WIRELESS AND MOBILE NEWS

Nielsen recently launched its 'App Playbook,' surveying more than 4,200 people who had downloaded an application in the past 30 days.

• 21% of American wireless subscribers have a smartphone at Q4 2009, up from 19% in the previous quarter and significantly higher than the 14% at the end of 2008
• 14% of mobile subscribers have downloaded an app in the last 30 days
• Average number of apps: Smartphone: 22, Feature phone: 10
  • BlackBerry: 10
  • iPhone:37
  • Android: 22
  • Palm: 14
  • Windows Mobile: 13

In regards to types of apps, games are the most downloaded - both free and paid. While Facebook, Google Maps and Weather Channel are the most popular apps across smartphones

• iPhones: Facebook (58%), iTunes (48%), Google Maps (47%)
• Android: Google Maps (67%), Facebook (50%), Weather Channel (38%)
• Blackberry: Facebook (51%), Google Maps(34%), Weather Channel (28%)

For social networking Facebook clearly favorite app, but MySpace is hugely popular among teens; LinkedIn attracts adults 25-44.

For News/weather, the Weather Channel was used by 58%; age distribution across sites was similar, save for Time Mobile and Thomson Reuters.

For Shopping: Amazon and eBay lead (57% and 41%)

• Search/Map: skew male, particularly Instamapper (80/20)
• Video/Movie: skewed towards males; Imeem and Moviefone show a higher proportion of young users
• Music: iTunes, Pandora, Sirius XM appeal more to males, while Yahoo Music almost evenly split (51/49)