UPDATE - iPhone App Store Downloads Cross 1.5 Billion In First Year

Per Silicon Alley..."More than 1.5 billion applications were downloaded from Apple's (AAPL) iPhone App Store in one year, the company said today.

Calling it "the largest applications store in the world," Apple said its app store currently has more than 65,000 apps and 100,000 developers in its iPhone Developer Program.

Apple also said it has shipped more than 40 million devices -- iPod Touches and iPhones -- that use the app store."

Amazing!

MySpace To Become An Entertainment Portal

As Facebook has been clobbering My Space, the suits have come up with a way to differentiate My Space as an entertainment portal. They have hired the head of Sling Media, Jason Hirschhorn, and hope that he can bring back the magic. "That experience should help him figure out how to shoehorn Fox's entertainment assets, MySpace Music, and Hulu content into an entertainment portal people will actually want to use." But can it be done?

My Space seems to still have a core audience in the music space, including singers and bands promoting their own songs and albums. Does that home grown content fly in the world of more professionally produced material or does it augment the value of the community it serves?

I think the one thing these video portal sites lack is that ability to easily search by any number of key words and to recommend based on personal preferences. Viewers, when faced with too many choices, some times choose none of the above. A site that is perceived as delivering an expertise and simplified approach across an aggregate of content may just win over a number of viewers. Otherwise, these individual sites will simply be bookmarked and viewed without a My Space portal approach.