I heard the concrete rumors yesterday, but this topic has been one that folks have been speculating about for a long time. All morning long, people have been asking me what it means for Verizon Wireless?

Short answer: #1 wireless carrier in the US with 80M subscribers. Alltel adds 13M to their rising total.

Other highlights:

• Common network technology and roadmap
• Both use BREW
• Similar ARPU though VZ has higher data ARPU
• Fills in coverage gaps in rural areas
• Cost synergies - $9B quoted in the press release. Always a lot of work to achieve.
   

Verizon made an announcement today (see Fierce) that they will be enabling an interactive text polling program to poll users on their music tastes. Results will appear on the screen. There will also be some marketing around Verizon's Vcast service.

I don't get the polling on music tastes.

What I wonder about a deal like this is which way the money flows. Screenvision sells advertising, but Verizon and/or Screenvision seem to be adding infrastructure to the theaters that allows the results to appear onscreen. A number of vendors have web-based programs that allow this - they use them with radio DJ's, TV show hosts, clubs, concerts, etc.

It's also not clear from the announcement if this will be limited to Verizon Wireless customers. Could also be an equipment/services "play" from Verizon.

I think this announcement has more potential for Screenvision. Rolling out the ability to interact with their audiences could have significant implications. Polling and trivia are entertaining - why not get people to the theater early to eat more popcorn and soda?

So, we knew this and we've been showing this in our forecasts for sometime.

Personalization applications have been phenomenal for wireless carriers for the past few years, but we've believed that it would take more applications oriented towards entertainment and utility (e.g., information services, mapping, etc.) to drive demand beyond young adults and teens.

AT&T Wireless released their top ten selling applications and games for Q1 2008. Entertainment takes three if not four of the top spots - depending on how you want to define MusicID. MySpace Mobile - social networking - is the third ranked. One could argue that those with ringtone or wallpaper applications may have downloaded them long ago and are simply adding content. Still, it's a very different list than we would have seen two years ago.

Q1 Top Selling Apps

1)MobiTV
2)XM Radio
3)MySpace Mobile
4)MobiRadio
5)MusicID
6)My-Cast Weather
7)The Weather Channel
8)ToneMaker
9) eBay
10) Billboard Mobile Channel

Somebody explain to me how David Carr at the New York Times can write about women's sites under the headline "Slumber Parties Go Digital"?