks to go to the kitchen or flip to a different channel.

• While viewers fast-forwarded through about 70 percent of the commercials in shows they recorded, they still watch the screen to know where to resume play, meaning they are still being exposed to the advertisements.

• And the ability to record a show and watch it later means consumers are watching more television.

Nielsen: Facebook's Ads Work Pretty Well

Advertising Age: "The study of more than 800,000 Facebook users and ads from 14 brands in a variety of categories shows a marked increase in ad recall, awareness and purchase intent when home-page ads on the social network mention friends of users who've become fans of the brand in the ad."

Newspaper ad revenue plummets to 1986 level

Yahoo! News: "The picture is even more grim after adjusting for inflation. The $27 billion in revenue that newspapers received in 1986 would equal nearly $53 billion in today's dollars."

Why Is Every App A Game? The Badgeification Of The Internet

The Next Web: "What the heck is going on here? It’s actually pretty obvious. Every web company wants to be “sticky.” They want people coming back again, and again, and again. Everyday, if they can finagle it. What is a dead simple way to get people to come back? Make the product into a game."

What Are the Legal Implications of PleaseRobMe?

MediaShift: "The site aggregates Twitter posts sent when a person uses Foursquare to check in at a location -- meaning they're basically telling the world that they're not at home at the moment.

According to the folks at PleaseRobMe, if a would-be burglar knows you're out with friends, that 'leaves one place you're definitely not...home.'"

Angels vs. Venture Capitalists

blog.pmarca.com: "In a nutshell, entrepreneurs and the businesses they are starting have evolved. Start ups today don’t need to build a manufacturing plant (as DEC, the very first high-tech VC investment, did in 1957) to start a business. They need less money to build a product and prove that it works before scaling the business. Yet, the paperwork involved in funding entrepreneurs hasn’t changed to meet these needs."

Understanding the participatory news consumer

Pew Internet & American Life Project: "The internet has surpassed newspapers and radio in popularity as a news platform on a typical day and now ranks just behind TV."

How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web

Wired Magazine: "Want to know how Google is about to change your life? Stop by the Ouagadougou conference room on a Thursday morning. It is here, at the Mountain View, California, headquarters of the world’s most powerful Internet company, that a room filled with three dozen engineers, product managers, and executives figure out how to make their search engine even smarter. This year, Google will introduce 550 or so improvements to its fabled algorithm, and each will be determined at a gathering just like this one."

Spotify now makes record labels money

Telegraph: "Spotify has already taken over iTunes, in terms of revenue levels, in its native Sweden. Per Sundin, head of Universal Music Group in Sweden, told The Swedish Wire last year: “In five months from the launch Spotify became our largest digital source of income and so passed by iTunes.”

The service is expected to make its US debut in the first half of this year."

L.E.K. Consulting's Media Survey Shows 'E-reader Republic' Comprises Hungriest Consumers of New Media

PRNewswire:
* The 'E-reader Republic' is driving growth in the book and magazine market and has a voracious appetite for new media. While iPod owners consumed about nine hours per week of new media, e-reader owners consumed more than 18 hours a week.
* Consumers are willing to pay cable providers for access to online video content. Up to 38% of consumers reported they would definitely or probably pay a $19 fee on top of their cable bill to gain access to their cable content online and on their mobile phones.
* Consumers are rampantly multi-tasking while online. One out of every three consumers spending time online is simultaneously watching television, and one in five is simultaneously listening to music.
* Internet radio is finally becoming relevant. 32% of respondents used Internet radio services, logging an average of 5.8 hours weekly per user -- eclipsing satellite radio in popularity.
* If they are online, older people (ages 50 to 64) spend significantly more time there than younger people (ages 25 and 39). Online activities among these age groups differ, with older people spending more time e-mailing whereas younger people spend a higher percentage of their online time on social networking sites."

Google Is to Introduce Nexus One, a Rival to the iPhone

NYTimes.com: "In recent decades, the power of industry giants like I.B.M. and Microsoft, which once seemed unassailable, waned as computing shifted from big mainframes to PCs, and from PCs to the Internet. Many analysts say it is now Google that is faced with a less certain future in the face of another shift."

New Survey Shows Android OS Roiling the Smart Phone Market

Change Wave Research: "21% of those planning to buy a smart phone in the next 90 days say they'd prefer to have the Android OS on their new phone – a monstrous 15-pt jump in just three months."