According to research company Gartner, more people will buy smartphones by 2012 than PCs (via Reuters).  With that growth in smartphone purchases will come an even bigger growth in the development of mobile apps for those smartphones.  In 18-months, smartphone owners downloaded over 3 billion apps from Apple’s App Store.  Considering that sales of iPhones are expected to grow by 50% this year while sales of PCs are only expected to grow by 20%, Gartner’s predictions don’t seem too far off base.

The vast majority of mobile apps are offered for free or for less than $1.  By offering mobile apps for low costs, developers and companies expect to earn a comfortable return based on a higher quantity of downloads than a higher price would deliver.  However, precedent has been set for offering valuable content for a higher price tag (read “Even Expensive iPhone Apps Sell“).

Clearly, the mobile app market is growing fast, and given the shift in buying behavior to smartphones from PCs in the immediate future, creating an app strategy should be on the strategic planning radar of every company.  Mobile apps aren’t limited to iPhones anymore.  BlackBerry, Google, and Palm are growing in terms of mobile app availability, too.  Consumers are driving a shift to mobility that will only continue to grow.

Now, if only my current mobile phone contract would expire so I can get a new smartphone and some cool apps!

Image: Flickr

Time for another blogger video interview from the Newstex Blogger in the Spotlight Video Interview Series where we turn the spotlight on the bloggers, Twitter publishers, and video publishers who syndicate their Authoritative Content through Newstex.

This Blogger in the Spotlight Video Interview features Jay Brewer of Blogpire, a blog network that offers news, reviews, and more about products in a variety of niches.  Watch the video below to learn more about Jay and his successful blog network.

Watch for more Blogger in the Spotlight video interviews coming to the Newstex YouTube Channel soon!

It seems like everyone is creating an iPhone app lately, and let’s face it, there’s a reason why.  Mobile devices are here to stay, and consumers’ demands from those devices are going to keep growing.  Just as everyone needs to have a website these days, we’re not far from the day when everyone needs to have a mobile app.  Even Newstex is offering mobile apps!

The question that many app providers and developers are trying to answer relates to the money (doesn’t it always come down to money?).  The reason is simple.  Someone has to create, update, and maintain apps, and all that work isn’t cheap.  While most mobile apps are still free, there are more and more apps popping up each day with a price tag.  The current trend is to price apps low in order to sell a greater quantity.  However, a higher priced app can be successful.  That’s exactly what the Major League Baseball At Bat 2010 iPhone app has shown the world.

The At Bat 2010 iPhone app costs $15, but despite the high price tag, the app is ranked as the second best-selling app from the iPhone App Store.  According to Business Insider, who estimates the app is selling at 10,000-25,000 copies per day, the At Bat 2010 iPhone app is also the top grossing app in the App store (although that’s not surprising given its price tag and popularity).

So what makes people willing to pay for the At Bat 2010 iPhone app?  Features, exclusive content (including live games), a built in audience, and great technology create the perception that $15 is a reasonable price to have access to content from the sport customers already love.

The bottom-line is this: the price of a mobile app has to match the perceived value that app brings to consumers.  If a developer can strike that balance, then they’ll be on the road to success.

A new study by Sysomos uncovered an interesting relationship between blog authority and YouTube.  According to the study results, blogs with more authority link more frequently to news and politics videos on YouTube while blogs with less authority link more frequently to music and entertainment videos.  Check out the chart below for details.

Furthermore, North American bloggers are more likely to link to news and politics videos on YouTube than bloggers from other parts of the world.

But that’s not all the study revealed about the relationship between blogs and YouTube.  57% of all YouTube videos in blogs are embedded or linked to by bloggers between the ages of 20-35.

It was also reported that the average video viewed lasts between 4-5 minutes.

There is no doubt that online video is hot in 2010.  For bloggers who want to establish themselves as authoritative sources, video is an excellent option, but why just link to online videos when you can create your own?  Follow the link to see some great examples of the authoritative content being produced by Newstex video publisher partners.

Welcome to the first interview in the new Newstex Blogger in the Spotlight Video Interview Series where we turn the spotlight on the bloggers, Twitter publishers, and video publishers who syndicate their Authoritative Content through Newstex.

The first Blogger in the Spotlight Video Interview features Kelly Jad’on of BasilandSpice.com, a blog that offers views on healthy living from over 300 authoritative contributors.  Watch the video below to learn more about Kelly and her successful blog.

Watch for more Blogger in the Spotlight video interviews coming to the Newstex YouTube Channel soon!

Time for the Publisher INsider where we highlight some of the most INovative, INteresting and INspirational content providers that are part of Newstex Authoritative Content.

This month, the Publisher INsider profiles The Daily App Show whose varied content is offered through Newstex Authoritative Content.

If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, then you’ve probably visited the iPhone app store where there are thousands and thousands of apps available for you to download and use.  Unfortunately, it can be completely overwhelming and challenging to find the apps that you’re interested in.

Enter The Daily App Show, a Web site that offers blog and video reviews of iPhone apps, which was founded by Jerad Hill.

The Daily App Show downloads the apps and tests them, and then publishes reviews in the site’s blog or video content.  The videos are well produced and include short demos, reviews, tips and suggestions for using the apps.  They’re short and to the point, which means you can easily watch a number of videos without wasting a lot of time.

The Daily App Show podcast has become so popular that it reached #2 in the Computer and Technology Channel and #22 overall on iTunes.

Anyone can suggest an iPhone app for The Daily App Show to test and review.  Additionally, developers can submit their iPhone apps for review on The Daily App Show at reasonable fees.

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you should check out The Daily App Show for trustworthy reviews, tips, and demos.

Follow the links to check out the Newstex iPhone app and other Newstex mobile apps.

Just last week I published a post about Ken Doctor’s new book, Newsonomics: Twelve New Trends that will Shape the News You Get, and now, I’m able to report that the Newstex and Newsonomics mobile app has officially launched making all of the authoritative content from the Newsonomics blog and Web site available whenever and wherever you want it!

The Newsonomics mobile app delivers full-text content about the emerging business of digital news and how it shapes what we read and know directly to your iPhone or iPod touch device from Ken Doctor’s Newsonomics Web site and blog.

You can check out the Newsonomics app on iTunes.

See the Newsonomics app in action below:

The February 2010 Blogger in the Spotlight is Trisha Torrey who writes the Every Patient’s Advocate blog.

Blogger in the Spotlight is a monthly series where Newstex turns the spotlight on our publishers with in-depth interviews that give you a glimpse into the stories, tips and secrets of successful bloggers and content producers.

This month’s interview is with Trisha Torrey who was diagnosed in 2004 with a rare, fatal lymphoma and told her life would be measured in months not years.

But her intuition told her there was something wrong with the diagnosis.  In search of alternatives to both the diagnosis and chemo, Trisha did some homework, empowered herself, made a few professionals angry, but eventually proved that in fact, she had no cancer at all.

With that odyssey behind her, she changed careers to begin teaching others to improve their chances for better medical outcomes, too.  Today Trisha is known as Every Patients Advocate. She is a newspaper columnist, radio talk show host, About.com’s expert in patient empowerment, and a national speaker who teaches patients how to navigate the unwieldy and dysfunctional health care system.  She’s been quoted by CNN, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, US News and World Report and others.

Her blog, called Every Patient’s Advocate provides tools patients can use to get the healthcare they need.

Trisha’s first book, You Bet Your Life! The 10 Mistakes Every Patient Makes will be published in October 2009.

Learn more about Trisha’s expertise at her websites:  www.EveryPatientsAdvocate.com or http://patients.About.com.  You’ll also find her on Twitter (@TrishaTorrey) and LinkedIn.

Newstex: How did you get started writing your current blog?

Trisha Torrey: I started in my blog in January of 2007 when I realized I had far more to say and comment about than I could possibly fit into my bi-weekly newspaper column.  Blogging seemed like the perfect outlet to turn current health information, which mostly revolved around how the professionals viewed it, into something relevant to patients.

Newstex: What makes your blog unique?

Trisha Torrey: I have a different voice – the voice of a healthcare consumer or a patient needing safe, effective care.  There are plenty of blogs about people’s experience with specific diseases, or complaints about healthcare, but there are very few that focus on using specific experiences, or even current events, and making them into something patients can learn from.  That’s what my blog does.

Newstex: To what do you attribute your blog’s success? (more…)

Ken Doctor (whose blog, Content Bridges, is syndicated by Newstex) has released a new book and supporting Web site called Newsonomics in which he offers his take on the emerging business of digital news, including his 12 laws that will shape the news we get in the future.

Ken’s 12 laws are:

1. In the Age Darwinian Content, You Are Your Own Editor
2. The Digital Dozen Will Dominate
3. Local: Remap and Reload
4. The Old News World is Gone- Get Over It
5. Mastering the Fine Art of Using OPC
6. It’s a Pro-Am World
7. Reporters Become Bloggers
8. Itch the Niche
9. Apply the 10 Percent Rule
10. Media and Marketers Find New Ways to Mix and Match
11. For Journalists’ Jobs, It’s Back to the Future
12. Mind the Gaps

In Newsonomics, Ken includes a chapter for his fifth law, Mastering the Fine Art of Using Other People’s Content, that talks in detail about Newstex and content syndication.  Following is an excerpt from Ken’s book that describes how the art of using other people’s content has evolved.

Newstex President Larry Schwartz operates on Newsonomics Law No. 5: The Great Gathering; or, The Fine Art of Using Other People’s Content (OPC).  He saw newsy content that needed to be organized, gathered and made sense of.  In this case, he made sense of the high-end blog content market.  The market–his customers, who provide news content in turn to libraries, schools, and corporate workplaces–wanted it to be organized.  Technorati had been the first to put together a much-used blog search engine, but then Google’s blog search trumped it.  Both sorted through the blogosphere and made it available to all of us who use the OPen Web, but neither harnessed its value well enough at the top end.

That high end consists of libraries, schools, and corporate workplaces that pay a lot of money each year to get “full feeds” of news, well sorted and well organized, to provide to their patrons, their students, and their workforces.  It’s a world that lives in parallel to the Googles and YUahoos of our time, and there’s a good amount of money in and around the business.  Newstex, though, doesn’t just supply companies that you may not come into direct content with; it is now feeding blogs to the ever-popular Kindle.

If the resellers of news content needed a pipeline of increasingly interesting blog content, then individual bloggers, who produce the content, had no easy pipe to put it into.  Bloggers willingly agree–small checks and a little more notice don’t hurt–to Newstex aggregation.  By aggregating smartly, Newstex gathered well and gathered first, making it hard for competitors to get into the market.  Internet marketers favor efficiency, and those that get something done well and right and on a big scale often can keep competitors at bay.

So Newstex laid the pipe, and that’s the classic role of the middleman.  As we’ve seen, the Internet had taken out many middlemen,–think ad agencies, newspaper distributors, and manufacturers of presses.  Yet, inevitably, what new technologies take away, they create.  New middlemen are needed to grease the wheels of the digital economy.

We all know the industry-leading companies that use the same principles.  Amazon is one, bringing together critical mass of products, reviews and tools.  eBay is another, creating a major merchandise marketplace.  Apple’s App Store brings together tens of thousands of different tools you can get on the Web, and makes them all easily addable to one single device.  The shopping mall–the one you drive to–is probably the best example of commercial aggregation so far invented.

What’s important is aggregation: having more than the other guy.  Just as in the old saying from the greedy eighties aobut toys, in the news world, he who has the most good content wins.

Ken goes on to describe how Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Facebook, and YouTube follow similar models of aggregating other people’s content in a single location to great success.  Newsonomics is a great read, and you can pick up a copy at book stores or online (here’s the Amazon link).

The 2010 SIIA Information Industry Summit was held in January and brought together a variety of digital content industry professionals and experts.  The SIIA captured video interviews with several content industry thought leaders asking them to provide their insights on the future of the content industry.

You can view Newstex President Larry Schwartz’s thoughts on the subject in the video below, and follow the links at the end of this post to view more video insights.

More content industry future insights from:

• Henry Blodget, The Business Insider
• John Blossom, Shore Communications, Inc.
• Ken Doctor, Author, Newsonomics
• Barry Graubart, Alacra
• Daniel Mayer, TEMIS
• Robin Neidorf, Freepint Limited
• Jan Palmen, Innodata Isogen
• Deva Senapathy, Infosys Technologies Limited
• Webb Shaw, J.J. Keller & Associates, Inc.
• Anthea Stratigos, Outsell, Inc.
• Matt Turner, Mark Logic Corporation