While the iPhone app store has quickly stamped out 75,000 apps and stolen the lion’s share of attention, is the app store the right approach?

An interesting post over on the Telco 2.0 blog (run by U.K. consultancy STL Partners), which earlier this year made the bold claim that Litmus, the developer program for U.K. mobile operator O2, is “better than the Apple app store.” more

Although all-you-can-eat packages tend to dominate wireless pricing today, operators are exploring ways to introduce creative pricing plans that draw on what consumers’ value and – most importantly – are willing to pay extra for. And with the growth of mobile data traffic, this may become necessary to make money on data. According to Cisco’s director of service provider marketing Kittur Nagesh, wireless operators need to build new business models around consumer’s favorite applications. more

It continues to be interesting watching the new “app economy” develop.

As we’ve discussed before, the new mobile application ecosystem — largely the iPhone app store right now but with Android, Nokia, Microsoft, Palm and other app outlets in the offing as well — has the potential to change the telecom playing field (for instance, it seems to be breathing new life into VoIP).

New developments: word of iPhone app ARPU (average revenue per user, a classic telecom metric), more app approvals and some worrisome rhetoric about operators taking it on the chin when it comes to the app ecosystem bottom line.

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Sprint (NYSE:S) become the second carrier today to get in the Android camp, announcing it will start selling the HTC Hero, based on Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system. While all the major carriers have pledged to support Android, Sprint is the second carrier to actually sell a device. To date, only the G1 and the MyTouch 3G are available from T-Mobile (NYSE:DT). With the addition of Sprint, Android will reach a larger audience and could be on its way to the mainstream. more

Who knew? Last we’d heard, the VoIP and Web-based calling business was fading, with companies like Vonage having a hard time competing and upstarts like Jangl calling it quits.

But all of a sudden, VoIP news seems to be everywhere, and almost all of it good. Skype, of course, selling out at a price that values the company at $2.75 billion, more than the $2.6 billion eBay paid for it (a seeming minor miracle).  Vonage’s stock soaring last week, then falling back slightly, before heading upward again as its iPhone app was officially approved. VoIP Web calling and SIP backbone player Jajah inking a deal with Microsoft. The profile of Google Voice rising at last, at least in part due to its much-noted trouble getting in to the iPhone store.

So why is VoIP suddenly so hot?

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The M2M partnerships keep rolling in. After a summer that saw AT&T (NYSE:T) partner with Jasper Wireless and Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ, NYSE:VOD) and Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) form a joint venture to target the mobile telematics market, Sprint (NYSE:S) kicked off by announcing a multi-year partnership with M2M DataSmart, a machine-to-machine service aggregator that specializes in tailoring airtime plans for start-ups with new and unique applications. more

Online, ad-supported music service Spotify — available only in Europe so far, but garnering tremendous attention — could be set for yet another leap forward as Apple has apparently approved an iPhone version of the app. more

While the FCC debates whether to look into Verizon Wireless and AT&T’s competitive and pricing practices, VZW has taken an interesting strategy to combat any negative perceptions about the operator: rather than focus on what customers pay for, it’s focusing on what they get for free. more

One of the challenges of the Web/new media/social media/etc. is: how do you monetize it? If content wants to be free, social media activity is “junky,” user-created content is a scary wildcard and advertising is in a hole that (perhaps) isn’t coming back, how do next-generation content makers and distributors make a buck? more

Is it hyperbole to say that the future of the online application ecosystem is starting to be determined this week?

Probably not.

Theoretical discussions about closed carrier decks, open access networks, app stores and more are fine, but the actual future gets played out not in theory but reality.

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