Google?s Android Market revamped to showcase apps, simplify purchasing
Google is rolling out a revamped Android Market that was designed to better showcase top apps and games, engage users and make downloading or purchasing products easier.

There is now a promotional page that highlights top content, including apps, games, books and movies. Additionally, country-specific app lists have been added to the Apps and Games home pages, enabling users to quickly check out the top products.

In order to provide more opportunities for developers to merchandise their products and drive sales, the redesigned site has an action bar at the top of the page so that users can quickly download or purchase an app. There is also a thumbnail link to a product video.

The click-to-purchase flow has been streamlined so that purchases can be completed in two clicks from the app details page.

Facebook introduces app to reach feature phone users
Facebook has introduced the new Facebook for Every Phone app, which provides a user experience on 2,500 Java-enabled feature phones. Facebook is working on making the app compatible with additional handsets in the future.

The new app includes popular features such as News Feed, Inbox and Photos and enables users to upload photos and find friends from a phone?s contacts. Additionally, the app experience has been optimized to use less data than other Java apps or mobile sites.

The app can be downloaded at m.facebook.com and several app stores. Facebook has collaborated with a list of carriers worldwide to offer free data access to the app for 90 days.

Executive shuffle at Hewlett-Packard puts new webOS leadership in place
Stephen DeWitt has been appointed senior vice president and general manager of the webOS global business unit. Jon Rubinstein, who helped launch webOS, will take on a product innovation role in the Personal Systems Group.

Mr. DeWitt will spearhead the creation of a global developer and independent software vendor program to deliver consumer and business applications. The webOS team, headed by Mr. DeWitt, will also create a dedicated mobility practice with HP?s partner community to deliver consumer and enterprise solutions globally.

"As part of our investment in the future of webOS, we are working in lock step with the developer community, our channel partners and the start-up community to create an application ecosystem that delivers on HP's mobile connectivity strategy,? Mr. DeWitt said in a statement.

New BTB tablet-only publication will cover the tablet industry
TabTimes is an iPad magazine that will launch this fall with a focus on the latest news in the tablet space. The tablet-only publication will provide original content about news and trends in the tablet industry to a business audience.

The publication will cover the news in the tablet industry on a daily basis. The editorial content will spotlight tablet professionals, point out the best apps for business, review tablet devices and report on table deployments.

George Jones, the previous editor-in-chief of Maximum Tech and Maximum PC, will be running editorial for TabTimes. The publisher will be Patrick Pierra.

53B mobile ads served in first half: BuzzCity
Global mobile media company BuzzCity reports that 53 billion ads were served over its network in the first half of 2011, a significant increase from the 52 billion served during all of 2010. The overall growth rate for the second quarter was 30 percent.

Britain saw a growth spurt in the second quarter, with a 54 percent increase in the number ads served compared with a 7 percent increase in the previous quarter. Additionally, India, Indonesia, Vietnam and the United States all served over 1 billion mobile ads in the second quarter.

BuzzCity also reports that as many 47 countries each served over 100 million ad impressions. The company expects mobile advertising will grow even more when widespread adoption of mobile payment technology happens.