App store analytics provider Distimo yesterday published its latest report, once again zooming in on the pricing of mobile applications across a variety of platforms.

Consistent with its previous findings, Google’s Android Market has by far the largest share of free applications available compared to other mobile app store, but the gap is also widening.

In July 2010, 60% of all applications on Android Market were free of charge, representing an increase of 3% since May 2010 when it was 57%.

As you can tell from the graph below, that share is more than double the share of free apps on other mobile app stores, with the exception of Palm’s App Catalog (albeit barely).

The share of free applications is smallest on Windows Marketplace for Mobile (22%), followed by the Apple App Store for iPad (26%) and RIM’s BlackBerry App World (26%).

(click image for full size)

Let’s take a closer look at the prices of paid apps across mobile application stores.

Distimo posits that the average price of the 100 most popular apps in Android Market and Palm’s App Catalog is higher than the average price of the entire catalogue of applications.

While the average price of all applications is only 16% higher in the Apple App Store for iPad than in the App Store for iPhone, the average price of the 100 most popular applications is nearly three times as high in the former.

More than 60% of applications are priced below or equal to $2 in the App Store for iPhone, Android Market, Nokia’s Ovi Store and Palm’s App Catalog. The proportion of applications priced
below or equal to $2 is much lower in the App Store for iPad and Windows Marketplace for Mobile.

Notably, it seems prices of apps for iOS devices are on the rise. The proportion of paid applications priced below $1 on the Apple App Store for iPad and Apple App Store for iPhone has decreased in both in July 2010, from 30% to 25% and from 49% to 45%, respectively.

(click image for full size)

(click image for full size)

A página mais editada da Wikipédia de língua portuguesa, ontem, dia 01, foi Timo Hildebrand, com 47 edições. Ao longo do dia foram produzidas, só nesta Wikipedia, 7345 edições. Confira abaixo o top 10 das páginas que mais atenção obtiveram dos editores no dia de ontem.

página	edições
Timo Hildebrand	47
Total Drama World Tour	23
João Pedro Mésseder	23
Alexandre Pato	21
Implantação da República Portuguesa	20
The Middle (série)	19
Lima Campos	17
Interpol (banda)	16
Givanildo Oliveira	16
Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama	15

Welcome to this morning’s edition of “First To Know,” a series in which we keep you in the know on what’s happening in the digital world. We’re keeping our eyes on three particular stories of interest today.

iTunes 10 and Ping Are Now Live

Apple’s latest version of iTunes and it’s new music-centric social network, Ping, went live late Wednesday evening, some eight hours after the product was announced at the company’s press conference in San Francisco. Mashable’s Christina Warren contends that Ping has a long way to go if it’s going to become a better alternative to MySpace.

Samsung Unveils Galaxy Tab

Samsung has revealed its long-awaited tablet, the Galaxy Tab, at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin.

The tablet sports a 7-inch TFT-LCD display with 1024×600-pixel resolution, Android 2.2 support, a Cortex A8 1 GHz processor, 512 of RAM and 16/32 GB of internal memory with upgrade options. It also comes with a 3-megapixel camera with autofocus and LED Flash, plus a second 1.3-megapixel camera for video chats, as well as Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. The battery, Samsung claims, can last up to seven hours of movie playback.

Samsung, it appears, has created a real competitor for Apple’s iPad, which lacks the Galaxy Tab’s cameras and support for popular multimedia formats such as Flash.

Samsung has partnered with Vodafone for the launch, which is scheduled for October in Vodaphone’s European markets, and later this year in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Twitter Releases Official iPad App

Twitter has released its official iPad app, available now in Apple’s App Store [iTunes link] for free. The app allows for seamless navigation between tweets, photos, web pages, videos and other content, enabling users to load videos while they’re browsing their timelines, for instance, as well as view them in-line with other content and expand them to full-screen size.

Further News

• Starbucks is rolling out its Starbucks Card Mobile App for BlackBerry today, enabling users to manage their payment and rewards cards, and even pay for their purchases at 16 stores in Seattle and the Silicon Valley region, as well as 1,000 Target stores nationwide.
• Google will remain AOL’s exclusive search partner through 2015, both companies announced this morning. The deal has been expanded to include mobile search and to bring AOL’s content to YouTube [via PaidContent].
• Competitors Boxee, Rdio and Roku have all issued responses to Apple’s latest TV and music offerings.
• Microsoft announced Wednesday that it has completed the development of its forthcoming Windows Phone 7. The mobile OS has reached the release to manufacturing (RTM) stage.

Disclosure: Samsung, BlackBerry and Microsoft are Mashable sponsors.

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Series supported by HTC EVO 4G

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This series is brought to you by HTC EVO 4G, America’s first 4G phone. Only from Sprint. The “First to Know” series keeps you in the know on what’s happening now in the world of social media and technology.

More About: apple, first to know series, galaxy tab, ipad, ipad app, itunes 10, Ping, samsung, Tablet, twitter

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Sikorsky aims to break the helicopter speed record

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong hinted that this was coming, but this morning Google and AOL announced a five-year renewal of the search deal between the two companies. Google will continue to power search across AOL’s content network and properties. The partnership will be expanded to include mobile search and YouTube.

Armstrong said in a statement “Today is another important step in the turnaround of AOL…AOL users will be getting a better search and search ads experience from the best search company in the world – Google. After nearly a decade-long partnership in search, we’re looking forward to expanding our global relationship to mobile search and YouTube. All aspects of our partnership will be improved by this deal.”

As part of the agreement Google will power search across AOL’s networks, will provide AOL with ad formats, and will power mobile search. And AOL and YouTube have agreed to bring AOL’s video content to YouTube.

It’s a big win for Google, since Microsoft’s Bing was clearly after the deal as well. But Armstrong said in February that “distribution is almost as important to us as money, we will look for distribution as much as money in the deal.” Google sends massive traffic to AOL sites, which could have made it a more attractive partner than Bing. Of course, Bing isn’t lacking in its own deals-the search engine now counts Yahoo as a partner.

Thanks to a partnership with Vlingo, owners of Android 2.0 or higher-equipped phones can now check in to Foursquare and update their status on Facebook and Twitter simply by speaking into their phones.

To try it out, download the free Vlingo app to your Android handset.

Using your voice, you can then update your location status on Foursquare by saying “check into Logan Airport”, locate your friends with commands like “where are my friends?” and “who’s nearby?” as well as send shout-outs to your buddies (e.g. “shout at Logan Airport waiting to board a plane to San Francisco”).

That’s not all though. The latest version of the Vlingo app also lets users share the service with their friends with the click of a button and also update their status on Facebook, Twitter and/or Foursquare at the same time by saying “social update” and speaking the message.

Previous Vlingo features remain, too: you can still use the app to send text and email messages, search the web, use Google maps and more.

As for BlackBerry, iPhone and Nokia S60 users – they’ll have to be patient for a while before they can start updating their status and locations with their voice.

Vlingo says it plans to roll out this functionality to other supported platforms in a future release but didn’t mention specific dates.

Do you consider voice-driven applications to be an ideal way to interact with mobile apps on your phone? Why (not)?

A new study by email software purveyor Xobni confirms what we bloggers know to be true, there’s actually no such thing as a day off in the Internet age (Want more visceral proof than an email study? Check out the timestamp of this post).

Information anxiety has pretty much put the kibosh on “time off” as two out of three Americans and Brits check their email outside of regular business hours (ha) and half of Americans email while on vacation (double ha).

The Xobni study, an online survey of 2,200 British and American adults conducted in August, holds that the traditional 9-5 work day has gone the way of the Dodo, due to the fact that Americans and Brits can’t stop checking their email. Apparently we sneak a peak at our inboxes while on vacation, weekends, sick days and even when we are (gasp!) in bed.

The press release blames this behavior on the down economy and the iPhone, but I blame it on the fact that we now live most of our lives online, and we feel compelled to check our email/Facebook/Twitter because that’s where most of the exciting stuff is happening anyways.

More highlights from the study/the life we have chosen:

* The 9-5 work day has gone the way of the Dodo. 72% of Americans and 68% of Brits say they regularly check their email on vacations, sick days, and at home in bed.

* Yes, IN BED. Conveniently for Xobni, work email in bed is apparently, you know, like a thing, with 1 in 5 Americans checking email as the first thing they do in the morning or the last thing they do at night before falling asleep (Again I can personally vouch for this).

According to Xobni, email has become an addiction, and like most addictions it is fueled by peer pressure:

* 27% check email outside of regular working hours because they feel it is expected.

* 26% of Americans feel they can’t handle/overwhelmed by the number of emails they receive during vacation.

Everyone in the world agrees that managing email has become a challenge to our sanity. And various companies are scrambling towards solutions including Google with its recent Gmail Priority Inbox launch and Xobni, obviously. My favorite low-fi way to deal with the bottleneck is a service called Sentenc.es which makes it clear to your email reader that you are limited to short responses.

Even though I’m not sure how well that will work, in bed.

Video, vaguely related.

Email overload image above: Ario_

A marca espanhola de vestuário e acessórios inaugura esta quinta-feira a sua loja online num conjunto de cinco países, entre os quais Portugal.

A Ryanair e a MaxRoam, empresa low cost de cartões SIM para roaming, firmaram uma parceria que visa reduzir até 70% os custos de comunicações móveis dos clientes da companhia aérea.

Refere a Ryanair que “os passageiros podem reduzir significativamente os custos de chamadas e mensagens recebidas ao adquirirem o cartão SIM da Maxroam que apresenta uma taxa fixa em 43 países da Europa com preços baixos de apenas 9 cêntimos por minuto para receber chamadas, 39 cêntimos para fazer chamadas, recepção de mensagens gratuita e 12 cêntimos por envio de mensagens”.

O pacote de roaming pode ser adquirido no site da Ryanair. Inclui: um telefone, um cartão SIM e 10€ de crédito em chamadas por apenas 29€. Mais pormenores aqui.

Ever since it became stable enough to use on a day-to-day basis on a Mac last year, Google Chrome has been my browser of choice. Other browsers have been adding some nice features — but Chrome keeps adding them faster. And today on its second birthday, that rate of change isn’t slowing down.

Google has officially rolled out Chrome 6 as the latest stable version of the browser today. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone using the dev or beta builds of the browser, but it’s nonetheless an important mark as it means it’s stable enough for mass consumption.

Remember that it was just two years ago when Google surprised the world by announcing a new browser (a little early) via a comic. The next day, we got the first shots of what the browser would look like — and it was released as a beta for Windows users. It actually looks pretty much the same today, but it’s now much, much faster (and when it launched it was already faster than most browsers out there).

Google says that Chrome today is a full three times faster when it comes to JavaScript performance versus Chrome circa 2008. The rapid speed increases have also undoubtedly pushed rival browsers to become faster, so we’ve all benefited.

Arguably more important to me is that despite adding all the new features – and extensions — Chrome still seems lightweight today. I fondly remember the good old days of 2004 when I first started using Firefox as my main browser and thinking how fresh and lightweight it felt compared to the atrocity that was IE. Firefox, sadly, got bloated over the years. So far, Chrome hasn’t put on the same weight. Here’s hoping it never does.

As I said, Chrome is also showing no signs of slowing down from a development standpoint. The browser is already in the process of morphing into version 7 as well. Chromium, the open source browser that Chrome is based on, has been hit version 7 a couple weeks ago — and the dev build of Chrome just went 7 as well. Google has said they hope to iterate every six weeks going forward.

These next few months are going to be arguably the most interesting times for the browser yet. The Chrome Web Store will soon open, bringing tightly integrated web-based apps into the browser. And then, of course, Chrome OS is due before the end of the year.

Happy birthday Chrome.

Chrome then:

Chrome now:

Twitter announces they are soon to release t.co --twitter's own URL shortening service built-in to the twitter's own web interface.

It's really not that hard to win friends and influence people.

A low cost Norwegian completou ontem, 1 de Setembro, oito anos de actividade com polpa… e promoções. Mais de 80 destinos escandinavos estão disponíveis desde 22 libras.

Nos próximos cinco anos, a frota da low cost irá crescer substancialmente. Os actuais 28 Boeing 737-300 vão ser revezados até 2012. Dois anos depois, a Norwegian terá ao serviço 73 Boeing 737-800. Cada um com mais 38 lugares para passageiros. A companhia espera crescer para mercados com a Rússia, Europa e Turquia.

A Norwegian tem ainda planos para criar uma subsidiária longo curso sendo os primeiros destinos a operar Bangkok e New York. Para tal, a low cost pondera comprar aviões Boeing 787 ou Airbus A350 e aguardar por tempos menos revoltos no que concerne ao preço do petróleo.



Cisco this morning announced its intent to acquire privately-held Arch Rock, which specializes in IP-based wireless sensor network technology with a focus on energy and environmental monitoring and Smart Grid applications. Financial terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.

When he was introducing Ping, Steve Jobs mentioned that it will immediately reach a user base of 160 million people in 23 countries. Sounds impressive, until you remember that 23 countries actually isn’t that big of a number; and if you’re in a country such as Chile, the Czech Republic, Croatia, or India, then Ping – just like the music store component of iTunes – is simply not available.

The users in most countries around the world are used to products and features not being available to them – receiving money through PayPal or buying music through iTunes doesn’t work for me, for example – but Ping is different. It’s supposed to be a social network; its competitors, Last.FM and MySpace, are available in most countries in the world. Users expect it to just work, but in my version of iTunes, Ping simply doesn’t exist.

Here’s a thread from Apple’s support forums, in which users from all around the world complain that they can’t find Ping. After Apple’s big announcement, most of them don’t even consider the possibility that this great new social network is not available in their country: they think they’re doing something wrong. But Apple hasn’t said a word about availability in other countries, so it might be a long wait for all these users.

From Apple’s point of view, it’s understandable it chose to tie Ping closely to the music store. One feature Steve Jobs had highlighted is buying a song directly from a status update; something you obviously cannot do if you don’t have access to the store. But the social networking part of Ping will suffer for it.

For an example of how being available only in a small number of countries can hurt Ping, consider one of its most important features: concert listings. This is where Last.FM shines; go to any place in the world, and you’ll be able to see which concerts are available, when, at what clubs and who’s attending. But if residents of a certain country cannot access Ping, then the concert listings for that particular country will be a sad and empty sight.

Facebook, which hasn’t really focused on music so far, is also available in most countries in the world; it’s the de facto standard for social networking, and it has half a billion active users. Yes, Ping is directly tied to music, but users aren’t used to network from iTunes. Should Facebook introduce some features similar to those Ping has, it would automatically have a huge advantage simply because it would work for all users, not just the select few. If Apple has any serious aspirations to grow Ping into a global social networking powerhouse, it should strongly consider making it available everywhere.

We’ve contacted Apple to find out when (and if) Ping might become available in countries other than the initial 23, and are still awaiting their response.

More About: apple, itunes, Ping

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• Subscribe to the Apple channel
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Na resposta à crise, temos sido inundados com anúncios de redobrado rigor na gestão das prestações sociais, que a par com os cortes dos montantes, vai permitir ao Estado poupar umas centenas de milhões de Euros.  Esta é mesmo a bandeira do rigor orçamental no ano de 2010. O risco de fraude dos pobres e o perigo de descontrolo na gestão das despesas com protecção social (e com saúde, e com

The iTunes-for-apps, Allmyapps, has just announced its first round of funding with French VC fund, Elaia Partners - the same firm that has backed French all-stars like Goom Radio, Goojet and Criteo. With 1 million in the bank, the Paris-based company founded in June 2009 plans to focus on product development and emerge as the leading Microsoft-dedicated app store. Just so happens that Allmyapps, founded by Thibauld Favre and Arnaud Coulondre, is also the company that won the startup pitch competition at TechCrunch Paris in March.

Of all topics, this is one of the perennials. People want more traffic, more attention, more awareness to their blog. It’s fair. We work hard on our blogs. We want more attention and traffic. If your business depends on volume, this is especially important (for instance, if you’re using ads). Getting traffic is a tricky business, and it requires a lot of experimentation. I’ll tell you what’s worked for me, so far, and I’ll tell you what you might try. Maybe others will educate us both in the comments on their best methods.

Great Titles Help

The first few seconds of someone’s attention are the hardest to pass. If you have a lame blog post title, no one’s going to want to read the post. For whatever reason, we react to “how to,” we react to “7 great,” we react to all kinds of things. Not sure where to look? I stole this advice from Brian Clark years ago: go to the grocery store, buy some ladies’ magazines like Cosmopolitan, and learn how THEY write headlines on the front page.

Graphics Don’t Hurt

This entire series (and most of my blog posts) use graphics to catch your eye. It’s an easy way to get one’s attention. Screen captures help. Video helps. There are tons of ways to get people into a receptive space with your material, and graphics are just the easiest one.

Now that we’ve got a decent title, decent graphics, let’s be quick about your content.

Brevity Is the Game

Keep your posts brief (unless you want tons and tons of bookmarks). People don’t have all day to read. If you can keep your posts between 250-500 words, that’s in alignment with most people’s attention spans. Hey, you’re welcome to write whatever length you want. You asked me how to grow traffic to your blog. I can only give you results that I’ve tested. When I write a super long piece, I get much less involvement with it.

Share Your Blog

I’ve written about making shareability a priority. If you don’t have easy-to-share buttons on your blog, you’re missing the easiest way for people to see your stuff on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Twitter, and all the other sites where it would matter. Sharing out is a great way to make some more traffic happen. I also automatically push my posts into Facebook with their notes feature. I have an automated post into twitter via @broganmedia, but don’t do this same effect on my primary @chrisbrogan account.

Subscriptions or No?

In my case, subscriptions to my blog matter. I want people to subscribe, because I don’t necessarily survive on ad revenue. If you’re trying to monetize via ad revenue, and if your ads are in the header and the sidebar, a subscription really won’t help you get more traffic. If for whatever reason you want people to come to your website directly instead of via your RSS feed, you might want to obfuscate where you put your subscription information.

If you’re like me, you ask for the subscription all the time. In fact, I’ll ask now. You’re not yet subscribed? Enter your email (I respect your privacy):

Guest Posts

Over in the Third Tribe, we talk about guest posts quite often as a great traffic-builder to your blog. Find someone who has a very similar kind of blog topic to yours (not sure where to start? Check out Alltop), and offer a guest blog post. Oh, and then actually follow through. I have heard recently from my friends who accept guest posts that often, people ask for something, get approval, and then don’t take an action. That doesn’t sound like a good plan. Just FYI.

Consistency

This is one of those points where people disagree. I blog daily. Truth be told, I’m up to 2x a day most days. Why? Because the more I blog, the more people subscribe. I learned it from some of the larger blogger sites out there.

Lots of people justify once a week, or once every two weeks. That’s fine. But if you want to grow traffic to your blog, that’s a very long slow crawl towards that growth. That said, no matter which frequency you’ve chosen, stick to it. The moment you drop off the map, people who haven’t yet subscribed to you lose sight and move on.

Market Your Blog

You can always market your blog the good old fashioned way. I’ve had people hand me business cards at events that had a compelling question or interesting graphic, and then a URL to their blog. More often than not, I’ll at least check out the post. You might make postcards and bring them to the places where your prospective readers might congregate. For instance, if you write a restaurant blog, why not have a business card tray by the mints? Make an offer, just like you do with any other kind of marketing.

Often times, we sit around inside the fishbowl of social media and hope people from outside will find us. Here’s a hint, hero: the people you need are out there wondering what they can do to learn more about the thing you’re talking about. Go get ‘em, tiger.

How Do You Grow Traffic To Your Blog?

I’m a big fan of the basics: write about what they need, make sure they see that you wrote about it, make it easy to carry on the relationship, make it easy for them to promote you to others.

Seems like a simple formula, and yet, we go through all kinds of hoops to come up with trickier methods. Try this one first. What do you say?

--- MAIS EVENTOS ---

TODAS AS 6ªs FEIRAS - OPEN NETWORKING LUNCH - Almoço de networking aberto - Lisboa

11 Setembro 2010 - PASSEIO MOTA + VISITA A ADEGA E PROVA DE VINHOS + ALMOÇO

13 Outubro 2010 - WORKSHOP MARKETING PESSOAL - BASES, TÁCTICAS E ESTRATÉGIAS - LISBOA

6 Novembro 2010 - WORKSHOP MARKETING DE CONTEUDOS PARA PME - LISBOA

_____________________________________________________

Decidimos definir um local onde, todas as 6ª feiras, os open networkers podem encontrar-se, conhecer pessoas novas, trocar ideias, divulgar os seus negócios, procurar clientes e fornecedores, procurar novo emprego, ou simplesmente conversar...

Pode vir apenas uma vez, todas as semanas, ou quando lhe apetecer.


Quem deve participar: Todas as pessoas activas, dinâmicas e abertas.

Razões para participar (Epá's):

- Epá, hoje não me apetece almoçar sozinho
- Epá, hoje tenho que ir a Lisboa, deixa-me ver o que isto é
- Epá, bela ideia para promover a minha empresa
- Epá, estou farto de enviar CV's. Pode ser que encontre alguém que me dê emprego
- Epá, gosto tanto de conversar. Isto é mesmo para mim
- Epá, porque sim, e mais nada (contributo de Virgínia Dias)
- (Aceitam-se sugestões de outros Epá's.)

Local: Lisboa - Restaurante Água e Sal - Parque das Nações Sul

Morada: Esplanada Dom Carlos I

Fica mesmo por trás da loja do Oceanário, virado para o rio (1ª linha).



Ver mapa maior


Data e Hora: todas as 6ªs feiras, às 12h30 (salvo se feriado)


PROGRAMA

12h30 - Welcome Drink e apresentação entre os participantes

13h00 - Almoço


Preço

10,00 Euros por pessoa

Almoço composto por:

- Welcome Drink
- Sopa
- Prato do dia
- Café
- Bebidas: Água, sumo ou vinho

Como participar

A inscrição é efectuada no próprio dia, enviando um SMS para o 93 451 65 60 com o nome dos participantes entre as 9h00 e as 11h30.

Exemplo do SMS: "Jorge Lascas, Teresa Soeiro, Pedro Afonso"

Aguarde por uma mensagem de resposta a dizer simplesmente "OK".

O restaurante é relativamente grande, mas se recebermos 500 sms's vamos dar OK aos primeiros.

Algumas regras de networking

1 - Não fique a um canto a falar com o seu amigo. Apresente-se.
2 - Traga cartões comerciais ou pessoais para entregar
3 - Saiba ouvir. Não monopolize as conversas.
4 - (Aceitam-se sugestões de regras a adicionar)


Outros locais

Quer organizar um "Open Networking Lunch" na sua cidade? Força! Envie-me um email para trocar ideias: jorgelascas@hotmail.com


Patrocínios

Procuramos patrocinadores para os almoços. Contacte-nos se quer utilizar estas reuniões para divulgar a sua marca ou empresa.

Media partner

Se tem contactos nos media (tv, radios, jornais, revistas, portais) ajude-nos a divulgar os eventos. Procuramos media partners.


Pedido final

Divulguem nas vossas redes, facebook, linkedin, twitter e outras.




Fotos

Almoço #21 - 20 Agosto 2010



















Almoço #20 - 13 Agosto 2010



Almoço #18 - 30 Julho 2010



Almoço #17 - 23 Julho 2010



Almoço #15 - 9 Julho 2010



Almoço #14 - 2 Julho 2010




















Almoço #13 - 25 Junho 2010



Almoço #11 - 28 Maio 2010



Almoço #10 - 21 Maio 2010



Almoço #9 - 14 Maio 2010 + Visita Tektónica




Almoço #8 - 7 Maio 2010




Almoço #7 - 30 Abril 2010




















Almoço #5 - 16 Abril 2010















Almoço #4 - 9 Abril 2010




Almoço #3 - 26 Março 2010



Almoço #2 - 19 Março 2010

Samsung has finally spilled the details about its long-awaited tablet computer, the Galaxy Tab, during a press conference at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin.

Samsung calls its tablet a “smart media device,” and Galaxy Tab definitely has the specifications to back it up: Android 2.2 support, a Cortex A8 1 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM and 16/32 GB of internal memory with the possibility of upgrading through microSD memory cards.

Furthermore, there’s a 7 inch TFT-LCD display with 1024×600 pixel resolution, a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED Flash plus an additional fron 1.3 megapixel camera for video chats (that’s got to hurt iPad owners at least a little bit) as well as WiFi and 3G connectivity. The dimensions of the device are 190.09 x 120.45 x 11.98mm, with 380 grams of weight, and the battery should last through 7 hours of movie playback.

In other words, the iPad got a worthy competitor, not only because of the capable hardware the Tab is sporting, but also because it has the latest and greatest version of Android. Although it’s smaller than the iPad, whose screen measures 9.7 inches, Galaxy Tab does a lot of things the iPad cannot do: it has two cameras, it supports Flash and a wide variety of multimedia formats, including DivX, XviD, MPEG4, H.263, and H.264.

Samsung has partnered with Vodafone for the launch, and the Galaxy Tab will start selling in October in the majority of Vodafone’s European markets and later this year in the U.S and other markets.

More About: android, samsung, Samsung Galaxy Tab, Tablet

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Part of the new iTunes 10 software, announced and launched yesterday, is a significant new social networking feature for iTunes called Ping. It allows you to comment on music, 'like' it a la Facebook, or rate it. Ping is also very similar to Twitter, in that you can 'follow' people and music stars. All of this happens inside of the iTunes application, either on your computer, iPhone or iPod Touch.

We took the new feature for a spin and came away intrigued, despite some initial flaws. We do however wonder at the overly commercial focus of Ping. Is this really about social networking, or mostly for Apple and artists to sell more music?

Sponsor

How to Get Ping

To access Ping, you first need to download iTunes 10 onto your computer. You'll need to also download 300+ MB worth of iPhone Software Update, to get it on your iPhone or iPod Touch.

On the computer, once you've downloaded iTunes 10 click the iTunes Store link in the sidebar. You'll see a "Get Started" link in the top right of that page (also 'Ping' appears as a menu option in the sidebar). You'll need to turn on the Ping feature and agree to Apple's privacy policy. After that, create a profile.

Note that you may encounter issues with uploading a profile photo and connecting to Facebook. If you wait for about 10 minutes, eventually your photo will upload. However Facebook Connect appears to be broken at this stage. We assume these are technical teething issues.

Once you have your profile set up, you're invited to follow other people and also stars like Lady Gaga and U2. This is very similar to how Twitter works, except that it's all happening inside of iTunes (on your computer or on your iPhone or iPod Touch).

Social Networking, or Prodding You to The Cash Register?

Ping isn't entirely intuitive. It took some head scratching to figure out that to actually post content, you need to be in the iTunes Store. You can't create new content from within Ping itself, although you can comment on what others have added.

To add new content to your Ping stream, go to the iTunes Store and either comment on an album, 'like' it or give it a star rating.

The fact that you need to be inside the iTunes Store to create new content or like something, seems a rather cynical move to encourage people to buy more music. Why not let users search inside Ping for a song or album? Or, even better, let them right-click and comment, like or rate music from within the iTunes player?

Follow The Stars

To track - and optionally comment on - what others are doing, click on the Recent Activity feed in Ping.

Ping places more focus on feature accounts than Twitter, inviting you to "set your inner groupie free by following your favorite artists on Ping." The service comes pre-loaded with accounts for some leading pop, rock and other music acts.

These accounts don't offer much more than what the stars can already do on Facebook and Twitter. The main difference is that it's within an application where people can buy the music.

I'll Follow You (If You Share My Music Tastes)

Overall, I can see Ping being useful for following friends who have similar tastes in music to me. In those cases, if they 'like' a new album then it's a great recommendation - and yes, I'm more likely to buy it. Also the ability to see which concerts they plan to go to is a useful feature.

However, Ping is probably not going to be very useful for following friends who don't share my music tastes. That could be most of them. You may be a mate of mine on Facebook, but if you listen to electronica then sorry I'm not very interested in the content you're liking (you probably feel the same way about the alternative music I tend to favor).

Have you tested out Ping yet? Let us know your verdict in the comments!

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