Read and digest the following, from ReadWriteWeb:
While the focus of today’s Facebook announcements was the new Timeline profile, the Read, Watch, Listen media sharing apps have generated a lot of interest too. These so-called “social apps” haven’t been widely launched yet, but you can get a sense of what they will do by adding a couple of brand new newspaper social apps to your Facebook profile: The Guardian’s app and one from Washington Post.
Over the past few months I’ve been building an iPhone application. It’s called Divided, and it’s a more intelligent bill splitting application than the ones I could already find.
In my own words:
Divided is the bill splitting application that doesn’t assume everybody ate the same thing. Tailor the split for your party’s needs, avoid bill issues and go home happy.
Developed to scratch my own itch, I began to think Divided was useful enough to put on the app store. So I spent a couple of months’ worth of spare time polishing the application and bugging my friends to try it out and tell me what they liked and what sucked. I think it’s come out well from this process, with many improvements and generally more praise than suck (at least in later betas).
Free apps with in-app purchases made up 48 percent of total App Store revenue according to Distimo, while paid apps with in-app purchases accounted for 24 percent and the remaining 28 percent came from paid-only apps.
Gateway drugs are gateway drugs, whatever the platform it would seem. I have noticed the consistent position of “freemium” games within the top-grossing lists for a few months now, such as the aforementioned blue people/white hats app. It would seem the in-app purchase of cows is a sure-fire money winner, presuming the cows are cute and the price right.
As reported in the Guardian today, paragraph 64 of the coalition government’s white paper on proposals to reform voter registration, Individual Electoral Registration, states:
While we strongly encourage people to register to vote the Government believes the act is one of personal choice and as such there should be no compulsion placed on an individual to make an application to register to vote.
Is it really not the case that voting is part of one’s responsibilities for living within a democratic country? Democracy is a contract between the government and the governed, and this feels dangerously close to allowing opting out of this contract.
Cameron at odds with Cable over banking reforms
David Cameron has warned against “taking risks that put jobs at risk” as he highlighted the crucial role banks need to play to help economic growth.
The prime minister made his comments after the Liberal Democrat business secretary, Vince Cable, lashed out at the big British banks whom he accused of being “disingenuous in the extreme” in their claim that sweeping banking reforms could damage the economic recovery.