How lucrative are iPhone ads? MobilityWare made $300K in June

There has been some debate about whether developers can make serious cash from the advertising in their iPhone applications. In fact, Steve Jobs suggested that Apple created its iAd program as a way to address the lack of lucrative, high-quality ad programs.

However, iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad developer MobilityWare said it’s doing just fine with startup Greystripe‘s mobile ad network. Specifically, the company said that in June, it made $298,308 across its 17 applications, … Continue Reading

Outspark confirms it is in deal talks, but can't confirm Shanda rumor

Outspark, a massively multiplayer online game publisher that brings Asian games to the U.S., confirmed it is in talks about being acquired. But the company had no comment that Shanda Games is about to purchase it.

Susan Choe, chief executive of San Francisco-based Outspark, confirmed in a phone call that the company has been pursued by suitors in recent months. She said that “the talks are progressing.”

VentureBeat has separately heard that Shanda could be … Continue Reading

YouTube-powered Vevo sees mobile app hit 1 million downloads

The mobile-app version of Vevo, a music and entertainment streaming site powered by Google’s YouTube, hit 1 million downloads on Thursday— little more than a week after it launched.

Vevo said that there are apps on the way for the iPad and Android mobile platforms, but hasn’t given a definitive release date.

The app is currently the fifth top free app on Apple’s iTunes App store, where it was named app of the week. It … Continue Reading

IBM: Biggest threat to the cloud could be security issues

The number of exploitable options in computer programs grew by 36 percent in 2010, largely a result of the increased prevalence of Web apps and looming cloud-computing security threats, according to IBM’s X-force security report released Thursday.

IBM researchers said the recent growth of cloud computing and remote desktop access will likely become a sore point for security issues, as hackers cracking into a master rig that controls several virtual desktops could theoretically access all … Continue Reading

Geek chic: fashion and tech aren't strangers anymore (photo gallery)

For technology to spread beyond geeks, it has to have the same kind of appeal as high fashion. The enthusiasts can appreciate it, but so can the mass market.

That’s the thinking behind Digital Summer, the second annual party thrown by the Ubergizmo tech blog in the name of technology, art and fashion. You could argue that Apple’s Steve Jobs — who likes to say that Apple is a marriage of technology and the liberal … Continue Reading

Yelp's Groupon-like Deals go live in San Diego

We’ve been hearing for weeks now that business-review site Yelp was working on leveraging its relationships with local businesses to offer deals to its customers, and take on sites like Groupon in the process. Today the company gave us a sneak peek at what its offering — dubbed Yelp Deals — would look like via a nifty Yoga deal for San Diego customers.

At first glance, its deal page doesn’t appear all that different from … Continue Reading

Gmail users place 1M calls in 24 hours

It looks like Gmail users are already taking advantage of the cheap calling that Google launched yesterday. The company announced via Twitter that there were 1 million calls placed from Gmail in 24 hours.

The feature is particularly attractive if you’re contacting someone in the US or Canada, because those calls are completely free. Google says it’s subsidizing those calls through its international rates, but those are pretty low too — you can call many … Continue Reading

Google launches a page for improved real-time search

Google announced today that it has created a separate page for its real-time search feature, where users can view the most up-to-date search results from services like Facebook and (mostly) Twitter.

The company first added real-time results to its search engine in December, but without a page of their own, the results were a bit hidden. (Even so, they still appeared to boost Twitter’s traffic.)

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan wrote a post in June … Continue Reading

H.264 video codec will be free for HTML5 video streaming, says licensing firm

In a major play in the battle for HTML5 video, MPEG LA — the firm that manages patents for audio and video codecs like MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 — announced today that it will offer a royalty-free license for its H.264 codec on sites that offer free video to consumers.

Previously, the group announced that sites like YouTube could use H.264 royalty-free until 2016. Now, those sites can use the codec to drive their HTML5 streaming … Continue Reading

Wikinvest brings your stock portfolio to your iPhone

Wikinvest, a startup trying to take on sites like Yahoo Finance, is releasing a new iPhone app today. Back in June, it launched a feature on its website for importing and tracking your stock portfolio in real-time. Now it’s allowing users to do the same on their phone.

At the time, cofounder Michael Sha compared Wikinvest’s new feature to Mint.com, the popular site for aggregating all your bank accounts, credit cards, and more. Wikinvest provides … Continue Reading

Cisco buys ExtendMedia for multi-screen video mayhem

Cisco Systems will expand its professional video services with the acquisition of video content-management provider ExtendMedia on Thursday. The move readies the Internet-infastructure giant for the day when online video streams come to a number of screens — and providers of those streams gird for battle, hopefully with Cisco equipment and services.

The Newton, Mass.-based company’s flagship OpenCase suite is designed to help manage, publish, and monetize video across multiple platforms including computers, mobile devices … Continue Reading

Realtimes Worlds' former employees lash out at management of failed game studio

Realtime Worlds, creator of the online game All Points Bulletin, filed for bankruptcy protection last week.

After the virtual dissolution of the company last week, a number of developers find themselves without a job and noticeably angry. A number of ex-team members have made their thoughts of the fall of the publisher public knowledge via personal blogs or anonymous posts at gaming news sites.

Luke Halliwell, who worked for Realtime for six years, had some … Continue Reading

Netflix's Watch Instantly app lands on the iPhone and iPod Touch

With little fanfare, Netflix this morning updated its app on the iTunes Store — which previously only supported the iPad — to work on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The app has been a long time coming. Netflix launched its iPad app earlier this year, and it quickly became one of the biggest selling points of Apple’s fledgling tablet. The company’s CEO Reed Hastings said in June that it expected to release the app this … Continue Reading

Can Sprout Social survive in crowded social monitoring market?

Sprout Social, a social media management and monitoring tool for businesses, today announced its official unveiling and public availability to all businesses. The company announced in May that it won backing from Groupon founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, through their recently launched investment fund Lightbank.

Sprout Social gives customers a single Web-based dashboard to manage and grow all their social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, LinkedIn, and Foursquare. The tool monitors the web for social brand mentions … Continue Reading

3Par accepts Dell's increased $1.6B offer for its data storage business

The battle between Dell and HP for the hand of data storage company 3Par is finally over. Dell announced this morning that 3Par has accepted its $1.6 billion bid — an increase over its $1.15 billion offer from last week.

HP this week had also offered $1.6 billion for the company (at $24 a share), but given that 3Par had previously rejected an earlier offer from the company, it didn’t seem as if it was … Continue Reading

Google's social inner circle expands with new recruit Max Levchin

In a rare move for an outsider, Google has named Max Levchin, former CEO of Slide and cofounder of PayPal, a vice president of engineering, Inside Facebook reports.

At Google, where titles are doled out carefully, the announcement is a powerful signal of his influence. It comes after the company closed its acquisition of Slide, valued at around $182 million, two weeks ago. Levchin, who invested $7 million of his own money in Slide in … Continue Reading

Roundup: Mobile dating heating up, Droid X battery wins endurance test, and more

Here’s the latest action:

Mobile dating heating up — A new report from Ground Truth shows that traffic to mobile dating sites has spiked 92 percent this summer so far. Check it out here.

Craigslist in trouble again — The popular marketplace site has been targeted by attorneys general from 17 states who have written a letter to the CEO asking for Craigslist to immediately remove its questionable Adult Services category.

Moonfruit lands funds — … Continue Reading

Libox's iPhone app is the cure to your media streaming and sharing woes

Back in June, we covered the Tel Aviv, Israel-based startup Libox, which aims to let you play your media on any device, and easily share media with friends. Now Libox has released a free iPhone app, and after playing around with it for a few hours, it’s clear that the company has created something that practically every iPhone owner would find invaluable.

The company already has a very capable mobile web version of its service … Continue Reading

IBM wants to help business partners get social

Updated

Even big, traditional tech-companies like IBM are interested in social media nowadays. The company just announced that it’s launching a new initiative to help train its business partners about how to use tools like Facebook, Twitter, and wikis.

The move is supposedly a response to a recent survey of the company’s business partners — namely the resellers, distributors, integrated systems vendors (ISVs), and system integrators of IBM products. Of the 1,000 respondents, 45 percent … Continue Reading