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.

Lodsys owns four patents that it claims app developers must pay to use, and in a series of blog posts today, Lodsys outlined its plans to continue its legal efforts to obtain those payments.

Although Lodsys had initially given developers 21 days to respond to its legal threats, it went ahead today and filed lawsuits against developers, saying that it opted to "move its litigation timing to an earlier date than originally planned, in response to Apple's threat, in order to preserve its legal options."

in an attempt to demonstrate that it's willing to put its money where its mouth is, Lodsys says that it will pay $1000 to any developer to whom it has sent an infringement notice if it turns out that the company's claims are baseless. Although Macrumors interprets this as a sign the company is confident that it will prevail in court, it could be seen as another grandstanding effort.

Regardless, the lawsuits are a serious matter and as it appears that the legal threats have spread from iOS to Android developers, they could stifle innovation and development on mobile platforms, particularly if third party developers have to shell out the money to pay to use the technology to which Lodsys holds the patents.

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.

Thom Holwerda, of OSNews, had an idea why.

"(T)he URL scheme bears little meaning to most people using a browser - they know it's there and how to type it, but it doesn't indicate anything to them. Since computing has been about abstracting away complexity for a while now, it was only a matter of time before browser makers started removing this piece of web history."

• The change itself was unclear. When developers started noticing it, they interpreted and reported it as a bug. It seems that Google perhaps did not converse with their developers prior to implementing this
• Although the http is hidden, it is not gone. So the change is a visual one, perhaps not a functional one.
• Some developers are worried about what will happen when working with the https or ftp protocols.
• This is not an agreed-upon move, industry-wide.

A moderator on Google's Chrome code forum said, "we include "http:// when copying the URL to the clipboard, so it will still appear when pasted elsewhere." This is a function that is apparently not in working order for a number of developers.

Earlier this month, patent-holding company Lodsys started going after small-time iOS developers, sending them "notice" letters which claim the developers are infringing on one of Lodsys' patents for in-app purchasing technology. In these notices, Lodsys demands that developers license the patent from them for 0.575% of the U.S. revenue generated using in-app purchases and many companies have been put between a rock and a hard place, with the cost of fighting a potential lawsuit could be far greater than simply paying Lodsys.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the real problem isn't just that, but the fact that Apple actually requires developers to use the technology they could be sued for using and it's called on the company to stand up and shoulder the burden.

While Apple is protected from liability via a patent it took from a Lodsys predecessor, developers are not. This is especially troubling, since Apple provides this technology with immunity while requiring its developers to use it in unknowing violation of a patent. As EFF's Julie Samuels notes, "even careful developers who hire lawyers to do full-scale patent searches on potential apps surely would not expect to investigate the technology that Apple provides. Instead, they would expect (with good reason) that Apple wouldn't provide technologies in its App Store that open its developers up to liability - and/or would at least agree to defend them when a troll like Lodsys comes along."

For a fuller look at the entire Lodsys debacle, take a look at Sarah Perez's round-up of "5 Links to Help iOS Developers Understand the Lodsys Patent Mess".

Just 13 days after it launched to the public, the iPad is the subject of the latest Silicon Valley developers' unconference event. At 5 PM this evening iPadDevCamp kicked off at the PayPal/eBay offices in San Jose. The photo above of developers waiting in line to enter was posted to Twitter by Portland, Oregon based iPhone (and now iPad) push notification service Urban Airship.

Build some cool apps in there, folks!

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.

APIs are increasingly becoming an important way to distribute information and to access services, and APIs are quickly becoming a crucial part of companies' online products. In other words, it's no longer enough to simply have a website or an app; you need an API.

Mashape plans to offer several ways for developers to make money with their APIs - via a queries limit, a one-time fee, or a subscription model.

Service providers and individual developers can make an API available and third party developers can consume any component listed on Mashape - all through a single interface. "We think there's a clear need for this. We already have over 1,000 developers signed up for the alpha," said Marietti.

ReadWriteWeb readers can use the code "READWRITEWEB" to get access to the alpha version of service.

It's a bit of a strange work-flow compared to RedLaser's embeddable branded scanner on the iPhone, but it's a decent solution for Android developers. The app can also be launched from a mobile website by adding a special link in the HTML code of the site.

The SDK is free to use and supports several forms of 2D barcodes, including EZ codes, Datamatrix, QR codes and standard UPC barcodes. Right now the software development kit only supported on Android, but ScanLife says they are working on releasing an iPhone version soon.

It's great that more options are out there for developers to use emerging mobile technologies, but it would have been better to see ScanLife offer a more embeddable version of their scanner to foster more unified customer experiences. Having the ability to use the technology is one thing, but providing users with a smooth customer experience is a much higher value add for developers.

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.

Applications can use drawings for selecting regions of the map to search or highlight, as well as for annotations. This simple interface offers a surprising range of features for developers building applications upon Google Maps.

There's a working demo embedded on the Google Geo Developers Blog. Try it out; it's easy to use, but it's surprisingly flexible. While it's easy to make stupid doodles like I did, the interface is quite precise, so this new library can definitely be used carefully to mark up or highlight maps. Developers could build this into their applications for fun or work purposes.

What uses could you see for the new Google Maps drawing library?

Sarver also noted that 50% of the company's traffic now happens on partner sites and through applications. For Twitter, according to Sarver, it's all about growing the market and building out the ecosystem. Throughout the keynote, Sarver stressed that Twitter can only be as successful as long as its developers are successful.

Sarver pointed out 3 companies that have manged to monetize Twitter: CoTweet, OneRiot and TweetMeme.

Coming Up: More Transparency, Improved Communication and a Business Model

Going forward, Twitter wants to offer even better tools for third-party developers in its ecosystem. Twitter wants to be more transparent with its developers and improve its communication. In addition, the company wants to improve the utility of its API. Twitter also plans to announce a business model that allows it to share in the success of its partners.

Everybody Gets Access to the Firehose

Most importantly, Twitter is opening up the firehose of tweets to all developers. Sarver didn't announce any details, but this is obviously a very important move as it will give more developers the ability to build applications that need real-time access to every tweet without having to get Twitter's permission.

Soon, developers who use OAuth will be able to ping Twitter more often than services that still use Twitter's old authentication mechanism. Twitter will soon deprecate its old non-OAuth authentication mechanisms. In addition, Twitter will launch an API for browser-less apps.

Twitter also plans to launch a new developers site to educate its developers and will soon host its first developers conference.

Image credit: @scobleizer.