While companies like Apple have not included social links into address books – Facebook (in its v3.0 app for iPhone) makes it quite easy to call your fellow friends, follow their tweets and see other social activities (which will only develop further given Facebook’s recent acquisition of Friendfeed).

iTunes 9 arrived this week and did not offer as many social features as people were guessing would arrive. While Apple’s address book remains social-less, Palm Pre has a pretty social rolodex.

And, here’s some recent research about social + address books + cell phones:

• Thomas Hussen, a researcher at Forrester, writes more questions than information as he discusses social address books and the connection of those friend lists to mobile phones.

He writes, “It is not clear yet who is best positioned to tap into consumers’ social address books but it is quite clear mobile phones offer a great potential as they are not only communication devices but increasingly consumption and creation tools.”

• Now we have VisionMobile contributor Florent Stroppa also tackling mobile social books.

His premise: “For years, mobile network operators have invested billions of dollars in networks, subsidized phones and targeted marketing campaigns. Yet they have neglected one of the most used applications on the mobile phone: the address book.”

• And, in related social address book news here’s a Wall St. Journal article about Yahoo! adding social features to its e-mail.
• Don’t forget, Google Wave (an attempt at creating a new mode of social connecting and messaging) comes out later this month.

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Why build an app built on news information?

Fluent Mobile has developed proprietary algorithms for organizing, aggregating, and delivering dynamic mobile content.  We chose to initially apply our technology to the news space for several reasons, but one of the key factors is the high volume of users that are already reading news over mobile devices.  A recent Comscore survey found that more than 22 million people in the U.S. access news each day using a mobile device. The same survey found that more than 60 million people in the U.S. access news over mobile on a monthly basis.  Furthermore, the penetration of news over mobile is even larger on “higher-end” mobile devices. Another survey found that nearly 85% of iPhone users read news on their phone.  Fluent Mobile believes that the number of mobile news readers is very likely to significantly increase as well.

How do you feel this app fits in with the future of media?

The numbers above actually speak to an important and exciting shift in how people get their news. We are in the middle of the transition from paper to desktop to mobile.  The transition from paper to desktop has already happened, and we are in the middle of the second step right now.  Fluent News is helping to define that transition. Specifically, Fluent News is the first and only iPhone application to aggregate exclusively made-for-mobile content from the most trusted news sources across the Web into a single, easy-to-read and up-to-the-minute mobile newspaper.

What do you think about the future of newspapers? Of media organizations? Of media?

It is both an exciting and scary time for the newspapers and media organizations.  People are increasingly expecting ubiquitous access to all information, and the dynamic nature of news creates significant such demand in the news industry specifically.  However, this does not mean that people do not care about the quality of the content that they read.  There will always be a place for high quality, professionally sourced and verified content.  As long as media organizations can keep pace with the changes in how news is  delivered, there will be a central role for them.   We think of Fluent Mobile as a partner to the media organizations as they navigate this challenge in response to people’s changing demands and needs for a better mobile experience.

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New iPhones, if unveiled, COULD:  be “ultra-thin,” include a front-facing camera as TechCrunch suggests, a matte black finish, go on sale at WWDC – which would make tons of people happy, be available in 16GB and 32GB models, include a low-cost 4GB iPhone, the new phones would be a stand against the Palm Pre — which people say was modeled after the iPhone, AT&T is increasing its high-speed wireless data network that could help out new iPhones, the iPhones could be called iPhone Video and go on sale right after the WWDC keynote, or the iPhones could not be available Monday — and only announced Monday, they could include a glowing Apple logo — sure another battery life waster!, the camera may be beefed up to 3.2 megapixels (if this happens, I’ll sing out in joy!), oh yeah, and Walt Mossberg may ALREADY have the new iPhone!

Mr. Jobs could return with a rock-star like performance to lead Apple, because some senior managers are hinting that Jobs will return in time to unveil a new product. Also, he’s been sounding energetic lately, surely a good sign.

The App Store will likely steal much of the show — as pointed to by WWDC banners and Apple’s stocks since the app store went live.

iPhone OS 3.0 is a crowd and rumor favorite: iPhone OS 3.0 may surprise users and let them share or suggest apps, 3.0 could also include radio tagging – something needed for Nike Sport Kit, these blurry photos taken in China could show camera auto-focus and a compass to be added with 3.0, users may be able to download movies straight to iPhones — wirelessly that is, TUAW has several last-minute suggestions for 3.0 – including organizing apps for each screen on your desktop computer – something that would save me much frustration and time, votes in a poll at TUAW show most people guess 3.0 will become available right after the WWDC keynote, Safari with 3.0 could include location awareness (accessing the phone’s GPS functionality and something that could mean a soon launch of Google Latitude for the iPhone), and parental controls within the app store.

Oh yeah, and that Snow Leopard thing will be discussed. iPhones sure do steal the pre-WWDC show.

Related posts from mblapps:

1. Photoshop for iPhone should focus on what it does best – image editing

Worldwide Opera is No. 1 with iPhone behind. In the United States and United Kingdom iPhone is No. 1 with iPod Touch second. China has Nokia No. 1 (way ahead of the others) followed by Opera, Sony and iPhone. And, to throw in a really strange stat, in South Korea — 91 percent of mobile web browser use went through iPod Touch, with all the others muddled together in the single digit percentage range.

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A good, but not complete, guide to the smartphone platforms on the market. The post focusess on hardware, and largely ignores software. I believe that the design of mobile phones, and tech products in general, must have harmonious hardware and software. Also, apps (largely ignored by Mossberg) are a huge part of mobile phones and that will only continue to grow.

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It’s no joke, on April 1 RIM debuted BlackBerry App World for the U.S., U.K. and Canada so users can buy apps via mobile over WiFi and cellular networks.

The app store brings the convenience of buying apps via mobile to customers, means mobile developers can make more money by adjusting one app to work across platforms (Windows Mobile, iPhone, Android, BlackBerry), and will bring more marketing and advertising opportunities to companies.

The biggest BlackBerry advantage with this app store launch is that it follows Apple and Android. The company has smartly avoided obstacles and added features so it can better meet user’s needs. Those features include: BlackBerry launched with a payment system via PayPal (Android took months to offer paid apps because it had no way to charge users), apps that have been refined for iPhone and Android can now be in RIMs store (Shazam, New York Times, Pandora, etc.), changing weekly the featured page in the app store (Apple changes its new and what’s hot sections every Tuesday to keep users buying), and finally My World — a folder on the user’s BlackBerry that shows a user’s downloads and allows for easy re-installing and for transferring to a new BlackBerry model.

BUT, there are many things holding the App World back that Apple did not have to contend with when it launched the iPhone App Store in July 2009.

• When the Apple app store launched all of its iPhone and iPod Touch users were required to have iTunes accounts, making it very easy for Apple to set-up the payment system for the app store. Not so much for Android (which took a few months to add this feature) or BlackBerry. BlackBerry made the right decision by launching with a payment system, using PayPal accounts. A simple approach, but a set-back because not all of BlackBerry’s customers would already have had a PayPal account.

• iPhone came first to the apps game. Well, actually that was Palm followed by Windows Mobile. But, what’s important is that Apple made apps cool. Apple has TV ads dedicated to just app functionality, my friends at parties show off their latest apps and news media across the country write about the latest apps frequently. Android came second to the new app game and BlackBerry’s third. It will be tough for RIM now to get the full attention of mobile developers already developing for Apple and Android.

• Not all BlackBerrys can run the app store.The store works for BlackBerry smartphones with a trackball or touch-screen running BlackBerry device software 4.2 or higher. Apple and Android have but one smartphone each. That makes it easier for designing the apps (touch versus non-touch phones, i.e.), launching the app store and making imporvements to the app store in the future. Also, while Apple and Android can launch an update to the operating system that benefits all apps and app developers, BlackBerry would have to upgrade all of the operating systems for app store-accessing phones.

• BlackBerry works with multiple wireless companies recently launching the Bold on AT&T, the Flip on T-Mobile and the Storm on Verizon. While users with Android app questions can just go to T-Mobile and iPhone customers needing help can go to Apple or AT&T, BlackBerry customers will be going to almost all cellular stores looking for help — which makes it very difficult to offer reliable customer service.

• Much of RIM’s strategy has been the workplace. In fact, BlackBerry was excited that the iPhone is a difficult sell to companies standared in BlackBerrys and Microsoft Outlook. Now, that advantage now poses a threat to the BlackBerry app store. If workers are given BlackBerrys by their bosses, they will likely be on the companie’s phone plan and they may be limited on bandwidth which will be used every time they download an app. BlackBerry, smartly, by using PayPal avoids workers’ app charges going to the companies.

Related posts from around the web: RIMs Latest Apple Apps Won’t Catch on Well: Here’s Why, GoMo Buzzwatch: Blackberry launches App World mobile application store, Rumor Redux: Storm 2 has Wi-Fi, better text input, Specs of three upcoming BlackBerrys leak out, Review: BlackBerry App World [Update 2]

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Research firm In-Stat shows, by surveying phone users, that iPhone owners are the most active app store users “signficantly outpacing” users of Blackberry, Palm OS or Windows Mobile phones.

One more interesting note: another In-Stat report found that the median number of apps downloaded for all platforms (including the iPhone) is below five apps per user.

The report also forecasts that more than 100 million phones including an app-store will be shipping within the next five years (30 percent of all smartphones on the market.

“Users are downloading more applications. Reach for marketing applications is growing rapidly and those applications can provide prolonged engagement with the user and keep the advertiser’s brand in focus,” says David Chamberlain, In-Stat analyst.

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Study: Mobile App Stores Users to Quadruple by 2014

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), Android, BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM), Windows Mobile, Nokia (NYSE: NOK), even Acer and Samsung, are all pointed towards on-device digital distribution; according to In-Stat, upwards of 100 million handsets with application stores on them will be in the market by 2014.

iPhone App Developers Gripe About Payment Delays and Dismal Customer Service

On this iPhone developer forum, there are numerous threads from developers who are complaining about delays in payments for January and not being paid the amount of money the developers are in fact due from sales.

N-Gage service hits one million registered users

Nokia has revealed that one million N-Gage user accounts have been registered since the service launched a year ago. Perhaps the most remarkable fact, though, is that only in October that figure stood at 400,000.

iPhone app refunds to include additional developer charge?

Kotaku is reporting a rumor that Apple is currently getting iPhone developers to sign-up to an updated contract that could send them into debt for unpopular apps.

Smartphones pulling down 1/3 of all mobile ads

Smartphones, especially touchscreen smartphones are starting to gain traction in the mobile advertising world. A new study has found that fully one-third (33%) of all mobile advertisement requests were made by smartphones in February 2009, up from 26% the previous month.

How Microsoft Keeps Out The Lame Apps

More details are sneaking out about Microsoft’s upcoming marketplace for Windows Mobile phones, and the fine print is concerning some developers, who are asking whether Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is building a marketplace to benefit developers, or a business to line its own pockets.

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So far my favorite use of Facebook Connect is in Scrabble by EA. I started games with Facebook friends from my iPhone and the web, picked up and played the games on both devices and it was all instantly synchronized. To make it even cooler, my player icon in a game shows an iPhone icon rather than a Facebook “F” icon.

• Other apps I have that have added the feature: iBowl (pretty good use, but wish I could filter my Facebook list by iPhone owners), AgencyWars (has no Facebook app, so only iPhone-toting friends will play), Live Poker by Zynga (connected with Facebook long before these other apps) and Scramble (though I cannot find my Facebook games on my iPhone).
• Other apps that I think should add Facebook Connect: Fwix (local news reader), Amazon Kindle (see what friends are reading), Gigotron (LA music shows app), Oregon Trail (re-play score would go way up if I could race my Facebook friends to Oregon), Monopoly (another app that would I would play more often if I could play Facebook friends) and Sneezies (amazing game, would be even better if you could play against friends).

Other news on Facebook Connect from around the web: Scrabble Connected for iPhone Connects to Facebook, Facebook Connect comes to the iPhone and iPod Touch, Facebook Connect for iPhone; the next big thing?, Mobile social network Limbo connects to Facebook through mobile app, Facebook Friends the iPhone, Apps Will Now Connect and Facebook’s Dave Morin On The Search for a More Social Web; Connect Comes To The iPhone.

Related posts from mblapps:

1. Facebook stealing address books from Apple, Palm, Android, Windows

ArsTechnica received an invite and wrote this: “The invite-only event is geared towards the new iPhone SDK, Apple says, and will give the media a “sneak peek” at the iPhone OS 3.0 software. The event will apparently be an intimate one, as it will take place at Apple’s Town Hall building in Cupertino at 10 a.m. Pacific Time.”

Time to put in your requests for the next OS. Vote for your top 5 features in the poll and Monday we’ll have a run-off among those for the No. 1 feature needed. Enjoy!

Related links:

Apple to Preview iPhone 3.0 Next Week (Wired)

Apple to unveil iPhone 3.0 software at March 17th event (AppleInsider)

IM Wars: AIM for iPhone grows up, gets paid version

Exclusive: Slides from Sprint/Palm Webinar, plus a live blog

The crux of the mobile developer conundrum: Forget the 99% without iPhone (Mobile Industry Review)

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