Courting Precious Developers, Facebook Announces an App Center

In a potential boon to its platform, Facebook unveils plans for a centralized app store.
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Microsoft Slips Mobile Developer Conference Between Apple and Google Events

Redmond has invited some developers to a conference June 20 and 21 in San Francisco, just after Apple’s WWDC event and a week before Google’s I/O conference.
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News Byte

Facebook Expands Timeline App Vocabulary With “Action Links”

Facebook on Wednesday introduced a new set of Timeline actions that will allow users to carry out app-specific behaviors from within the Facebook News Feed, Ticker or Timeline. So, saving a favorite Foursquare place, “fave”-ing a Fab.com product or making other changes with the so-called “action links” will reflect on the apps outside of the Facebook environment. The move is one in a string of efforts to more fully integrate third-party apps into the Facebook ecosystem.

Is Dropbox Pulling a Honey Badger on the App Store?

Apple catches Dropbox’s hand in the App Store cookie jar, smacks them down.
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Video Ads + App Ads = Vungle, a Freshly Minted Start-Up With a Big Pile of Cash

A start-up that didn’t exist last fall now has a $2 million seed round.
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Amazon Matches Apple’s Revenue Split for In-App Payments

Starting today, Amazon is letting developers in its Appstore sell digital content and subscriptions within their apps, and has confirmed that it will take a standard 30 percent cut of revenue.
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Voices

Microsoft Banks on Mobile Apps

Microsoft Corp., struggling to dent the dominance of Apple Inc. and Google Inc. in the smartphone market, is stepping up efforts to court app makers like Hemi Weingarten.

My Kid Is an Honor Student at Windows Phone AppCampus

Microsoft and Nokia dump $24 million into a new Windows Phone app development program.
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RIM Says Some Developers to Get Prototype Next-Generation BlackBerrys in May

RIM also says that it will have a beta version of the software tools needed to write apps for the devices.
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Congress Questions iOS Developers on Privacy, Data Collection

Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Path, Tapbots …
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