Free To See In The U.s.

Across the U.S., hundreds of free events and activities mean you can celebrate the crowning of Louisiana’s Crawfish Queen, get an insider’s look at NASA’s famed Jet Propulsion Lab, take your basset hound to the beach, and participate in a mad shopping cart race through New York—all without spending a dime.

Free to See in the U.S.

Backlink: http://intelligenttravel.nationalgeographic.com/2011/08/18/free-to-see-in-the-u-s/

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Google+ Is Already The Top Free App For iPhone (GOOG, AAPL)

It hasn't even been a full 24 hours, but the iOS app for Google+ already shot to the top of Apple's charts.

It currently holds the number one spot for free apps. Sorry, “Draw ‘n’ Go: Awesomeness!”

Not only did it claim the top spot so quickly, but it's also already seen an update. TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld calls it the fastest update to an app he's ever seen.

Ever since they've released Google+, the Google team has made it abundantly clear that they're playing for keeps when it comes to social. All signs seem to be pointing in Google's favor for now.

Click here for our full walkthrough of Google+ for iPhone >

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See Also:

• Google+ For iPhone Is Finally Here! Take A Look For Yourself
• Google+ Circles You Can Actually Use [HUMOR]
• Here's How To Turn Google+ Into Chatroulette

Google+ Is Already The Top Free App For iPhone (GOOG, AAPL)

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Google+ Now The Top Free App In The Apple App Store

Google+ Now The Top Free App In The Apple App Store

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Free Marketing For Bloggers

The slideshow for the free online webinar, Free Marketing for Bloggers]]>

Free Marketing For Bloggers

Backlink: http://www.slideshare.net/stepfaniec/free-marketing-for-bloggers

Amazon Has Plans To Offer Free Streaming Movies On Its Secret Tablets (AMZN)

It has been awhile since we've heard anything about Amazon's impending tablets, so here's some good news.

Barron's reports one of the tablets will have access to a streaming movie service, which will be free for the first batch of tablet owners.

This is another great move by Amazon. Android tablets still don't have access to a robust video library like the iPad does. Right now, the Motorola Xoom is the only tablet that has access to the Android Market's streaming service.

Amazon's Instant Video service already has a selection that rivals Apple's, so it makes sense to add it to its new tablets as well.

Now we know why one of the tablets is codenamed "Hollywood."

Don't Miss: 10 Things Amazon's Tablet Must Have In Order To Crush The iPad

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See Also:

• Apple Is Recalling Verizon iPad 2s [REPORT]
• Wow, This App Turns Your iPad Into An iPhone
• ANOTHER LEAK: HP TouchPad Will Launch On June 22

Amazon Has Plans To Offer Free Streaming Movies On Its Secret Tablets (AMZN)

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/Kl-bUVOgbx8/amazon-tablet-may-get-movie-streaming-service-2011-6

FT Launches HTML5 Web App (Free Access First Week)

The Financial Times has launched a HTML5 Web app that enables readers to access content across tablets and smartphones. In a thinly veiled jab at Apple, Financial Times CEO John Ridding comments:

FT Launches HTML5 Web App (Free Access First Week)

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DTWB/~3/RDFbeuCsPnE/

FT Bypasses Apple’s iTunes, Launches HTML5 Web App (Free Access First Week)

The Financial Times would rather not have Apple take a 30 percent cut of in-app subscriptions for its iOS publications, and has launched a HTML5 Web app that enables readers to access content across tablets and smartphones. As part of the Web app's debut, FT will provide free access during launch week. FT acknowledges that the Web app has been initially optimized for the iPhone and the iPad, but says it will also be adapted for Android-based devices and the BlackBerry PlayBook.

FT Bypasses Apple’s iTunes, Launches HTML5 Web App (Free Access First Week)

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/BCruuJOJ770/

Comment on On T-Mobile, All Wi-Fi Calls Are Free by Om Malik

That would be typical of big companies :-)

Comment on On T-Mobile, All Wi-Fi Calls Are Free by Om Malik

Backlink: http://gigaom.com/mobile/on-t-mobile-all-wi-fi-calls-are-free/#comment-624724

How To Make Money from Your Free Apps

Gartner predicts that in 2011 81% of all mobile app downloads will be free. In 2015 mobile ad revenues will be $24B. Paid apps revenues only: $10B. So you can do the math where the beef is.]]>

How To Make Money from Your Free Apps

Backlink: http://www.slideshare.net/gadotitay/how-to-make-money-from-your-free-apps

ANDROID APPS OF THE WEEK: Take Instagram-Style Photos And Call Your Facebook Friends For Free

This week, we'll bring you some Android apps and tweaks you have to see to believe.

One of them lets you use gestures to activate Back, Menu, and Home, and another lets you scope out cell coverage in your area on any service provider.

We even have an app that lets you call friends for free if they're currently logged in to Facebook chat. Not a bad deal.

Click below to see the Android apps that wowed us this week.

Little Photo is the Instagram-clone Android users have been waiting for

Little Photo has 60 effects and filters to make your photos look amazing. 

You can add text to photos, draw on them, and stack filters on top of each other for added effect.

Little Photo doesn't have the stylish sharing options Instagram has, but it has cool effects to boot.

Price: free from the Android Market

ESPN FLB 2011 helps you manage your fantasy baseball team on the go

With this app, you can manage all your Fantasy teams, view league standings, and more.

ESPN incorporates news in a convenient bottom ticker, and you can post messages to your league's message board straight from the app.

Start, bench, and trade players--this app includes the full team management experience.

Price: free from the Android Market

zMooth is a useful root application that replaces your hardware buttons with gestures

zMooth is an app for rooted Android phones that lets you swipe and drag to activate features now accessible via your hardware buttons (back, menu, home, and search).

The app utilize swipes in the blue box that appears at the bottom of your screen, and they work almost like commands in the "gesture area" on the Palm Pre. 

Included commands: swipe left for Back, swipe right for Menu, and draw an up-arrow for Home.

Price: free from the Android Market

View more at Business Insider

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See Also:

• Forget About Dropbox For iPhone, AirSharing Is Your All-In-One Cloud Storage App
• Squrl For iPad Acts As The Instapaper For All Your Online Videos
• This Is The Best Way To Get Photos Off Your iPhone Without Syncing To Your Computer

ANDROID APPS OF THE WEEK: Take Instagram-Style Photos And Call Your Facebook Friends For Free

Backlink: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~3/S3n5qpv2tUQ/android-apps-of-the-week-regina-3d-jajah-little-photo-mozy-and-more-2011-4

Here's Why The New Kindle Isn't Free (AMZN)

Shocker! Amazon cuts the Kindle's price by $25 in exchange for a few advertising zones on the device, and all of a sudden, the geeks on the Internet demand a bigger discount -- or a free Kindle.

Sorry, folks, but a free Kindle just isn't going to happen yet. Maybe someday, but not right away.

Why not?

The biggest reason is that Amazon doesn't yet have a proven business model to recover the price of the Kindle and make a profit on top of that.

This isn't like the mobile phone industry, where carriers are subsidizing the price of your phone by a few hundred dollars in exchange for thousands of dollars of high-margin wireless service over a 2-year contract. Or the printer industry, where you're going to buy expensive toner for 10 years. Or the 4-blade shavers, where you have to drop $20 every time you want to shave with a clean blade.

You don't have a contract with Amazon, promising to buy X number of Kindle books over the first year, or Y number of special offers, with some sort of penalty fee if you don't pay up.

Eventually, Amazon may be able to build a big business displaying special offers on Kindles -- and only if people actually buy stuff through these offers -- plus selling Kindle e-books, periodical subscriptions, movie rentals, etc. (We don't know the margins for Kindle e-books offhand, but they don't strike us as very high.) But that will take a year or more to ramp up. That business can't just appear out of thin air.

It's not like displaying ads themselves would be able to make a Kindle free today.

Assuming Amazon could sell Kindle ads at a rate of $10 per 1,000 impressions, it would need to display 14,000 ads to generate the Kindle's $140 retail price.

Even if you used the Kindle every single day for 2 years, that's almost 20 different ad impressions per day you would have to look at to make the math work. Given that the ad is only being used as a screensaver right now, that is not plausible.

And in the meantime, there are other issues to worry about.

For example, fraud: How many of the new Kindles are going to get wiped and "restored' with no-ad firmware?

And, to some, Amazon's image: If people are going to get mad about ads on the Kindle, it can't be too expensive for people to "upgrade" to the ad-free Kindle for a while, until people realize the ads aren't that bad and could actually be useful.

And if this special offers stuff doesn't work, Amazon will have to pull the plug. It would be weird to just jack the price back up to $140 all of a sudden.

So it makes sense to start subsidizing the Kindle at a small price tag now.

Eventually, the Kindle with Special Offers could reach $99, or even free. Now it's up to Amazon to execute and prove that it can build a business to support the discounts.

Don't miss: Here's Why Amazon's Ad-Supported Kindle Is The Future Of Gadgets

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See Also:

• Here's Why Amazon's Ad-Supported Kindle Is The Future Of Gadgets
• Hey, Google: Amazon Just Beat You At Your Own Game
• Amazon Launches Ad-Supported Kindle For $25 Cheaper

Here's Why The New Kindle Isn't Free (AMZN)

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