So who hasn’t come up with their own secret iphone app idea…one that will revolutionize society for ever and make you a squillionaire!!…if only you had that spare $50K around to put it together you could just drop it in the app store and all your Christmas’s come together!

Well I am not Santa Clause but I have found something that might put some extra money in your pocket if you are willing to spill the beans on your creative genius!

MEDL Mobile’s web-based App Incubator (appincubator.com), has announced the launch of an App Incubator iPhone fund where anyone with a concept for a mobile application can submit the idea directly to MEDL Mobile — anytime, anywhere.

They have committed $2.5 million to the development of these applications across multiple mobile devices, such as the iPhone, Blackberry and Android.

Each submission to the App Incubator is rated according to five criteria — Originality, Functionality, Simplicity, Revenue Potential and Fun. Apps that pass MEDL’s scoring criteria go into development. All development and marketing costs are funded by MEDL Mobile and 25% of any profits go back to the originator of the idea.

With some applications earning thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars a day, the App Incubator will allow people with great ideas for mobile applications to profit from their creativity.

I have to say, what a fantastic marketing idea from MEDL Mobile. They no doubt had a budget set aside to build iphone apps anyway and by using the collective skills of the masses they can cherry pick the best apps (saving themselves hours…even if they could come up with these apps) and only have to pay the ‘creator’ a success fee…brilliant idea!

So tonight when you head home…turn off the TV…put on your thinking caps and see if you can come up with something a bit more creative than the ‘Fart machine’ app!!

Click here to read more about how you can get involved

Great news to see the Grandad of mobile browsing is still continuing to grow some 9 years after it first launched. Its not always so easy to compare the Japanese mobile market with any other, however this one statistic does I believe, have credible value as it shows a mature market still growing which can only bode well for the US market which is catching up fast!

Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications released the latest Internet population data in Japan. According to the report, there were more than 90.9 million Internet users in Japan as of January 2009, which is 2.8 million more than the date from January 2008.

The data also shows there were 82.55 million Internet users from PC, compared to 75.06 million Internet users from mobile.

The most positive of all this data is that massive 90% of people in the age group of 13-49 are Mobile Internet users. That figures is about 20 - 25% in the US so lots of growth potential still to happen.

Not sure exactly when the iPhone OS 3.0 will arrive but in true Apple style they will pre-release information with an announcement on March 17th so sure there will be a lot of buzz happening on the day in a way that will have everyone salivating…but what will these new features be.

Here is a few simple things on my wish list:

1. A video recorder

2. Ability to forward text messages

3. Ability to send MMS messages

4. A bit more techie here but I want Apple to give an app developer the users mobile number when they download. I know everyone will be saying NOOOO..we don’t want SPAM but its much harder to send SPAM on mobile and not get caught and also more expensive for the sender so I don’t think this will
be a big problem.

5. Again techie but the ability for an iphone developer to generate and send a text message from within an app.

These are all pretty basic features but that’s why they work and I miss them so much from other phones…anyone else have a feature they want included?

This is the top 10 mobile trends according to the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF).
I am certainly in agreement on points 5 & 7…its where I am putting a lot of my time into at the moment as Media & Entertainment are just perfect for mobile.

Point 8 on mobile Video…yes I think it will gather momentum but the network speeds and the amount of handset with a great video user experience may stifle this growth for 1 more year…and also what is the business model…is online video making money for businesses…not from what I am hearing??…but is online video a great lead generator or info product…absolutely and I believe it needs to be used more so on mobile…I don’t think users like to spend any more than 2 mins watching video on mobile so keep it short, clear and to the point.

…and point 10…viva la iphone…driving mobile user interfaces across the world!!

Top 10 Mobile Entertainment trends for 2009

1. The ‘iPhone effect’ –Mobile applications have emerged as a new content category and the mobile internet will finally come of age

2. Greater value and transparency for consumers will help sustain demand in 2009

3. Some delay in the proliferation of mobile advertising

4. Telcos begin to acts as enablers for the Entertainment industry with services such as billing, authentication and zero tariff data driving take-up

5. The emerging dominance of services that operate at a multi-platform level

6. The rise of ring back tones

7. Social networking becomes an important driver of mobile entertainme! nt consumption

8. 2009 will be the year that mobile video really takes off

9. Emerging Economies will become an increasingly important driver for mobile entertainment worldwide

10. A proliferation of touch screen devices continues to drives discoverability and content usage

Lots of different commentary on 2009 being the year for Mobile and the latest comes from the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF)…they believe (as do I) that the mobile internet will come of age this year, mobile video will take off, and the industry will see greater pricing transparency for consumers.

They aren’t so positive on mobile advertising hitting the big times although sure Admob and Millenial have stats which show some pretty large growth stats and revenue!!…so now is the year to get into mobile advertising before it takes off main stream!

Mobile Revenue from Search to Ads
Advertising will see an annual compounded growth rate of over 80% over the next five years. During the same period, mobile local search advertising revenues will increase from $20 million to $1.3 billion, or more than 130%. As mobile data consumption rises, we expect local marketing to be a big winner. There is a strong correlation between local search and the mobile use case, which will cause a good portion of the ongoing mobile application boom to focus on local.

Key Findings:

- The percentage of mobile searches that have local intent! will increase from 28% in 2008 to 35% in 2013.

- Currently there are 54.5 million mobile internet users in the U.S., representing 25% of online users.

- Approximately 15% of iPhone applications are local.

Mobile Statistics
16.5% of mobile users spent over $100 in app stores
500 mln mobile TV viewers by 2013
8.5% of Americans to use push-to-talk by 2013
4 bln mobile connections worldwide in 2008
68% of Taiwanese have used cell phone on a toilet
Global mobile phone market to shrink 9% in 2009
725 mln WCDMA handsets to ship in 2009
4.5 bln mobile users by 2013
17.5% of US households are purely wireless
89% of US workers have a cell phone, 19% have a Blackberry
59% of cell phone or Blackberry owners use text messaging
66% of Americans aged 30-49 use text messaging
76% of Internet users watched video on their PCs
44.7% of US mobile users ! looking for a phone with better In ternet
78% of Americans own cell phones
65% of unemployed Americans have cell phones
17% of US wireless subscribers are prepaid customers
23% of all mobile users to use mobile social networks by 2012
Mobile marketing budget percentages to grow 150% by 2013
30% of iPhone 3G buyers switched to AT&T from other carriers

Ok so I am an iphone user and lover…and I did use the Blackberry when it 1st came out and I worked at Vodafone…but actually didn’t like the QWERTY keyboard as I was so used to sending text on traditional keyboard.

However I am really pleased to see the Storm has had such a good 1st months sales…sure it was only 1/5th of the iphone 3G 1st month sales but version 1 iphones were off the shelves and the hype and expectation were off the charts.

Will I swap?…no of course not but brings a more and more people into the mobile browsing environment and further ignites users to use their mobile for more than just calls and texts

Have a read at blackberry-storm-first-month

Well its great to see the creativity some carriers still have in creating their TV ads and its not just about the great coverage they have (when they really don’t) or how their plans and phones are different to the other carriers (which they really aren’t)

Picture this…you are walking through a train station and the loud speaker music starts playing and the person next to you starts dancing…and then another…and another until pretty much everyone in the station is dancing in synch around you…would be crazy right!!

Watch the video below!!

Got this info from Ken Rutkowsk (Twitter id is @kenradio)

India has reportedly added a record of 10.81 million wireless subscribers in the month of December, raising its subscriber base to 346.9 million at 2008-end. The Indian mobile subscriber base grew by 48.5% in 2008. The ever-growing rate of subscriber base in India is driven by cheap call rates, low-end handsets and network expansion spree.

More users on mobile now than on PC…hope your working on your mobile content and community strategy right now