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Apple's iTunes Application Store for the iPhone and iTouch is set to hit a billion downloads. Launched in June 2008, the App Store, which offers free apps as well as for purchase apps, has more downloads than the iTunes music store had in its first three years. With more than 25,000 applications currently available, and more becoming available everyday, its clear that mobile applications are here to stay.
The Swedish government is set to make a ruling on the fate of the Pirate Bay. The torrent sharing site, founded by Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom, has claimed that they are merely linking to and providing information on content, rather than hosting it. In the past Sweden has held a rather liberal position on file-sharing, however, under recent pressure from the RIAA, MPAA and the US government, more stringent laws, which include giving content providers the right access to user names and addresses from ISP's, have put the Pirate Bay in unmarked territory.
The founders of Skype may be looking to buy back the communications company from eBay. Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who sold the company to eBay in 2005 for $2.6 billion, have reportedly been approaching private equity firms in order to make a bid for the company. While Skype has more than 405 million users and took in $145 million in revenue in the fourth quarter, it has never truly fit in at eBay, with CEO John Donahue going as far as saying he would be willing to sell the company.
Hannah Montana: The Movie took home top billing at the Box Office this weekend. With an estimated take of $34 million, the Miley Cyrus film beat out Universal's Fast and Furious, which took in $72.5 million in its first week. However, while Fast and Furious did not best Hannah Montana stateside, it took in roughly $46.5 million worldwide to top the international box office.
Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press) and the upcoming, Get Digital: Reinventing Yourself and Your Career for the 21st Century Economy (2009, Lake House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net For information about Get Digital Classes, visit www.shellypalmer.com/seminars