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Last week, I caught up with Jeff Holden , the CEO of Pelago , which is developing Whrrl , an application for mobile phones that lets people share opinions about events and restaurants and organize meet-ups with friends. Pelago has the distinction of being the first investment of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer's iFund, which is dedicated to funding iPhone applications. It subsequently also raised funds from T-Mobile's investment arm, among others. But Holden, who is a former Amazon exec, is distinctive in his own right. From his office in downtown Seattle, where he was wearing cargo shorts and a polo shirt on a rainy day, he covers ground quickly, and makes whopping predictions. One is that Amazon ( NSDQ: AMZN ) will become a hardware company and the second is something he's banking on—that Apple's ( NSDQ: AAPL ) iPhone will evolve from a niche device to one that gains double-digit market share. When it comes to explaining his company's vision, he references scenes from sci-fi movies and uses made-up words and phrases, like "foot-streaming" and the "digital augmentation of the physical world." He addressed the challenges they faced with the first iPhone app, the new version; integration into Facebook and Twitter, and the carriers Whrrl will launch with soon. Holden summarizes his excitement by drawing parallels between Pelago and Amazon: "Whrrl makes people's lives a lot better. Amazon made their lives a lot better, too. I get charged about that." Here's a summary of our conversation: -- The iPhone app: The Whrrl application launched In July with the App store, but received hundreds of complaints on its landing page for not using GPS and not being able to zoom to find restaurants. Holden said it still was downloaded more than 100,000 times over the first few days, and that iPhone users have been more active and engaged than users on the Blackberry platforms. A new iPhone version launched in the last week solves...

MediaFLO USA beefed up its news programming slate over the weekend with the addition of three new permanent 24/7 cable news channels: CNBC, MSNBC and Fox News. NBC Universal's NBC News2Go channel, which pulled content from the network's various news properties, has been replaced by the two NBC news channels in the programming guide. By Sunday evening, MediaFLO's temporary NBC Olympics mobile channel, which was exclusive to AT&T, was no longer in the lineup and the news channels began cropping up. The new channels are available on Verizon ( NYSE: VZ ) and AT&T ( NYSE: T ). The channels come just in time for the US political party conventions. ( 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

Verizon Wireless ( NYSE: VZ ) is in final stages of a deal with Google ( NSDQ: GOOG ), on a comprehensive search deal...Google will be the default search provider on Verizon devices and give it a share of ad revenue. The deal isn't yet final yes, the story says, and the two sides are still negotiating on key issues such as Google's desire to save information from user cellphone searches...that would be tricky, for sure. Interestingly, Medio, which is already working with VZW on, will be managing the all-in-one search, searching the phone's content, the deck's content and open-Web. That gives the Seattle based search company new relevance, and who knows, maybe even be bought by Google in the long term. The Google search could be on the VZW homescreen. Later on, the deal could extend to Verizon's Web portal and even its FiOS TV service, the story says. This would be a thawing of relationship between the two giants : Verizon is the only operator that has publicly dismissed Google-backed Android initiative. Also, during the spectrum auction earlier this year, Verizon was the biggest critic of the open-spectrum plan that Google heavily pushed for. This a good deal overall in simplifying the mobile search market. But as phones open up, users will be able to use whichever search engine they desire, not the ones deemed official by the carriers. Witness this smart move by Yahoo ( NSDQ: YHOO ) for its OneSearch product and a shortcut on the homescreen of Nokia ( NYSE: NOK ) S60 devices. Where's the carrier here? Sure, this is only for a minority of the users now, but surely it will become a lot more common and easier, as easy, hopefully, as choosing whichever search engine you want to go to on your PC. For now, in this early days of mobile search, such exclusive deals abound: Sprint ( NYSE: S ) Nextel is working with Google and recently added it as the default search bar on browsers in over 40 of its phones. AT&T ( NYSE: T ) users Yahoo. By the way...

Starting this fall, T-Mobile USA will take the extraordinary step of ditching its traditional deck on the phone and replacing it with a platform that's open to almost any developer, multiple sources have told us. Think of *Apple's'* App store, but for the entire carrier's handset line-up from smartphone to feature phone. As one developer, who was briefed on the matter, said: "The App store was a big deal, but that's one phone. This is an entire carrier." In other words, we are talking about T-Mobile's 31.5 million subscribers today vs. the 10 million iPhones Apple ( NSDQ: AAPL ) expects to sell by year-end (granted, the iPhone users tend to be more engaged as early adopters). The impact of this move by T-Mobile could set off a wave of changes in the industry, as other carriers feel pressure to offer new applications on their networks. Clearly, for this to happen, T-Mobile will have to follow through on its promises to encourage developers to participate. We are waiting for a statement from T-Mobile and will update when we have it. Here's the details: Developers will submit their applications online; the revenue-share agreement will be based on how much the application uses the network; and the applications will be presented to the user in order of popularity, not according to T-Mobile's preferences. It's all pretty straightforward, but the more interesting aspect is that this will apply to all the carrier's platforms from upcoming Android to Java to Sidekick and Windows Mobile . And, when it comes to revenues, it will be almost as easy as Apple's 30-70 split. T-Mobile will take a percentage of revenues based on bandwidth, so if it's a streaming video application, it will take more. Still, one developer called the baseline "very generous." Right now, there's not many details on the certification process, which will be the most important aspect. If developers have to jump through a lot of hoops, the...

Here's a shocker: consumers given the freedom and control to download the applications of their choice, may just end up using the services more. After years of fiercely controlling the applications that consumers can use on their networks, operators are beginning to loosen up. As the NYT notes, some of the new openness has been forced on them by the moves of rivals, some of it from their own experiences of cracking open the consumer experience. The results though are the same: operators are seeing data usage surge as consumers snap up applications, and more smartphones being bought—not a bad thing at a time when voice ARPU is heading south. Apple's App Store, for instance, saw 25 million applications for the iPhone downloaded in the first ten days of its opening. VC's like what they see too: tech research firm Rutberg & Company said their investment in applications jumped 90 percent in the first half of 2008 to $383 million, compared to the last half of 2007. The new openness has been going on for about nine months now, kicked off by Verizon's announcement last November that it would open up its network to any device compatible to its network. Nokia ( NYSE: NOK ) recently announced it would take control of Symbian and open it up for free. LiMo, the foundation promoting a Linux-based OS, said today seven new mobile phones would use its OS--including Panasonic, Motorla and NEC--for a total of 21 handsets. But of course, there are degrees to the new "openness". For one, there's a confusing array of mobile OS's, with varying interpretations of openness. Aside form Linux, Symbian, and Apple ( NSDQ: AAPL ), there's BlackBerry, plus the OS's from Microsoft ( NSDQ: MSFT ), Palm ( NSDQ: PALM ), and in the fall if all goes well, Google's Android. While an application may work on one OS, it may not work so well on another, open or not. Carriers, phone makers and software developers also have their own definition of "open."...

-- Qwest Begins Selling Wireless Services Under Verizon Wireless Brand: Qwest has begun offering Verizon Wireless services to all of its new residential and business customers in its service area. Under the new five-year agreement that came after Qwest dropped its MVNO business arrangement with Sprint ( NYSE: S ), Qwest can sell its customers a suite of products and services from Verizon Wireless ( NYSE: VZ ). Current Qwest Wireless customers will soon be notified of the change, the company said, but won't be required to do anything for some time to come. When those customers are eventually required to switch to Verizon Wireless, Qwest will waive contract termination fees and provide special offers. Billing systems between both companies are expected to be integrated this fall. ( Release .) -- W3C Releases Mobile Web Best Practices: A new group of best practices for the mobile web has been released by W3C, short for the World Wide Web Consortium. The guidelines are aimed at helping content creators develop content that works on the widest array of mobile devices possible. Other issues such as user experience, data input and page scrolling are tackled in the document as well. The organization also launched a mobile OK checker that works alongside its validator . -- Criss Angel Mindfreak Adds Text-In Component To Latest Stunt: A&E has added a text-in component to the latest special from Criss Angel Mindreak that airs tonight. For his latest stunt, Angel will be shackled inside a six-story former hotel in Florida where he'll attempt to escape before the building is imploded. Viewers will be able to send supportive text messages to him during the event, which will appear at AETV.com and a JumboTron located at the site. The network's also offering a subscription to a text blog that will send live updates every 10 minutes from the event to their mobile phones. -- Telegent Systems Gets Mobile TV Chipset Into ZTE Devices: Telegent Systems inked a deal with ZTE...