Daily Marauder

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There may be more than 20,000 iPhone apps out there that have been downloaded more than 500 million times, but what is the average shelf life of each app? Greg Yardley, CEO of Pinch Media, offers some stats based on the 30 million+ downloads his iPhone app analytics startup has kept tabs on. One of the most telling slides in a recent presentation he gave shows the drop-off rate in iPhone app usage (see above; entire slide presentation embedded below). For free applications, only about 20 percent of users return to use the app the first day after they download it, and then it quickly drops off from there. By 30 days out, less than 5 percent are using the app. The chart for paid apps shows a slightly steeper fall-off rate. So there is a very brief window of time to capture people’s attention and potential revenues. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/19/pinch-media-data-shows-the-average-shelf-life-of-an-iphone-app-is-less-than-30-days 2/19)

If there’s one thing smartphones have taught us it’s that you can never have enough speed in your network. Despite the severe economic downturn Verizon Wireless announced it is pushing full steam ahead with plans to launch a 4G network in 2010 with vendor partners LM Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent. Verizon announced it is currently in Long Term Evolution (LTE) field trials in the U.S., demonstrating download rates of 50-60 MB/second by utilizing the bandwidth acquired in the FCC 700 MHz spectrum auction. European trials are also underway in a joint venture with Vodafone. (Cynopsis 2/19)

The company has released a set of policies for its Android Market, which includes a provision letting users return unwanted apps within 24 hours. The policies also give Google authority to remotely delete apps that violate its terms of use. Bloomberg (2/19) , mocoNews.net (2/18)

Mobile content aggregator MobiTV announced a milestone, surpassing 6 million subscribers and adding 1 million subs alone from the beginning of Dec. as the proliferation of 3G-powered smartphones takes off. The company also added the iPhone to the list of 350 devices it supports. MobiTV’s content offerings include primetime shows from NBC and ABC and more than 40 channels of content, including ESPN, Disney, CNBC and MSNBC. (Cynopsis 2/19)