If you follow me on Twitter, then you’re already aware of my obsession with Foursquare, a New York-based service that taps into the narcissistic appeal of being able to post unusual locations such as our office cafeteria, Chatz Cafe, or best recommendations about a place and marries it to social networking. What’s more fun — it all seems like a game.

You can access Foursquare on its web site, on the iPhone, or via Android and BlackBerry devices. Every time you stop at a cafe, a bar or an eatery, you have the option to check in your location. Sure you can check in your visit to a shopping mall or even a 7-Eleven, but the focus is primarily on going out. The service will then tell you if one of your friends is in the same location. I started out as a skeptic of Foursquare but in just three months, have become an addict. And it’s the addictive nature of this little service that puts it on the fast track to the top. 

Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley

Foursquare, which has received $1.35 million in funding from Union Square Ventures (and others), launched back in March in a handful of U.S. cities. Then earlier this month, it was turned on in 50 additional cities across the world. If the recent increase in the number of requests to connect that I’m now receiving on a daily basis is any indicator, then it won’t be long before Foursquare becomes a mainstream phenomenon.

A prominent story on CNN.com has only helped spread the word about the service co-founded by Dennis Crowley, founder of Dodgeball, a similar pre-smartphone-era offering that was acquired and subsequently shut down by Google. I emailed Crowley recently to ask about Foursquare’s traffic.

“We’ve been growing 50 percent-plus per month,” he said. When I last saw Crowley, back in October, he said the service was growing at roughly 40 percent a month in terms of new users, so this latest figure points to a growth spurt. For a while, there were persistent rumors that the service’s growth had flattened at around 60,000 users.

Crowley, who teamed up with Naveen Selvadurai and Harry Heymann for the startup, said that with Foursquare he’s building the product he wanted to build with Dodgeball, but couldn’t. (He had an acrimonious and very public split with Google.) Crowley believes that if you make software that allows people to discover new places and services, you can quickly build a database of “taste” and “cultural preferences.”

For instance, I have become a big fan of Sightglass, a hip new cafe in San Francisco. Showing up there every day and letting my friends know of my repeated visits indicates my “preference” for Sightglasses’ coffee. The more places I “check into,” the better chance I have to win awards or “badges” with cute names such as “bender” (going out more than four nights in a row), “crunked” (more than four stops in a night), and “overshare” (more than 10 check-ins in 12 hours.) Compared to its rivals — and there are many, including Gowalla (which for some odd reason is popular with a lot of Sand Hill Road VCs) — these little, seemingly silly things are what make Foursquare so much fun. Of course, it helps that most of my friends are big Foursquare users as well, making the other services that much less attractive to me.

In my opinion, structured datasets such as those being collected by Foursquare are going to become highly effective resources for cost-per-action advertising or even e-commerce revenue models. A smart hyper-local advertising platform, coupons or even sponsored badges are possible ways that Foursquare could make money. But Crowley isn’t thinking about revenues just yet; he’s busy getting Foursquare to grow exponentially.

“In the end, we want it to be the Netflix of places,” he said, referring to that company’s movie recommendation system. “We want to use (the) social graph and help with (the) discovery of places.” The company recently launched its API with the hope that it would spur a variety of apps based on Foursquare data — thus making it that much more distinguishable from its rivals.

Like Twitter and Facebook, Foursquare taps into our inner exhibitionist self — a malady of the post-Internet era. It allows everyone to be a Ruth Reichl, the legendary food critic — an arbiter of taste. With a narcissistic quotient that is higher than a genius’s IQ, it’s only a matter of time before it’s discovered by everyone from dithering fashion editors to pro athletes and pop stars. And when that happens, yet another tech pop phenomenon will be born.

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Posted by Om Malik on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  16 Comments
Tags: Dennis Crowley, Foursquare, Gowalla, iPhone, Location Based Services, Mobile

iTunes’ app store has more than 101,000 approved apps and over 93,000 are available now, according to AppShopper, an app-related web site. Our friends at Mobclix suggest that there are 103,000 apps for the iTunes store. In September, Apple reported that nearly 2 billion apps had been downloaded and there were 85,000 apps available in its store. Back in April, there were 35,000. The growth of iPhone apps clearly hasn’t decelerated, by any means. It will be interesting to see what happens to the growth once the Android platform starts to boom, as predicted by some. There are currently around 10,000 Google Android apps.

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Posted by Om Malik on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  6 Comments
Tags: Android, App Store, App Stores, iPhone, Mobile

Updated: Nokia is suing Apple over the alleged infringement of patents held by the Finnish handset maker pertaining to WLAN, GSM and UMTS. Nokia said in a statement:

The ten patents in suit relate to technologies fundamental to making devices which are compatible with one or more of the GSM, UMTS (3G WCDMA) and wireless LAN standards. The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007. “The basic principle in the mobile industry is that those companies who contribute in technology development to establish standards create intellectual property, which others then need to compensate for,” said Ilkka Rahnasto, Vice President, Legal & Intellectual Property at Nokia. “Apple is also expected to follow this principle. By refusing to agree appropriate terms for Nokia’s intellectual property, Apple is attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation.”

Nokia is holding a conference call about the suit; We’ll be back with more details in a little while. Update: The technologies at the heart of the lawsuit have been licensed to several dozen other companies by Nokia. Notably, the filing comes more than two years after the launch of the initial iPhone and follows extended negotiations between the two companies.

But the timing of the suit also underscores the degree to which Apple has overtaken Nokia in the smartphone space. Nokia last week reported its first quarterly net loss in more than a decade as its North American sales tumbled by nearly a third. Apple’s momentum, meanwhile, just keeps growing. (Apple representatives were not immediately available for comment.)

Nokia is looking to collect patent royalties of 1 or 2 percent for each iPhone sold, according to a note from Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster, which — given the roughly 34 million iPhone units already in the hands of users — would amount to $200 million-$400 million. That’s not a lot of money to either company, of course. But Nokia is clearly hoping it can be more successful in the courtroom than it’s been in the marketplace.

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Posted by Om Malik & Colin Gibbs on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  24 Comments
Tags: Apple, iPhone, Mobile, Nokia, Patent Infrignements

Oh boy…does AT&T need the iPhone to keep its business going or what? In the third quarter, the company added 2 million new wireless subscribers to reach a total of 81.6 million. Further, some 4.3 million 3G-integrated devices were added to the AT&T network, of which the iPhone accounted for 3.2 million activations. And thanks to that, wireless data revenues jumped 33.6 percent over the previous year, to $3.6 billion, thus helping push the ARPU up by 3.8 percent from the same quarter last year.

The rest of AT&T’s business doesn’t look quite as pretty. Revenues for the quarter were $30.9 billion vs. $31.3 billion in the third quarter of 2008. Net income was flat at $3.2 billion. In other words, apart from the iPhone and U-verse TV, there isn’t much for AT&T to get excited about.

For instance, while the company added 252,000 U-verse connections, it lost enough DSL subscribers that the final tally for new broadband subscribers during the most recent three-month period stood at mere 90,000. AT&T now has 1.8 million U-verse TV customers. Consumer voice connections, meanwhile, fell to 45.7 million from 46.3 million in the second quarter. AT&T had 47.5 million voice connections in the third quarter of 2008. (Previously: Why AT&T Is Desperately Addicted to the iPhone and AT&T Beholden to Steve & the iPhone.)

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Posted by Om Malik on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  18 Comments
Tags: Apple, AT&T, iPhone, Mobile

Did you notice that today Apple became more valuable to the stock market than Google? The iPhone maker now has a market capitalization of $183 billion vs. $174.5 billion for Google. What does that mean to me?

For starters, people believe that Apple can continue to defy gravity. Secondly, when it comes to growth, people believe focus is the right approach. What do you guys think?

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Posted by Om Malik on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  45 Comments
Tags: Apple, google, Mobile

Apple said this afternoon that it sold 7.4 million iPhones in its most recent fiscal quarter, 7 percent more than the same three-month period a year earlier and a whopping 43 percent more on a sequential basis. The numbers illustrate two key points: Mobile is indeed the future and reducing the base iPhone model to $99 is helping unit sales, in a big way.

Meanwhile, much to the chagrin of Microsoft and its ecosystem of partners, Apple sold 3.05 million Mac computers, a 17 percent rise over its previous fiscal fourth quarter. That’s not too shabby for a premium computer line during down times.

More interesting than the past however, is the future. This quote from Steve Jobs ought to have all of the Apple rumor sites salivating:

“We are thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve got a very strong lineup for the holiday season and some really great new products in the pipeline for 2010.”

The iPhone is historically on a summer refresh schedule, so it’s a safe bet that next summer sees an iPhone update, not to mention the inclusion of a camera in the iPod touch line at some point. But one of those “really great new products” could well be the larger tablet device that’s been bandied around in earnest this past year. Surely it’s not a netbook because Apple doesn’t see a way to make a quality device at low netbook prices. Then again, Apple is known to redefine developing product markets. Add in the trend that more non-phone devices are falling under the subsidy model and it’s easy to believe that 2010 might see another portable computing device from Cupertino in the $300-$500 range.

And of course, iPod sales continue their slow decline — Apple sold 10.2 million iPods in the most recent three-month period, down 8 percent from the same quarter a year earlier and 7 percent from its fiscal 2009 third quarter. Back in June of 2008, I read the handwriting on the wall by saying standalone music players were dying a slow, painful death due to the rise of smartphones.

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Posted by Kevin C. Tofel on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  6 Comments
Tags: aaple, iPhone, iPod, Mobile, Netbook, smartphones

The number of people accessing social networks on their mobile phones at least once a month in the U.S. has doubled since the beginning of the year, to 10 percent in the third quarter from 5 percent in the first quarter, according to Forrester Research, in line with stats Facebook released last month. The number of people who accessed that social networking site from their mobile phones tripled to 65 million, up from 20 million people back in December. The data also heralds what many people sense, that mobile phones are becoming an extension of the lives we lead on our personal computers. 

“Mobile phones have the potential to become the hub of social computing activities and to be more than just a complement to the PC experience,” Forrester analyst Thomas Husson wrote in a recent blog post. “Mobile phones will increasingly become the glue that holds the social graph together, offering creative tools and immediacy, presence, location, and context when interacting with the real world.”

Our real lives are increasingly starting to converge with social networks. For example, the latest version of Facebook’s iPhone app lets you call and text your friends from directly within it. Social networks are even replacing communication tools like email and IM.

As the phone becomes less a compliment, and more of a direct extension of the PC, everyone from carriers to big search engines is trying to grab a piece of the $1.3 billion that’s forecast to be spent on mobile advertising this year. And because our phones hold so much personal data and are carried with us wherever we go, that pie is potentially much bigger. Google, for example, made $22 billion in 2008 primarily from selling ads on the PC. The mobile ad network space, meanwhile, is expected to grow to $14 billion by 2012 (see the report on GigaOM Pro; subscription required). Just imagine how big of a goldmine that ad network would be if it captured some of those online dollars.

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Posted by Jennifer Martinez on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  1 Comments
Tags: facebook, Forrester, iPhone, Mobile

Twitter yesterday launched a mobile version of its popular micromessaging service in Japan, making it the first country to get its own local language version. To boost its presence abroad, the fledgling San Francisco-based company has been tapping into the mobile industry, unveiling a partnership this week with Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile operator, in addition to one with UK-based O2.

It looks like Japan will be the guinea pig for Twitter’s foray into advertising as well. Twitter is using the Japanese mobile version as a testing ground for money-making features that it may incorporate into its service down the road, such as banner ads. Although the company modified its terms of service last month to open the door for advertising, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said a few weeks ago that it wouldn’t put any ads on the site this year. Lucky Japan, not only is it the first to get a local language version of the site, but it’s also the first to see Twitter with ads.

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Posted by Jennifer Martinez on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  2 Comments
Tags: Japan, Mobile, Twitter

Skimble, a web site that helps you plan and track your outdoor activities and workouts, hopped on the Twitter train today with the release of a feature that lets you tweet your activity to its site. It joins a growing group of exercise-focused applications and web sites that are integrating the micro-messaging service into their offerings. For example, Kevin over at jkOnTheRun has reviewed RunKeeper, an iPhone application that lets you post your workouts and run times to Twitter, and he currently logs his pushups workout to the onehundredpushups web site, which tweets his results.

The data that’s kept about our workouts on mobile phones is “personally useful and actionable,” according to CNET’s Matt Asay. He found that apps like RunKeeper “track my progress against personal goals and, in so doing, have facilitated that progress.” And since your tweets are broadcasted across the Twitter network, your friends will notice when you’ve been slacking off.

Skimble awards users points for each activity, which is intended to both reward them and create friendly competition, according to Skimble’s co-founder Maria Ly. While the point system isn’t fully fleshed out yet (the site just launched last month), users currently receive an award icon on their site profile and a congratulatory email if they achieve an activity goal they set for themselves. With its new Twitter integration feature, Skimble logs activity to its site via users’ tweets; users simply type either “@skmbl” or “#skimble” somewhere within the tweet or send a direct message to Skimble’s Twitter account.

Skimble is a two-person team made up of Ly and co-founder Gabriel Vanrenen, who together self-funded the site, and is based in San Francisco.

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Posted by Jennifer Martinez on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  0 Comments
Tags: Mobile, Skimble, tweet, Twitter

Shazam, a popular mobile application that allows you to ask your phone what song is playing by holding it up to the source of the song, has raised an undisclosed amount of capital from the iFund, a $100 million fund started by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. According to published reports, Shazam had previously raised $12.3 million from Acacia Capital and DN Capital, even though company officials told us last year that they had raised nearly $20 million in funding.

First of all, I am shocked to learn that the iFund is not only investing but is still around, as it’s been awfully quiet. That being said, my original thesis on the iFund and other app-focused specialty funds hasn’t changed — I think they will be as successful as the RSS Fund or the Java Fund. Secondly, despite the popularity of the app, Shazam has some business challenges.

Shazam has apparently hit the 50 million user-mark, up sharply this year — in February the company had just 15 million users. The growth is reflective of the increased sales of smartphones, including the iPhone and its phone-less cousin, the iPod touch. (Related post: How About That iPhone Bump?)

According to some reports, Shazam is looking to charge for a premium version of the service. My first reaction: good luck. I’m one of those who happily upgrades to premium services, but I really don’t think “knowing the song” is critical enough for me to pay them good money.

Shazam has to contend with the fact that it’s hard to make a living off just mobile advertising. No one uses an app enough to make that a viable business. Unfortunately the startup is going to be stuck doing one of the two things: keep licensing the software to handset makers and convince them to keep paying Shazam — a decent but limited revenue stream. Or become a fundinista — you know, those companies that constantly raise money to stay in business to, in turn, raise more money!

As Biggie Small once sang: “Mo Money Mo Problems.”You don’t need an app for that!

P.S.: If you want an alternative, check our Midomi, a favorite of Liz Gannes, co-editor of our sister site, NewTeeVee.

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Posted by Om Malik on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  1 Comments
Tags: Android, Apple, applications, iPhone, Mobile

From Loopt to FourSquare, it seems like every mobile-focused startup these days wants to hop on board the location-based application train. Aloqa launched an iPhone version of its free Android and BlackBerry application last week (the startup’s CEO, Sanjeev Agrawal, spoke during a panel at our recent Mobilize conference).

Like Geodelic, Aloqa helps you find nearby points of interest — what it calls “channels” — that you can customize according to your preferences. For example, if you’d rather get a cup of coffee from Peet’s than from Starbucks or another cafe, you can subscribe to the Peet’s channel. You’re then a tap away from pulling up a map that will guide to the store location you want to visit.

After trying out Aloqa for a week, I think it’s a solid LBS app but wish that its channels included more drilled-down points of interest. We recently moved our office to the SOMA neighborhood, an area of San Francisco with which I’m still not terribly familiar. I struggled to find a place to grab a quick salad for lunch using Aloqa and wound up using my Google Maps application instead.

While Aloqa has a channel that lists nearby Yelp-reviewed restaurants, none of them offered the type of food I was looking for and none of them did takeout. (I admittedly had not looked at the fast food channel). What Aloqa did help me find was a nearby ATM for my bank and a Starbucks store closer to the one I was originally going to, which are definite pluses. There’s also a channel that notifies you when one of your Facebook friends is nearby, but only one of my friends has installed Aloqa on their phone so this hasn’t proven to be a helpful feature.

Aloqa just launched this summer, so there’s still room for improvement; hopefully we’ll soon see channels on it that point to more disaggregated points of interest. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup received $1.5 million in Series A funding this July from Wellington Partners and angel investors.

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Posted by Jennifer Martinez on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  5 Comments
Tags: Aloqa, Android, Blackberry, iPhone, LBS, Mobile

Did you just see $500 million go up in smoke? Thanks to a massive data wipeout that left thousands of customers without their personal information, Danger Inc., a company Microsoft bought for about half a billion dollars last year is fast becoming worthless. T-Mobile USA, its biggest champion (and arguably its biggest customer), is letting people ditch their devices and contracts. Oops!

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Posted by Om Malik on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  6 Comments
Tags: Microsoft, Mobile

Arthur Levinson, former CEO and chairman of Genentech, has resigned from the Google board. He is going to remain on the Apple board, however. Levinson, Apple and Google had been under fire for the presence of Levinson on the boards of both companies. His resignation is part of the ongoing (and rapidly escalating) feud between the two companies as they battle over the opportunities opened up by the mobile Internet. From what I’ve learned from my sources, there is a deep distrust of Google inside Apple, one that extends beyond the upper echelons of the company. I bet we’ll see more sniping between these two companies.

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Posted by Om Malik on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  10 Comments
Tags: APPL, Apple, GOOG, google, Mobile

If you are a fan of the BBC, then odds are that you have seen the dark and comical series, “The Worst Week Ever of My Life.” It is the story of Sam Briggs, a man who wants to impress his bride-to-be’s family. And as one would expect, bad luck and hilarity follow him. I wonder if the guys in charge of Microsoft Mobile feel like Briggs after the week they just had. Upon launch, Windows Mobile 6.5 couldn’t have received worse reviews. Some of them are so mean that even I am feeling bad for Ma Windows. Here is a sample of what folks said about WinMo 6.5.

• Engadget: Microsoft’s not promising the world with Windows Mobile 6.5, nor are they delivering it — it’s very much a stopgap, complete with duct tape, bubble gum, and Bondo.
• Gizmodo: Windows Mobile 6.5 isn’t just a letdown — it barely seems done.
• Bloomberg: New Windows phones paint lipstick on a pig.
• Mobilecrunch: Windows Mobile 6.5 is a spit and polish job on 6.1 — nothing more, nothing less. Every single change in Windows Mobile 6.5 feels like it was made by a team of homebrewers or modders, rather than a huge corporation with truckloads of money to blow on one of their flagship products.

As far as we are concerned, we have been consistent in our opinion that Android (and not iPhone) is going to basically eat into Windows Mobile’s market share and make it irrelevant. Of course, Microsoft fans think otherwise, and I respect their opinions, but I am fairly confident in my original prognosis.

In related news, Microsoft’s much talked about Pink project is falling apart, according to some speculative reports on the web. Pink phones were Microsoft-branded gadgets that were going to be made by Sharp and developed by the Danger team. Microsoft bought Danger, the company behind Sidekick, for about half a billion dollars.

Microsoft’s Mobile efforts took a further step back this weekend when the company (along with partner T-Mobile USA) lost Sidekick customers’ data. According to Hiptop3, a blog dedicated to Sidekick:

Microsoft was upgrading their SAN (Storage Area Network aka the thing that stores all your data) and had hired Hitachi to come in and do it for them. Typically in an upgrade like this, you are expected to make backups of your SAN before the upgrade happens. Microsoft failed to make these backups for some reason. We’re not sure if it was because of the amount of data that would be required, if they didn’t have time to do it, or if they simply forgot. Regardless of why, Microsoft should know better. So Hitachi worked on upgrading the SAN and something went wrong, resulting in its destruction. Currently the plan is to try to get the devices that still have personal data on them to sync back to the servers and at least keep the data that users have on their device saved. We’ve heard this from what appears to be several sources and it seems to hold weight. Needless to say it all boils down to one thing: Microsoft did not have a working backup. (HipTop3)

After this weekend’s big data wipeout, I wonder if there is any value left in that brand and service. One thing I am pretty sure about — Microsoft Mobile bosses, kind of like Briggs, would probably like to erase this week from their memories (no pun intended).

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Posted by Om Malik on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  19 Comments
Tags: Cloud Computing, Microsoft, Mobile, Sidekick, Windows Mobile

Mobile industry insiders are in San Diego this week attending the CTIA conference, and they have two things on their minds — that damn iPhone and how it has them flocking to what seems to be only decent alternative: Google’s Android. They desperately need something to counter the Apple onslaught and Android is their best best — they just won’t come out and say it.

Instead, there is a lot of talk about open networks, innovation and network neutrality from AT&T Wireless’ Ralph de la Vega, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and others. But all that talk doesn’t mean attendees aren’t thinking about Android. The number of Android phones is on an upswing, thanks in large part to the release of new models such as the Samsung Behold and Samsung Instinct. By some estimates, there should be about 15 Android-powered phones on the market by the end of 2009.

That is precisely why the Gartner Group is feeling bullish about Android. The research firm came out with a report today forecasting that Android will increase its share of the smartphone market to about 14 percent by 2012 from a mere 2 percent today. In doing so, it would overtake Windows Mobile and others, racing ever closer to the Nokia-backed OS, Symbian.

I’m all for competition, and I’m glad that Android is here and giving the folks at Nokia and Research in Motion the worst kind of migraine. It’s a modern, Internet-oriented OS that serves as a nice contrast to that of Apple’s iPhone. It’s also a symbol of the creative bankruptcy of the wireless industry. As you can see by looking at a sampling of new handsets that were announced over the past six weeks, they all look pretty much the same — the only difference is their user interfaces:

I wonder if the plurality of user interfaces — notably those of the HTC Sense, MotoBlur and Samsung Touchwiz — is going to create confusion in the minds of consumers and lead even more of them into the arms of Apple and its iPhone. With the release of a $99 version of the device, Apple has a shot at rapidly increasing its user base, and can leverage its App Store to stay ahead. We saw that happen in the digital music player space, where the iPod and its iconic look helped Apple run away with the market.

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Radical New Smartphone Appears — Emblaze First Else jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; New Avatar Trailer Is Interactive, Spoiler-Active NewTeeVee – by Chris Albrecht "; How Low Can TiVo Subs Go? NewTeeVee – by Chris Albrecht "; Take One Tablet and Call in the Morning jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick ";

Posted by Om Malik on GigaOM  |  Permalink  |  23 Comments
Tags: Mobile

As we have said before, developers are the kingmakers in the brave new world of the mobile Internet. That sentiment was made pretty evident at a small gathering organized by Palm in San Francisco today. The event was held to introduce Ben Galbraith and Dion Almaer, two ex-Mozilla employees who are now spearheading Palm’s developer program. Palm also made two announcements about its developer program that are intended to entice developers to build apps on its WebOS platform.

First, developers will be able to distribute their applications via the web to users without Palm reviewing their apps first — a strategy that is the polar opposite of Apple, the current leader when it comes to developers’ attention. Once Palm receives an app from a developer, it will send them a URL which then can be distributed to users. When users click on the URL, the app will be loaded onto their devices. Palm is also creating an app catalog for developers who want to feature their apps in it.

Palm will charge developers $50 per application to be included in the catalog and will review apps featured in it. To help make apps more discoverable, Palm is also introducing an auction-based promotion system similar to “a popular search engine.” Palm faces an uphill climb when it comes to attracting developers, since most are flocking to the fast-growing Apple iPhone platform. As the sales of iPhones and iPod touches rise, they become even more attractive to developers.

Palm’s Pre has received a lukewarm reception in the market and has yet to take its position as a viable competitor to the iPhone. Nevertheless, the company is ready for a fight. Drawing on their Mozilla roots, Galbraith and Almaer said Palm is introducing an open source developer program. Palm usually charges developers $99 to build apps on the WebOS platform, and now it will waive the $99 fee if the apps are open source.

We spoke to Palm CEO Jon Rubenstein about whether the Palm Pre will be available on any other U.S. carriers other than Sprint. Rubenstein told us, “Right now, Sprint is our exclusive partner. We have no other announcements to make at this time.” There has been some speculation that Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone, was going to carry the Palm Pre. In the international markets, the Pre and the recently announced Pixi will be available on Bell Mobility (in Canada) and Telefonica in Europe. During the talk, Rubenstein said, “We’ll be coming out in more networks in the UK, Spain, Ireland and Germany. We’ll be coming out with more networks and more regions over time. We’ll be coming out with more products over time, so we’ll continue to add to our family of products.”

Rubenstein told us that he considered Palm, Apple and RIM as “three companies that have an advantage to everyone else in the space” because they deeply integrate hardware and software together into a complete smartphone package. He noted that there’s room for between three and five other players in the mobile business.

When talking about the number of apps available for WebOS during the event, Rubenstein said, “A lot of people have been bitching about the fact that we’re not moving fast enough…but we wanted to make sure that at each step along the way we were doing the right things.” Rubenstein said that 7.5 million WebOS apps have been downloaded so far.

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Radical New Smartphone Appears — Emblaze First Else jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick "; New Avatar Trailer Is Interactive, Spoiler-Active NewTeeVee – by Chris Albrecht "; How Low Can TiVo Subs Go? NewTeeVee – by Chris Albrecht "; Take One Tablet and Call in the Morning jkOnTheRun – by James Kendrick ";

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Tags: Android, Apple, iPhone, Mobile, palm, Palm Pre, RIM