Wow, that little App Store side project Apple has going on sure doesn’t seem to be settling down. After launching in July of ‘08 and hitting 100 million downloads in September, the App Store has just crossed the 500 million download mark; a mere six months after opening. Compare that to the iTunes Music Store, which took two whole years to cross the 500 million mark. Although to be fair, we have little idea of the paid to free ratio of app downloads. There are over 15,000 apps in the App Store currently, and many of them are free, but we have to hand it to Apple for the unprecedented success in the mobile download space!
Posts Tagged ‘Emerging Technologies’
October 2nd, 2008
For anyone who doesn’t get Twitter…
I’m watching the VP debates and checking in with Twitter to get reactions from my friends and the general Twitter public, and I got an error that said “Twitter is over capacity.” Granted, Twitter is notorious for technical issues. But we all have a voice, and lots of people are using it by micro-blogging about events taking place in real time through this tool. When have you ever been able to gauge reactions of the (relatively) early-adopting public as events are happening? It’s powerful. It’s addictive. And with comments like “I think Palin just winked at me and called me a maverick,” doggone it, it’s just a heck-of-a-lot of fun.
September 24th, 2008
My digital ad can beat up your digital ad
Has anyone seen this new online ad promoting the Wario game for Nintendo Wii?
I think they have this whole page hosted on YouTube, and it’s meant to look like a YouTube video page. Then they mess with it royally. Pretty sweet, huh?
September 23rd, 2008
It’s on: Android is here
I’ve been using Android as an excuse to hold off on an iPhone; it’s the only semi-cool reason I can come up with that has a remote chance of momentarily staving off ridicule from early adopting friends. And now Google’s Android operating system is here, launching on a phone sold by yet another carrier that’s not mine.
Sometimes a girl just can’t get a break.
However, there’s hope; Android is an open-source system and T-Mobile’s G1 is just the first phone to employ it. There are no plans for a “Googlephone,” which some critics think is a missed opportunity. I think Google has enough to do for now without engaging in handset wars. With Android, they’ve created a mobile web experience that at least rivals that of the iPhone and directly benefits them by expanding access to their platform of tools. There are rumors that the software could be eventually be used in cars, in homes…. What I want to know is, will Google be able to match my leftover socks?
September 19th, 2008
Futures are so now
Like Marty McFly, 1.21 gigawatts, and a Delorean, I just can’t help but go back to the future.
Futures trading is everywhere these days. And not just on Wall Street. I’m talking about the prediction of future events by smart crowds of people in web-based futures markets. It’s the kind of thing that James Surowiecki wrote about so brilliantly a couple years back in The Wisdom of Crowds. Take a large, decentralized group of people, with diverse perspectives, knowledge and opinions, and let them solve a problem with a definitive verdict and you’ve got a smart crowd. Futures markets are some of the best examples of smart crowds you’ll find, and the predictions they are making in news and politics can be startlingly accurate.
If you’re like me (and, for your sake, let’s hope that you are not), then you just can’t get enough of political news. When I was nine years old, living in New England, I sneaked out of bed and hid behind the couch so I could watch the election returns on TV coming in from the West Coast. Even though Reagan had already been declared the winner, I wanted to see the final electoral tallies for myself. I know, it’s a little weird. But, I digress.
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