Sure, there’s a recession out there, but that doesn’t mean some segments of the market won’t grow. As a matter of fact, Juniper Research argues that revenues from streamed mobile music services and full-track downloads are expected to exhibit strong growth over the next five years. To put this into numbers, combined revenues from these two type of services are set to increase from $2.5 billion in 2009, to nearly $5.5 billion in 2013.

Among the factors that will drive the uptake are greater variety of applications and content, all-inclusive data packages, easier to use UIs, and an increase in handset storage capacity.

On the other side, Juniper said that those music services which rely on advertising are set to experience a shortfall in revenues, following a global reduction in advertising budgets. Under the worst case scenario, the research company says that ad spend could reach just 50% of pre-downturn estimates.

Read the full article »

Next in line to join the iPhone wave is the People magazine. Of course they released a dedicated application called PEOPLE Celebrity News Tracker in the AppStore, allowing its readers to keep up with “latest and greatest” on the celebrity scene, while on the go.

The app delivers up-to-the-minute breaking news and photos directly from the magazine’s reporting bureaus across the country. Moreover, there’s the “Top 5 Stories” feature for those not obsessed with the lives of celebrities, but just want to occasionally read what’s going on in the world of red carpets…

Final word. For some reason, PEOPLE doesn’t follow the example of other magazines and tries to sell its iPhone app, rather than subsidize it with ads. Their application costs $1.99 and is therefor more suited for hard-core celebrity tracking fans. AppStore link is here…

[Via: textually.org]

Handmark, the company which we know for its Pocket Express application/service, announced Express News, a free mobile news application for Android-based phones.

App’s key features include:

• Eight languages supported: English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Finnish and Swedish;
• More than 300 news feeds from trusted sources around the world, including AP, Canadian Press, and AFP;
• Fully customizable news feeds;
• Intuitive UI with “swift touchscreen navigation”;
• Up-to-the-minute headlines with full stories and corresponding photos;
• Ability to cache news stories for offline reading at any time;
• Share feature – users can text or email news stories to others.

Interested? Express News is available as a free application through the Android Market.

We knew it will be opened during this week and now we have the official press release! Nokia’s Ovi Store has opened its virtual doors to everyone understanding any of the following languages: English, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish! More than 50 Nokia (NYSE: NOK) devices are supported at launch, and users can buys apps and mobile content either using their credit cards or through operator billing option, which is available in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Singapore, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Additional countries, languages, devices and features will be added throughout the year — and (this one’s for our U.S.-based readers) AT&T (NYSE: T) is on board, planing to make Ovi Store available to its customers later in the year!

We’ve no numbers to report, but one of the earlier rumors suggested that Ovi Store will launch with about 20,000 items, most of which include mobile content. As soon as we hear something new, we’ll let you know. Stay tuned…

Carlos Santana doesn’t want to miss the boat, hence he (along with his marketing team) is launching an iPhone app, which is touted as a “comprehensive mobile gateway into the colorful and inspiring universe” of the famous guitarist.

As for the application features, users will find:

• Video lessons in which Carlos Santana demonstrates the guitar technique he used in the classic hits “Black Magic Woman” and “Oye Como Va”;
• Sampling of Santana’s most popular videos, plus live clips and behind-the-scenes tour footage;
• Santana discography.

It’s also interested to read what Carlos thinks about its iPhone application: “I was the guy who went from the smoke signals and the mirrors… straight into the iPhone, so I have no concept of computers. I was still with cassettes. And so it fascinates me just how much the human imagination has gone into making things accessible… I’m eager to ride that.”

Msnbc.com and Zumobi launched The Rachel Maddow Show application for the iPhone and iPod touch, offering consumers a “new way to enjoy Maddow’s smart look at politics, pop culture and current events.” The free application, features videos and photos — including popular segments “Rachel Re:” and “Ms. Information” — and also allows consumers to access and respond to Rachel’s Twitter updates.

Commenting on the announcement, Zumobi’s CEO Ken Willner said: “The Rachel Maddow Show application brings current events, political commentary and other topical stories to a very loyal audience in a highly engaging way. We are pleased to add Rachel Maddow to The Zumobi Network, giving her viewers a great new way to enjoy her unique and popular show on iPhone and iPod touch.”

Interested? AppStore link is here. As I mentioned, it’s a free app, so there’s no reason not to try it out, especially if you dig Rachel’s comments.

If you’ve been looking for a good image to use as a wallpaper on your iPhone or iPod Touch, look no further. Appledeco is a neat website where you’ll find nearly 5,000 free wallpapers spanning across 34 categories such as sports, cinama, tv, architecture, nature, animals, art, and babes.

Bare in mind that some of the wallpapers are not of highest quality, but I’m sure with the sheer number of images available, you’ll find something appealing…

Enough said. Here’s a link to the Appledeco’s website.

[Via: JustAnotherIphoneBlog]

We’ve already talked about the futuristic Nokia device found in the new Star Trek movie. To further bank on the publicity, the Finnish giant has launched a dedicated Star Trek mini site, where it promotes its current touch-enabled flagship device – Nokia (NYSE: NOK) 5800 Xpress Music.

The new site is visible both on desktop computers, as well as on mobile screens (there’s an optimized-for-mobile version), offering free Star Trek mobile content (screensavers, ringtones and wallpapers) for various Nokia devices…

Enough said, here’s Nokia’s Star Trek page. You should be able to find your way around it easily.

[Via: Unwired View]

Timestream (purveyors of the Notescast apps for the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) family of devices) have just released the Disneyland Park app!

Now guests of Disneyland Park can access a powerful new vacation planning and in-park guide on their iPhone or iPod touch.  At over 120 pages of information with rich in-depth content, they now can have all of Disneyland Park in the palm (NSDQ: PALM) of their hand wherever they go and whenever they want.

With over 120 pages of information with rich in-depth content, the new Disneyland Park Notescast is a comprehensive vacation planner and in-park guide covering nearly every aspect of the entire theme park.

The Disneyland Park Guide Notescast for the iPhone and iPod touch is available at the App Store, and is also available for the iPod Classic, iPod 5^th Generation and iPod nano at www.Notescasts.com.

A company called LiveCast has unveiled their latest offering called Lightning, which is “poised to revolutionize the television news industry.” Sure, we’ve heard such claims in the past, but LiveCast may actually do something about it — this is not to say we approve using the word “revolution” and its abbreviations in the press releases.

Their idea is to enable newsrooms to go live with real-time video from mobile devices without any delay in transmission from the field to the studio.

When breaking news hits, high-impact on-air interviews with field reporters can be conducted in real-time via mobile devices. As live video from mobile devices now reaches the performance standards of satellite trucks – both in delivery speed and high definition visual quality – the stage is finally set for live video from cell phones to hit prime-time. Many organizations, including NBC Universal, already rely upon LiveCast to transmit live video instantaneously from the field to the television studio as well as to websites, social media outlets and direct to decision makers.

So, basically they are not pitching their technology to the end users, but to media companies. In that sense, I’ve no doubts it will work better than let’s say Qik’s free solution. Qik is designed for the masses and we love it for that reason.