Airtel claims that its application store is the biggest operator owned App store in the world.
App Central was launched in February last year and since then 40 million apps have been downloaded from it. Of these, 32 per cent, or about 12 million, apps were paid.

Apple’s is the largest app store and 12 million app sales is substantially less than what it has achieved . Apple’s iBooks, an ebook store, has served more than 100 million book downloads, while the iPhone maker has already paid $2 billion to its application developers. Apple has over 200 million user accounts on iTunes, iBooks and App Store.

Android Market is also bigger than Airtel’s store, with more than one billion app downloads in August 2010 itself, and it is reported to be hitting the 3.5 billion mark.

But given the fact that Airtel’s App Central is limited to India, while Apple and Android are available across the world, Airtel’s feat is commendable and speaks volumes of the potential of value added services in India.

App Central currently has more than 103,000 apps for download and is accessible by about 550 devices. These apps are categorised under 25 customer categories. There are productivity, business applications, utilities, casual games, themes, books, social networking and IM (instant messenger applications) etc.

The good thing about App Central is that you do not need a credit card to pay for applications. The amount is charged against the user’s pre paid balance or post paid bill.

The operator said that revenue from App Central has increased by 120 per cent, and with the 3G launch Airtel foresees faster growth.

Atul Bindal, president, mobile services, Bharti Airtel said, “We see a huge opportunity in the applications space. We will make our store richer with more mobile money, education and services apps, apart from adding in other popular segments.”

App Central has been visited by more than 100 million people and of these 42 per cent end up downloading an app.

Bindal added, “We are already seeing a huge upswing in data usage in only three cities that we have launched 3G in, with just five lakh 3G customers already contributing to a substantial chunk of overall data usage.”

Top five circles from where downloads were requested are, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai, Maharashtra and Goa and Rajasthan. Airtel has 3G spectrum in all these circles, apart from Kerala and Maharashtra.

In the past one month three other operators — Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications and BSNL have announced that they will have applications stores.

Aircel already has a very popular application store, called Pocket Internet, and so does Tata Docomo.

If you are an owner of Android and iOS phones but want BlackBerry Messenger services, there is good news for you. BlackBerry is toying with the idea of allowing such users to access its Messenger services.

According to reports, BlackBerry may launch a trimmed down version of the messenger service which will not allow people to share multimedia files, unless they are using BlackBerry handsets.

Those who are accessing BlackBerry Messenger services from third party platforms may be asked to pay a subscription fee.

One of the reasons why BlackBerry has retained its stronghold among corporate customers is the popularity of its Messenger service, also known as BBM. It is a hybrid service between SMS and instant Messaging and works the same way on all BlackBerry models.

There is no comparable service on any other platform. The makers of Kik messenger tried to replicate the success of BlackBerry Messenger, but didn’t succeed.

Star Plus, a channel of Satellite Television Asia Region (STAR) TV service owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, has unveiled its multi screen presence plan.

It has re-launched its Audio Zone, which enables users to listen to Star Plus serials, audio blogs of characters, contests and music. All a user needs to do is call 5057827. The channel will charge Rs 2 per day or Rs 10 per month for its Audio Zone service, which is available on Vodafone, Idea, Tata Docomo, BSNL and RCom. Daily plans offer 10 minutes of use, while monthly plans allow 30 to 60 minutes every day.

The company is also working on applications for mobiles such as iPhone, Android, Nokia N series and other touchscreen devices. These applications will enable live streaming of STAR Plus channel, including videos of earlier episodes, and news about latest happenings on sets.

The application will also enable users to post videos on social networks, rate content, view images of TV stars and schedules of upcoming shows, listen to songs, and download select pieces of content.

The channel plans to be present on popular tablets such as iPads and Samsung Tab devices. The applications for these devices will have the same features as their mobile counterparts but with richer content quality and personalisation options such as the ability to create playlists and mark favourites.

Star Plus also has plans for up coming internet TV technology, with what it calls The Wow Zone, wherein users of Google TV, PS2 and Xbox will be able to watch pre recorded Star Plus programmes. Wow Zone will also have features that are available on mobile and tablet devices. This service is currently targeted at overseas Indians who would like to watch the channel but do not have access to it. Although internet TV such as Google TV is yet to pick up in India, the future is certainly moving in that direction. The move will not only provide users with flexibility, but will also bring additional viewers to the channel, and the ability to deliver advertisements in a more engaging way, thereby improving revenue.

These services also have the potential of increasing interactivity with TV viewers whose only medium of interaction has been through SMSs. Now it will be possible for them to tell the channel if they like or dislike a programme on a real time basis.

The channel has not announced tariff plans or launch dates for services apart from the audio zone, but says it will do so in a few months.

The Karnataka Vocational Training and Skill Development Corporation (KVTSDC) has partnered with IBM to develop a mobile platform which will connect the job seekers with skill training agencies and prospective employers through mobile.

The platform, Smarter Employability Platform, will help increasing effectiveness of employment and skill-enhancement programmes in the state.

Through this platform the state wants to reach millions of potentially employable individuals especially in rural areas and in the unorganised sector.

With this platform job-seekers will be able to find available jobs and apply for the same, while understanding job-trends, and also refer opportunities to their friends: all through mobile phones.

Similarly job providers can post jobs, increase their reach, find matching candidates, connect with trainers, and track latest trends through both mobile phones and web channels.

KVTSDC on the other hand will be able to increase the penetration of its programmes and track the latest employment trends itself.

The project will use technologies like Spoken Web, a voice-based equivalent of the World Wide Web, designed to provide information of value to rural and semi-urban people through their mobiles or landlines in local languages.

A mobile crowd-sourcing-platform, which will enable people to offer opportunities to each other, provide referrals.

Additionally, unique skill-matching-techniques will be used to match job-seekers with available jobs while employability analytics will allow employers and the government to understand demand and supply trends.

The employability marketplace will run on the IBM Cloud providing a pay-as-you-go model and elastic scaling.

“Our goal is to enhance employment opportunities in the state by creating a conducive environment for all the stakeholders.” said Vishnukanth Chatpalli, executive director of KVTSDC.

“As the first phase of the proposed project, the Smarter Employability Platform will be implemented in the two districts of Mandya and Bijapur. It will be expanded to eight more districts within Karnataka in the second phase,” added Dr Chatpalli.

99Games, developer and publisher of iPhone, iPad and Mac games, has released WordsWorth HD game for the iPad.

It’s the same game we used to play as a child where you require to link letters to form words on a honeycomb structure. Longer the word, higher the points earned.
WordsWorth for iPhone was one of the first word games to hit the App Store. The game has over 50,000 players across the globe.

“WordsWorth HD is definitely going to be amongst the most enjoyable word games on the iPad delighting word game lovers.”, said Anila Andrade of 99Games.

The game allows you to either play alone or with your friends, there are various modes in the game where you can play in a time bound manner or for unlimited time.

You can also choose the grid 5×5, 6×6, 7×7 and 8×8 grids, higher the grid the more complex it gets. It also tells you the meaning of the word you just formed and there by improving your language skills, as many times it happens that we do not know the exact meaning of a word though we know the spelling.

The other titles developed by 99Games for the iPhone and iPad include The Jim & Frank Mysteries, Mystic Emporium, Create A Mall and Winemaker Extraordinaire.

The game is available now on the App Store for a price of $1.99 (Rs 90 approx).

Google has come up with yet another social networking feature allows users to post reviews on their favourite dining places on Twitter.

It is available through Google Maps App in the Android devices. The NFC enabled HotPot service from Google is also supported.

To post a review, users will have to open Google Maps. When finished, the app gives users an option to post the review to Twitter.

Users can also ping their friends using Latitude (location tracking service by Google), so if your friends are nearby, you can choose to meet each other. The Ping feature can only be used by these features if all the users have upgraded to the latest Android version.