Apple announced Tuesday that more than three billion apps have been downloaded from its revolutionary App Store by iPhone and iPod touch users worldwide.

“Three billion applications downloaded in less than 18 months–this is like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The revolutionary App Store offers iPhone and iPod touch users an experience unlike anything else available on other mobile devices, and we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon.”

The news comes nine months after it hit 1 billion downloads, with the second billion taking a further six months.

When the 2 billion mark was reached, Apple also announced that 85 000 apps were available in the App Store at the time. This time, the company chose to stick to download numbers only.

However, in November 2009, Apple did say that 100 000 apps were published to the store.

There’s been some useful discussion recently about using the app store model for distributing enterprise software and services within organizations. Up until now, most IT needs in the majority of businesses have been met through one-size-fits-all delivery of solutions that are either hand-crafted or purchased and then imposed on all. It’s been this way for at least three decades, but now this aging and inadequate process is beginning to improve. (more…)

Social news aggregator Digg.com has released its free iPhone app in the App Store. Packed with a slick, feature-rich interface, the app is a strong start for the popular website, though there’s plenty of room for it to grow. (more…)

Whats next for Social TV? Below Mark Groves from NDS talks about whats next for social tv and how this will be intergrated into our exisiting platforms
NDS will be exhibiting at the Social TV and Social Media World Forum on the 15th & 16th March, London 2010. http://www.social-tv.net meet them at stand number 15.

Ooyala’s player has always supported sharing to popular social networks sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Ooyala now supports deep linking which allows a viewer to share only a particular video within a playlist or a specific scene within a video. These deep linking sharing options are available for its player embeds, its sharing links to social networking sites, as well as the newly released URL link, also available in the player. What’s great about this is that it does not require any custom development work. A publisher can easily enable the various sharing options in Backlot for all their viewers.

Ooyala is a leading video technology company, for details visit www.ooyala.com/blog

Speaker line-up announced at the London Social Media Events.  200 confirmed speakers across the conferences.  See our full line-up below.

Speakers @ Social TV & Mobile Social Media 15/16^th March  include – http://www.social-tv.net & http://www.mobilesocial-networking.com

• Robert Marsh, VP, Interactive & Telephony, Freemantle Media
• Peter Ward, Co-founder & CEO, WAYN
• Bob Rapp, Head, User Communities, Vodafone Group
• Rahul Chakkara, Controller of TV Platforms, BBC
• Angel Gambino, Vice President, Sonico
• Mark Watts-Jones, Head of Development & Innovation, Orange UK
• Yoel Flohr, Head of Mobile, Bebo
• Andrew Kearney, Vice President TV Products at UPC Broadband
• Richard Griffiths, Director TV and Entertainment, Eircom
• Nicolas Bry, Vice President, Orange Vallee
• Kevin Baughan, Head Technical Strategy, Virgin Media
• Ian Kegel, Head of Future Content Group, BT UK
• Triona Campbell, CEO, Campbell Ryan
• Pasa Mustafa, Head of Digital Studios, Endemol
• Damien Byrne, Head of Entertainment, T Mobile
• Miroslaw Smyk, General Manager TV Business Division at Romtelecom
• Matt Dicks, CMO, Flirtomatic
• John Cole, Managing Director UK, Adknowledge
• Claudio Venezia, Researcher, Telecom Italia
• Cian O’Sullivan, Editor in Chief, GoMo News
• Tim Hussain, Head of Mobile and Video Advertising
• Guillaume de Saint Marc, VP R&D New Initiatives, NDS
• Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Head of Product, Mobile – EU, Yahoo!
• Paul Berney, Managing Director Europe, Mobile Marketing Association
• Adrian Drury, Principle / Media, Broadcast & Telecoms, Ovum
• Paul Berney, Managing Director, Europe, MMA
• Deborah Porton, Head of Mobile Development, Badoo Ltd
• Franco Beschizza, Head of Mobile, Interactive Services, COI
• Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Head of Product, Mobile – EU, Yahoo!
• Martin Harris, SVP Corporate Sales, Bango
• Peter Ward, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, WAYN.com
• Stefanie Hoffmann, CEO Finance, Business Development, aka aki
• Simon Spanswick, Chief Executive, Association for International Broadcasting
• Dan Cryan, Head of Broadband, Screen Digest
• Paul Bristow, Vice-President of Strategy, ADB
• Dr William Cooper Founder and Chief Executive, informitv.com
• Justin Kan, founder and President, Justin.tv
• Aliza Beckett, Business Development, Web, Mobile & New Platforms, Channel 4
• Chi-chi Ekweozor, Director, RealFresh.tv
• Dick Rempt, CEO, Talents Media
• Richard Lindsay Davis, Director General, DTG
• Benjamin Schwarz, Owner, CTO Innovation Consulting
• Martin Jarrold, Chief, International Programme Development GVF (more…)

Version 2.0 of award-winning Mediaroom TV platform enables subscription TV providers to deliver more entertainment content to more types of screens, using a single cloud-based infrastructure.

LAS VEGAS — Jan. 6, 2010 — Today at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Microsoft Corp. is announcing Microsoft Mediaroom 2.0, the next version of the world’s most deployed Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) platform. Mediaroom 2.0 will enable television service operators to provide their TV services to more subscribers than ever before, delivering more content to more screens than the previous version of Mediaroom — both inside and outside the home. (more…)

Social TV is buzzing in the US, but what is it and what does it mean for the UK?   One of the more social uses of TV in the UK many years ago were basic multiplayer interactive TV games like those offered by PlayJam that allowed a few people to participate at the same time or on different devices like those offered by gameplay.  Sms to the TV screen and formats like Idol which have increased the level of audience participation and influence over the years continues to gain momentum.  News programmes using video captured on mobile phones enabled citizens to participate in journalism and has become an accepted practice.  Overlays of sms interaction like AQA’s Mr. Know it All on MTV became common amongst channels targeting younger audiences.

(more…)

Since the launch of BBC iPlayer in 2007 online catch-up services from UK broadcasters have attracted much attention. This segment is growing rapidly – in the UK online TV (including TV shows, sport, news and niche) generated £48.2m in 2008 according to Screen Digest, projected to grow to £92.4m in 2009. The broadcasters’ own websites accounted for 53% of UK free-to-view online TV consumption in 2008.

(more…)