AdMob will allocate ad impressions based on the quantity and quality of the inventory that each member contributes.

Given that developers have relatively few outlets to promote their applications outside of Apple's App Store, this looks like a good way for developers to get the word about their applications out to users. Given that the ads appear in other apps, the targeted users are obviously already interested in downloading iPhone apps.

CEO Bill Stone stated that:

"Handango is now offering developers the opportunity to sell the paid apps they create for the Android platform as well as offer any free apps when the first Android device launches. Customers can purchase apps via the Web and then download them to their device."

Handango will provide this golden opportunity to developers looking to profit from their apps on October 22, the anticipated launch date of the G1. Developers will be given several options for selling their app:

• Sell an app for a one-time purchase fee
• Sell an app for a monthly, quarterly or annual subscription fee

The plus side for Google and Handango is that App Store developers don't receive this many options to sell their apps. It could tempt a nice portion of developers to port their apps over to Android if the G1's launch is successful enough.

How Long Will it Last?

A small selection of apps have already been announced for Handango's catalog including Monopoly, The Weather Channel, Voice on the Go, EzQuote, and FitSync. Unfortunately, Google already has plans to allow developers to charge users to download an app. What will happen to Handango? If developers are smart, they'll offer their apps in both marketplaces if possible. Unless Google takes too long to implement the same payment options, Handango may have a little trouble in the future catering to developers trying to sell their apps.

With that in mind, Facebook decided to internally develop a library for creating JavaScript animations in FBJS. "And then we thought: 'why stop there?' The library had very little Facebook-specific code, so we took some time to modularize it, and now we're open-sourcing it for everyone," said Facebook developer Marcel Laverdet.

Facebook is following in the steps of rival web giants Google and Yahoo!, who both have open sourced internal JavaScript libraries. While Facebook's release of the animation library is a far cry from the more complete libraries released by Yahoo! and Google, such as Yahoo!'s YUI or Google's Web Toolkit, it is a step in that direction. Releasing open source development libraries is a very smart thing to do, because it builds capital with developers and attracts developers to your platform. For Yahoo! and Google, their development libraries help to attract developers to their other APIs (such as Google Maps or Flickr). For Facebook, releasing libraries like Animation could help draw more developers toward their platform.

The Animation library is described as a way for developers to create "customizable animations using CSS and DOM manipulation." It is released under a modified BSD license.

While having random ads inserted into their messages might not work for some developers, having access to a free SMS gateway is a very seductive proposition, especially for small developers who don't have the resources to either establish relationships with the big mobile carriers, or who simply don't have the money to pay a commercial provider for access to their SMS gateway.

We asked Zeep Mobile if it had any plans to share revenue from these SMS ads with developers or if it was going to give developers any influence over which ads it would display. However, as of now, Zeep Mobile is not planning anything in this direction, though it would seem reasonable to assume that they might start sharing revenue with developers at some point in the future.

API

Besides the standard web API, Zeep Mobile has also developed Python and Ruby libraries, which developers can use free of charge. As far as we can see, this API is pretty straightforward and well documented.

Still in Beta

It is important to note, though, that the service is still in beta right now and that developers are limited to sending out messages to no more than 10 recipients at a time. Also, while Zeep Mobile has plans to expand beyond the U.S. in the future, the service can only send messages within the U.S. for now and is also limited to a select number of carriers.

Overall, though, this seems like a service worth looking into for developers who wants to start adding some SMS functionality to their applications without having to pay some of Zeep Mobile's competitors like SMS Everywhere, Clickatell, or Celltrust.

Attacking Twitter?

As Nick O'Neill on the AllFacebook blog points out, this move can be seen as a direct attack against Twitter. The early success of Twitter, after all, was mostly based upon the availability of an API that allowed for the creation of a thriving ecosystem that went far beyond what Twitter's developers had originally envisioned.

Creating an Ecosystem

Looking at the announcement, Facebook clearly hopes that a similar ecosystem can develop around its new API. As an example, Facebook explains that it would now be very easy for a travel app to allow its users to create and share notes on Facebook with text, pictures, and videos.

Tearing Down the Wall

Facebook is slowly tearing down the wall around its silo and is starting to expose more of its data to the outside, which can only be a good thing. Just this week, Facebook also joined the OpenID Foundation. There are some legitimate questions about what this means for both OpenID and Facebook Connect, but it looks like Facebook is moving in the right direction.

Facebook faced a small backlash from some developers last month when it appeared that the network was playing favorites with partners.

We noted in early April that MySpace was planning to put out joint press releases with app developers. Giving app developers access to the Fox Interactive Media PR machine was an unorthodox step but it showed developers that the company was serious about pushing apps developed for its platform. Any goodwill that may have been built with developers though, might be lost if MySpace starts playing favorites with well-funded, larger app companies.

App spam, which has been a problem on Facebook, is another issue that MySpace may need to contend with. We're all curious how they will deal with it once the applications platform grows (MySpace currently has 1,000 apps in their Gallery, compared with nearly 24,000 at Facebook); we hope their solution won't be to charge premium access to advertising in the "Friend Subscriptions" feed.

That said, paid advertising for apps within the the confines of the Application Gallery seems pretty benign. It's not much different than application developers paying to place Social Ads on Facebook (something that Facebook encourages on their ad sales page). As long as MySpace makes sure that paid promotion doesn't come at the expense of other applications in its Gallery, they should be fine.

What do you think of MySpace charging for premium real estate in their Application Gallery? Fair game or does it spell trouble for smaller app developers? Will it discourage some developers from utilizing natural viral channels? Let us know in the comments.

Based on the performance of iPhone apps, it's highly likely that we'll see more applications aiming for the lower end of that pricing spectrum than the upper end. But it will be interesting to see if any developers choose to charge a premium price - which isn't nearly as ridiculous as the App Store's $999.99 threshold - for their development efforts. Thankfully, according to the Market, "Once you've set a price for an application, you may choose to change it at any time."

The option of listing priced applications is currently only available to developers in the US and the UK. However, developers from Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, and Spain are slated to be allowed access to sell applications before April 2009. The Android Market hints at additional countries being added before the end of Q1, as well.

In related news, Australia developers just gained the opportunity to upload free applications. Singapore developers will soon have similar options.

For more information on uploading priced apps or purchasing them, visit Android Market support.

Last week Vimeo published a blog post that the company is looking to take on a few developers. Vimeo is currently look for web application and flash developers with AIR development experience.

We're looking for superstar Flash developers:

• Do you have OOP experience in a language other than Flash?
• Does the prospect of your SWF being loaded 7 million times a day excite you?
• You have demonstrable design experience?
• Have you built a Flash video player before?
• Have you built Air applications?

Good News For Vimeo Users

If an AIR application does come down the pipeline, we're sure Vimeo users will be happy video campers. The description does enough to hint at a possible AIR app in the future and tons more. Vimeo users may also see some site changes and additions in the near future too if developers with these skillsets are signed on. Here's to hoping that a Vimeo AIR app comes soon!

According to Mozilla's Justin Scott, 861 add-ons make up 95% of the total usage, while the other 5% are distributed among close to 5000 add-ons. 94% of the top add-ons are currently compatible with Firefox 3.0.

According to Mozilla's compatibility dashboard, as of today, only about 28% of the top 861 extensions are compatible with the latest builds of Firefox 3.1.

Getting to 95%

Currently, Mozilla's evangelism team is trying to reach out to all Firefox developers to make sure that everybody is ready by the time Firefox 3.1 is released. The release date for Firefox 3.1 is currently a moving target, but the second beta version should be available to the public by the end of this month, which might be followed by a third beta before the final version is released.

Some extensions, of course, are abandoned by their developers over time, so it might not be possible for Mozilla to get to the 95% mark for Firefox 3.1, but given the importance of Firefox and the extension ecosystem around it, it is good to see them reach out to developers proactively. For developers, getting ready for 3.1 should also be a priority, as Firefox users tend to update their browser very quickly after a new version is released.

For more information about the transition to Firefox 3.1 for extension developers, have a look at Mozilla's 'Add-on Compatability Center,' which will soon also feature additional tools for developers.

Recently I spoke with Tom Stocky, a Director of Product Management at Google, to discuss Google's sudden interest in web developers.

Stocky told me that we're at an "inflection point for web app development" and that Google is all about "driving usage of the Internet". He said that the Web is now the defacto platform for application development.

To follow up on that, I asked whether the browser is still the key platform for Google. He replied that the main client for web open standards such as HTML, CSS, Javascript etc is the browser - therefore Google continues to support the browser.

But more than that, Google intends to make that client (the browser) more powerful. They also want to make the cloud (the Internet) more accessible.

Furthermore, Stocky sees the browser as being a key part of the Mobile Web going forward.

Google and RIAs

I asked what Google thinks of RIA (rich internet applications) that are run outside the browser. In particular I mentioned that Microsoft and Adobe are both pushing apps outside the browser, using their RIA platforms. Stocky replied that typically companies sell the underlying proprietary platform and then try to get developers to build on top of that (he didn't specifically mention them, but he's obviously referring to MS and Adobe). However, he said, Google's mission is to build on top of the open web platform.

Stocky said that Google not only aims to build on the open Web platform, but actively improve it. He referred to recent Google releases like Google App Engine (a developer tool that enables you to run your web applications on Google's infrastructure) and Google Gears (a browser plug-in which enables people to use web apps while offline).

Why the Sudden Interest in Developers?

I asked Stocky why has Google decided that now is the right time to get web developers behind them? I didn't mention it, but I'm sure it's no coincidence that Google's outreach to developers has happened at about the same time that tech blogs like ReadWriteWeb have gotten access to Google PR and product teams. In other words, up till this year developers and bloggers alike have been subject to a Steve Jobs-like veil of secrecy over the inner workings of Google.

Stocky told me that it's been an evolutionary thing. 2-3 years ago, he said, Google had just a couple of APIs. So there wasn't much to engage developers with at that time. Now in 2008 they have 40+ APIs and Google has "realised the benefits of investing in the open web platform". He also admitted that one of those benefits is that it enhances Google's revenue.

So web developers (and bloggers) are getting a more open, remixable Google in 2008. That's great to see - and we can only wish that a certain Cupertino-based company follows that precedent!

Web Developers, Web Developers, Web Developers!

I did my best to entice a Steve Ballmer-like chant of "Web Developers, Web Developers, Web Developers" out of Tom Stocky, but the best he would give me was: "Google is native to the Web" :-)

What do you think of the new open(ish) Google? And let us know in the comments if you're attending Google I/O and if so what do you expect to get out of it.

Related: ReadWriteTalk did a podcast with Tom Stocky in April.

What that means is that any developers with web collateral in HTML or Flash can easily transform their web widgets into desktop widgets. Yahoo! is already working with the leading web widget distribution platforms, including Netvibes, Clearspring, and MuseStorm, to bring their widgets offline. Netvibes has already committed to bringing the thousands of widgets created for their ecosystem to the desktop via Yahoo! Widgets.

MuseStorm will bring some of its high profile widgets to the desktop by the end of the year, and Clearspring will enable some of their widgets on the Yahoo! platform as well. All three will be able to offer desktop distribution as an option to developers via Yahoo!'s new system.

Yahoo! also soft-launched an updated version of the widget gallery about 10 days ago, and I was told that their ultimate goal is to become the clearinghouse for all desktop widgets that run on their engine, including those ported from web platforms. Right now they list about 4,300 widgets, but that number should grow once web developers start porting their widgets to the desktop.

Allowing developers to take web widgets offline is good news for both developers and users, and will not only mean more widgets available to desktop users, but also more developers creating widgets for the desktop, since now web developers can create desktop widgets by using scripting languages they are familiar with. What would be great is if Yahoo! could go the other way in the next update and make Yahoo! desktop widgets work on the web. Perhaps even on MyYahoo!

Just this afternoon I wrote about platform definitions floated by Marc Andreessen, who called Facebook a level 2 platform -- or a "plug in API." It seems like Facebook might be transitioning into what Andreessen would call a level 3 platform -- one that "handles everything required to run your application on your behalf."

While it's probably smart for Facebook to provide data hosting capabilities and lock developers into the platform even more tightly, for that same reason I'm not sure it makes sense for developers to build apps that rely so heavily on a single platform. If you store you data off site, you can more easily extract your application outside of Facebook, as Where I've Been has done.

As AllFacebook points out, Facebook's acquisition of Parakey earlier this year, points to their desire to become a web OS. Data storage capabilities for platform developers (and users) is a step in that direction.

However, in stark contrast to the 140-character wunder-app, Meme has proven in the months since its release to be a much better platform for multimedia sharing and cross-platform content curation. Now, the Tumblr/Twitter/Posterous hybrid is offering an API built on top of YQL, Yahoo!'s query language that we covered back in May, when we were impressed with its power, versatility, and uniqueness. The Yahoo! team has already used the API to develop a version of Meme for smartphones.

As an example of what YQL allows developers to do, Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brooks told us in May, "YQL... allows you to build tables of data from other sources online, using Javascript as a programming language and run it on Yahoo!'s servers, so the infrastructure needs are very small." Also from our May coverage:

According to Yahoo! Chief Technologist Sam Pullara, the idea behind YQL (launched in October 2008) was to create an agnostic query language similar to SQL, a language familiar to most developers, and let developers use that language to use the Internet as a huge database. "If you make it universally and simply accessible so every application developer doesn't have to learn every API, it's be easier for developers to create apps from the data users have taken so much time to make available on the Internet."

Although YQL looks a lot like SQL, it treats the info on the web as a virtual table that developers can manipulate in a standardized way, regardless of the API that data came from. Developers only had to know how to use YQL to quickly create simple mashups.

Interested developers can check out the Meme documentation. The API, the site says, "is intended for developers who are familiar with RESTful Web services." In addition to offering superior support for multimedia content and simple access through YQL, Meme also has an excellent built-in repost function, an asymmetrical friendship model, and OAuth compliance.

Google already gave a number of developers a preview of the API and you can see the fruits of their labor here. These tools, for example, include integration with content management systems and other analytics suites. One easy to install example for an app that uses the Google Analytics API is Polaris, an Adobe AIR widget from Desktop Reporting that displays basic information about your site.

Of course, Google Analytics, even with this API, does not give you real-time information about the traffic on your site. For that, you will still have to resort to other tools like Woopra, which uses a desktop application as it default interface, and which also offers an API.

It's a pilot program, with the aim of "bootstrapping an economic ecosystem around gadgets" - according to a press email we received. The program has two separate monetary offers. The first is an opportunity for already successful Google Gadget developers to get a grant of $5000, to develop their gadgets further. Developers are eligible to apply for this grant if they’ve developed a gadget that’s in the Google gadgets directory "and gets at least 250,000 weekly page views." Applicants must submit a one-page proposal detailing how they will use the grant to improve their gadget.

Conclusion - it's Christmas for third party developers

This is another example of the growing ecosystem for third party web app and gadget developers. We've already posted today about some Facebook third party apps being acquired (and the growing business opportunities on that platform). Then there is the rush of external developer interest to build Apple iPhone apps, even though the iPhone hasn't yet been released. We also discussed today how Yahoo is making good progress towards a third party developer ecosystem.

So Google offering monetary rewards, or incentives, to third party developers is a great move. Google knows the developer community is important to their future - not just to "enable developers to grow and diversify the universe of [Google] gadgets in a profitable and sustainable way" (a quote from the PR), but also because so much of web profitability these days is based on integrating third party apps into Web platforms. It helps make money for Google, Facebook, Yahoo, et al - because the more apps on their platforms, the better chance of getting page views and users. But even better, it is increasingly allowing third party developers to cash in. A classic win-win!