Thought you could fool us by renaming it "Pixe" in the file, eh Palm? We're onto you... not that it matters given you've already announced a release date. At any rate, the Palm Pixi has popped up in the FCC database, being tested for CDMA/1xEVDO Rel 0 and EVDO Rev. A along with Bluetooth... and naturally, no WiFi. Not much else to say here and the most interesting pics are locked under a confidentiality agreement. Of course, there's always a chance this is an entirely different Sprint-bound phone lacking WiFi, but that'd just be cruel.

Filed under: Cellphones

Palm 'Pixe' (probably Pixi) populates FCC pages originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• WowWee’s Roboscooper picks up the stuff too big for your Roomba
• Validas study finds Verizon smartphones consuming more data than…

The Audit Bureau of Circulations has released the numbers for the top 25 daily newspapers in the U.S. based on their weekday circulation numbers. Not surprisingly, the numbers are bad — okay, awful. Exactly one of the top newspapers has shown growth when compared to where they were 6 months ago. That paper is The Wall Street Journal, which is now the number one paper in the country thanks to USA Today’s staggering loss of nearly 20% of its readership the past 6 months.

And it’s not like WSJ is growing like gangbusters, it grew 0.61% in the last six months.

Also a good list is the top 10 gainers in circulation, only because it looks like they could barely find 10 papers in the entire country with positive gains. Almost all of the ones on this list are smaller papers, with Women’s Wear Daily coming in as the number two gainer over the timeframe.

Below, find a chart of top 10 circulated paper’s “growth” over the past 6 months. Below that find the raw data for the Top 25 papers.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL — 2,024,269 — 0.61%
USA TODAY — 1,900,116 — (-17.15%)
THE NEW YORK TIMES — 927,851 — (-7.28%)
LOS ANGELES TIMES — 657,467 — (-11.05%)
THE WASHINGTON POST — 582,844 — (-6.40%)

DAILY NEWS (NEW YORK) — 544,167 — (-13.98%)
NEW YORK POST — 508,042 — (-18.77%)
CHICAGO TRIBUNE — 465,892 — (-9.72%)
HOUSTON CHRONICLE — 384,419 — (-14.24%)
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER — 361,480 — N/A

NEWSDAY — 357,124 — (-5.40%)
THE DENVER POST — 340,949 — N/A
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC — 316,874 — (-12.30%)
STAR TRIBUNE, MINNEAPOLIS — 304,543 — (-5.53%)
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES — 275,641 — (-11.98%)

The PLAIN DEALER, CLEVELAND — 271,180 — (-11.24%)
DETROIT FREE PRESS (e) — 269,729 — (-9.56%)
THE BOSTON GLOBE — 264,105 — (-18.48%)
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS — 263,810 — (-22.16%)
THE SEATTLE TIMES — 263,588 — N/A

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE — 251,782 — (-25.82%)
THE OREGONIAN — 249,163 — (-12.06%)
THE STAR-LEDGER, NEWARK — 246,006 — (-22.22%)
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE — 242,705 — (-10.05%)
ST. PETERSBURG (FLA.) TIMES — 240,147 — (-10.70%)

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

• Google Doubles Its Cartographers As Maps Continues To Go Wiki-Style
• Zune Expands Media Services In Many, Many Countries

CrunchBase Profile	Zynga	Playfish	Playdom
Location:	San Francisco, CA	London, UK	Mountain View, CA
Money Raised:	$39M	$21 Million	$0
Revenue:	Estimated $200M	Estimated $75M	Estimated $60M
Rumors:	Strong 2010 IPO candidate	Possible acquisition talks with EA	Raising Venture Capital
Key Apps:	Facebook: Farmville-61M Mafia Wars-25.8M Yoville-19.8M Texas Hold Em’ Poker-18.3M	Facebook: Pet Society- 20.5M Restaurant City-17.3M Country Story- 8M 135 million total installs for all games	Myspace: Mobsters -14M Bumper Stickers-11.7M Own Your Friends-10.1M; Facebook: Sorority Life-7.1M Mobsters 2-3.5M Poker Palace- 1.5M

So much for the first generation of big Facebook/MySpace social application startups. Slide and RockYou both got huge valuations in venture rounds. But a new generation of application developers has taken center stage and are racking up big revenues and their own eye popping valuations: Zynga, Playfish and Playdom.

All three own popular social games on Facebook and MySpace. Zynga’s Farmville has 61 million monthly users. Playfish’s Pet Society has 21 million monthly users on Facebook. And Playdom has 16+ million monthly users of Mobsters on MySpace and Facebook Combined.

All three companies are getting a ton of press and investor attention. Zynga wants to go public next year. Playfish probably already got bought by EA for $400 million or more. And Playdom probably raised an unannounced big chunk of venture capital over the summer.

These three companies may be generating as much as $300 million annually on sales of virtual goods. Need a shotgun to do that next job on Mobsters? No problem. Pay with a credit card, paypal, or your mobile phone and it’s all yours. And people are obviously very willing to buy these virtual goods. Nothing new there.

The goal of all of these games is to get to a higher level, and generally have more fun growing things or killing things faster than your friends. Get addicted to the free version, then start spending to move things along more quickly. Once people are committed, it’s easy to get them to pay. You can read all about it on Business Week.

Except Business Week didn’t mention the dark side of the business at all.

All three companies are willing to give game currency in exchange for offers. Sign up for Netflix. Buy a ringtone subscription. Or energy drinks. Sign up for a credit card. Get car insurance. Take an IQ survey that requires a $9.99/month mobile subscription to see the results. We even found one for arthritis medication. Here’s how it all looks. One executive we spoke with says that 70% of total revenue from these applications may come in from lead generation, not direct payments. Netflix alone will pay $30-$40 for a free trial (requires credit card).

Three companies control most of these lead generation offers: TrialPay (appears to have the most legitimate offers), Offerpal and SuperRewards.

There’s nothing wrong with basing a business off of lead generation, although some of the offers are pretty sketchy (long term credit card or mobile subscriptions for little or not value). And the FTC does tend to take a swipe at them periodically. But the bigger problem is that advertisers may not be getting much for their payouts. As the higher quality advertisers bail, pressure to add the scam artists increases.

The cycle of all of these games is pretty standard. Get new users playing for free, give them incentives to message all their friends to signup, hit them hard for cash or lead generation for revenue, and move them up the levels. Rinse. Repeat.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

• Zynga CEO Mark Pincus: “I Did Every Horrible Thing In The Book Just…
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Right on schedule with the whispers, T-Mobile lifted the veil off of its new price plan tier structure, Even More and Even More Plus, and from the looks of it all those leaks were pretty much spot-on. The traditional Even More plan is a two-year commitment and discounted phone, with unlimited individual prices starting at $59 per month and going up to $99 if you want unlimited messaging and text, too. Even More Plus scrapes the device discount but offers unlimited individual prices at $49 for voice / $79 for everything. It looks like the only major differentiator is the subsidized handset, but here's where the numbers don't add up: even with the steep $350 discount on myTouch 3G, factoring in that $20 premium would pay for the phone during the 18th month, leaving six months and $120 of extra payments left that have no obvious justification to us. Additionally the FlexPay / equipment installment plan is now available, letting you break up the cost of your phone into interest-free monthly bills. It seems Even More's subsidized phones are offered over four installments (e.g. $37 per month for the $150 MyTouch 3G) while Even More Plus' is two installments (e.g. $25 per month for the same device at the $500 full price). Our initial takeaway from the price tiers is that T-Mobile is doing what it can to drive its consumers away from the traditional and over to the non-traditional (for US, at least) Even More Plus plan, but hey, we're not gonna argue over a beneficial contract-free plan, even if monthly phone payments keep us paying the company for at least 20 months. So T-Mo, any other Project Dark surprises in the cards? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Filed under: Cellphones

T-Mobile officially unveils $99 Even More, $79 Even More Plus plans and equipment installment option originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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