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-- Sony Ericsson releases SDK for Flash-Java technology: Four months ago, Sony ( NYSE: SNE ) Ericsson ( NSDQ: ERIC ) Developer World announced Project Capuchin, which allows developers to use features from both Flash Light and Java to build an application. Today, Sony Ericsson is releasing a software developer kit (SDK), which includes a set of APIs, a packaging tool and tutorials. All of these programs are free and available at www.sonyericsson.com/developer . -- PlayPhone launches TV channel to sell mobile content: Mobile Entertainment company PlayPhone said today that it will launch a TV channel through joint venture with Top Up TV , a company providing TV services for Digital Terrestrial Television. The channel is called Playphone Hits and will be used to show off the mobile content offered by Playphone's Splash Mobile service. Programming will include music videos and competitions, but there will always be a Playphone presence on the screen, which will offer ringtones, games, celeb videos, news and gossip and other content. Viewers will be able to text to interact, or visit the Splash Web site at http://uk.splashmobile.com . The channel will Sept. 6. -- Business app market: U.S. businesses will spend up to $11.6 billion on mobile applications by 2012, according to new research from Compass Intelligence . This year U.S. businesses are expected to spend an estimated $4.9 billion on mobile applications. The apps include mobile productivity, contact management, GPS/Navigation, Email, security, file sharing, collaboration and tools. The report names both Apple ( NSDQ: AAPL ) and Google ( NSDQ: GOOG ) as leading vendors in promoting this trend. -- HipCricket is segment leader: Frost & Sullivan named HipCricket as the winner of the 2008 Market Penetration Leadership Award for its ability to deliver mobile marketing campaigns for radio and TV, specifically targeted at the Hispanic-American market. -- Qik On Windows Mobile: Qik, the live-streaming mobile service...

GetJar , which distributes free mobile applications to consumers on the Internet and over the phone, said it is branching out its business by building application storefronts for wireless carriers. A few months ago, that would have been unheard of because carriers typically want to own the relationship with their subscribers. But with the success of Apple's ( NSDQ: AAPL ) App store, which Steve Jobs said made $30 million in its first four weeks, copycats are really starting to take off. For example, earlier this month, I reported that T-Mobile will create an open storefront this Fall that would allow developers to sell their applications freely to their subscribers, and yesterday Google ( NSDQ: GOOG ) announced the Android Market, a store for Android phones when they become available later this year. Of course, there's other app stores too, including Handango, which sells apps to smartphone users. When I met up with Bill Scott, GetJar Network's VP of sales and business development in Seattle this week, he said GetJar is seeing the same trend and is starting to work with carriers to distribute free apps on their decks. The numbers are convincing. So far, GetJar claims that consumers have downloaded 300 million applications in total from its site, with a monthly average of about 13 million downloads worldwide and more than 500,000 in the U.S. It distributes everything from Google Maps and Yahoo's ( NSDQ: YHOO ) Go to nifty, but also less useful items, such as Disco Light, which makes your phone flash, and Battery Drainer, which makes your phone flash and beep until it's dead. Adult entertainment is also fair game. The company initially had no intentions of being an app store, but Founder Ilja Laurs of Lithuania stumbled into it. As a game developer, he always had a hard time getting his games tested. One day he posted it on a Web site, asking people to download it for free and report any bugs (That also explains the company's name...Jar is the suffix...

Sprint ( NYSE: S ) announced today that it has integrated location-based services into its XOHM WiMax wireless broadband network. The company also announced a slew of content relationships that will provide location-based services to customers when the network launches. In the release, the company stressed the importance of developers and customers being able to tap into this information, which sounds more open than most relationships with wireless carriers today. The location services can be utilized in all sorts of devices, including laptops, mobile Internet devices, media players, cameras and car navigation. Rick Robinson, vp of Xohm Services: "The Xohm mobile broadband experience will be largely location-centric. We're creating a new dimension to online presence, making points of interest near your current location easy to identify and access. This 'geobrowsing' effect provides location context and will give Xohm members a richer personal broadband experience when they're mobile." As a reminder, the company will launch its Baltimore network commercially this September with other cities expected in the fourth quarter. I can imagine if and when Sprint and Clearwire ( NSDQ: CLWR ) merge, they'll adopt these services, rather than have to rebuild them from scratch. Here's some of the services that will be available from the Xohm Portal at launch: -- uLocate Communications: The company will be the backbone of its service, and provide its WHERE platform, and friend-finding app Buddy Beacon. Users will also have access to restaurant reviews, news, events and weather through partners such as Yelp, Eventful, Topix, NAVTEQ ( NYSE: NVT ) and Accuweather. -- Google: The company is contributing Local Search along with additional features and functionality from Google ( NSDQ: GOOG ) Maps. -- Openwave ( NSDQ: OPWV ) Systems: The company is providing the location platform that enables XOHM partners to use location to provide valuable services. -...

The worldwide mobile advertising market will be worth more than $12 billion by 2011, Gartner forecasts, but cautions that carriers must be careful if they want to get a piece of the pie, especially since well-established players such as Nokia ( NYSE: NOK ), Google ( NSDQ: GOOG ), Yahoo ( NSDQ: YHOO ), MySpace and Microsoft ( NSDQ: MSFT ) are all pursuing the mobile revenue opportunity as well. King-Yew Foong, a Gartner research director, said operators should take advantage of their position, and use SMS and MMS, email, mobile search, location-based services to deliver targeted advertising messages, while at the same time regulating spam and a user's privacy. The report also found that they have to convince advertisers and marketers of how they are different from the internet search giants such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, and other traditional advertising mediums, such as newspapers and TV. The report concludes that right now, carriers are not credible players, but they can successfully leverage their relationships with customers, knowledge of local markets, extensive customer databases, network control and multiple channel access. Release. Social Media Deals Report: This 199-page report, filled with charts and data, examines the categories, number and size of VC and M&A deal in social media from 2007 through 2008. Visit the ContentNext Reports page

Our sister site PaidContent.org is reporting that ESPN ( NYSE: DIS ) and Major League Baseball's Advanced Media group (MLBAM) are extending their digital rights deal through 2013. Staci Kramer covered the news in two posts, one of which covers the basics , and in another that includes interviews with ESPN's John Skipper and MLBAM's Bob Bowman. Specifically, the deal will include alternative devices, such as phones, but also video game consoles and MP3 players. Here's the details: -- Platforms included: The deal covers ESPN.com, ESPN360.com, ESPN's mobile initiatives (ESPN Mobile TV, ESPN Mobile Publishing, ESPN MVP), and emerging platforms including video game consoles, interactive television, interactive online (ESPN Game Cast) and portable devices (examples: iTunes/iPod, Zune, XBox Live). This includes "all new platforms ESPN creates or develops relationships with through the end of the agreement." It also covers syndication of ESPN-licensed content. -- Countries covered: The rights extend worldwide with the exception of some Asian and Pacific Rim markets, including Korea, Japan, China and other countries covered under a different agreement with ESPN Star. -- Live streaming: For the first time, Major League Baseball will allow live streaming of games. In addition to live game and event streaming, ESPN gets expanded online and mobile highlight rights. -- The reason for the new deal: Skipper explained that a lot of the earlier deal was structured around Mobile ESPN because "we needed extensive rights to do our own phone." But since the MVNO has now defunct, it made sense to reexamine the rights. Related ESPN-MLBAM Extend Digital Rights Deal Through 2013; Live Game Streaming, International ESPN-MLBAM: Skipper: 'Just Needed A New Deal', Bowman: Local Live Steaming 'When Time Is Right' Social Media Deals Report: This 199-page report, filled with charts and data, examines the categories, number and size of VC and M&A...

Despite the fact that the Nokia ( NYSE: NOK ) sells a phone every 18 seconds, the Finnish phone manufacturer doesn't get much respect in Silicon Valley, Forbes reports today . The publication observed these feelings at a July conference organized by TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, who said: "I believe that Nokia and Symbian are irrelevant companies at this point." In defense, David Rivas, a Nokia vp in charge of its smart phone software efforts, said: "You're ignoring Japan, you're ignoring Korea. The statement that somehow the Web has not been mobile until the iPhone is absurd and back to the point about parochialism." To add injury to insult, an audience heckler yelled at Rivas: "Wake up!" So, what do you think? To discount Nokia seems like a mistake, but at the same time, the question is an interesting one: Will the mobile Web be owned by Internet giants like Google ( NSDQ: GOOG ), Microsoft ( NSDQ: MSFT ), or even Apple ( NSDQ: AAPL ), or will incumbent mobile companies, such as Nokia or even Sony ( NYSE: SNE ) Ericsson ( NSDQ: ERIC ), do the better job? Who's correct? The iPhone and BlackBerry touting VCs, startup execs and bloggers, or the likes of Nokia? It's undeniable that Nokia has been a phone manufacturer for decades, not a software company. But Nokia's a year into a massive transformation. It wants to own the mobile experience on the phone, not just the phone. It has made investments in everything from music to file-sharing to advertising. It's also purchased Symbian, the mobile operating system, which it intends to give away and make open source. Meanwhile, it's hard to not look at RIM's ( NSDQ: RIMM ) Blackberry, Apple's iPhone, or even Google's Android as worthy efforts, given those companies' track-records in Internet and software applications vs. Nokia's background in manufacturing. In an attempt to clear up the matter, Forbes reported a number of races in which the...