Yesterday Apple announced that it was closing in on its whopping 1 Billionth application download from the App Store, which now features over 25,000 apps built by thousands of developers. In honor of the milestone, Apple has also posted an updated version of the store’s most popular apps ever (iTunes link) - something they’ve done only once before, at the end of 2008. The list includes such popular mainstays as Facebook, Koi Pond, and Shazam, allowing the millions of new iPhone owners to discover favorites of months gone by. It’s a shame this list will probably be shortlived.
This isn’t an accident. One attribute that has helped the App Store reach its upcoming billion download milestone so quickly is the fact that its featured App Lists are constantly churning - even the most popular applications probably won’t be on the top lists a few weeks down the line. This ensures that users who pop into the store will always have some new, quality apps to try out, boosting downloads and giving new applications a chance to shine.
iPhone apps give rise to iPhone-based cover bands [via TechCrunch]
There are plenty of people trying to make the musical instruments applications on the iPhone sound like real music, but one of the more credible is that by unsigned all-female band called The Mentalists here in London.
They’ve done an unusual cover of MGMT’s “Kids” entirely using their iPhones and iPod Touches, using apps from the application store. The result is actually quite impressive.
The apps used were Ocarina, Retro Synth, miniSynth and DigiDrummer Lite (yes, not event the paid-for version). However, as usual, drummers who can keep time remain in short supply. The same was true of The Beatles, and still is today…
The Super Bowl is perhaps the one television event where people actually look forward to the ads because so much effort is put into each one. And every year, there are a handful of standouts. You can watch the ads plenty of places online, including on Hulu. You can even watch Hulu’s own Super Bowl ad on Hulu, which oddly enough is preceded by a regular Web video ad. That just seems wrong to me on so many levels, especially since Hulu itself (which is partly owned by NBC) probably didn’t have to pay for the spot
I guess you could argue that some of these commercials are now entertainment in their own right, and thus deserve their own mini-commercials. The Hulu spot with Alec Baldwin (above) is certainly one of the better ones. He delivers the line:
They say TV will rot your brain. That’s absurd. TV only softens the brain, like a ripe banana. To take it all the way, we’ve created Hulu.
There were also lots of ads that poked fun at the economic downturn, including an ETrade ad with talking babies and a Cash4Gold.com ad starring Ed McMahon and and MC Hammer. To get people to come into its restaurants, Denny’s decided to offer free breakfast to everyone in America on Tuesday. But my favorite is this one from Monster.com which asks, Need Another Job?
CareerBuilder hit the same theme, but wasn’t quite as funny. In fact, CareerBuilder’s ad which repeatedly shows a woman miserable with her job screaming in her car, is downright depressing.
Then, of course, the trailer to the new Star Trek movie debuted as well, which I will embed below just because I know you will watch it (the trailer for Transformers 2 will also be popular).
Forbes released its third annual Web Celeb List, recognizing the world's 25 biggest and brightest stars in the internet and technology space. Most have reached fame by blogging and/or podcasting. Gossip blogger Perez Hilton topped the list for the second year in a row, followed by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington and Digg co-founder Kevin Rose. Here are Forbes' top ten:
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