In case there was any doubt about the growth potential of mobile applications, this eMarketer article provides some interesting forecasts:

• US Mobile Internet users to grow from 73 million in 2009 to 134 million by 2013
• Smartphone sales to account for 14% of all mobile phone sales in 2009, rising to 38% by 2013
• Business mobile application spending to rise from $1.7 billion in 2009 to $7.5 billion by 2012; consumer mobile application spending to rise from $1.1 billion to $5.6 billion over the same timeframe

The bottom line is obvious: smartphones and mobile applications are quickly going mainstream.

Fred Wilson’s post on What Drives Consumer Adoption of New Technologies and the 300+ thought-provoking comments to the post provide some great insights on why iPhone, Facebook, Wii, Blogger, Twitter and others became the most popular consumer technologies in recent years. A neat framework is proposed that a technology needs to be sexy to get people to use, social to get them addicted and truly useful to keep them. One of the most repeated themes in the discussion: the technology must be extremely easy to use and focused on doing one thing really well. We couldn’t agree more - too many companies try to do too much and don’t pay enough attention to product usability.

Canada made the list of the 5 safest locations in the world for outsourcing while Bogota, Columbia has the honor of the top spot on the list of The 10 Riskiest Locations in the World for Outsourcing. Other risky countries, based on concerns about terrorism, crime, pollution, political stability and other factors, include: India, Thailand, South Africa, Malaysia, Israel, Brazil, Philippines and Jamaica. 

 Some argue that Bogota doesn’t deserve such a bad rap. Probably true. Trying to get a solid read on the risk of a low-cost offshore location may itself be the real risk.

Eye for Travel has put together a detailed Mobile Technology in Travel report. Through a series of case studies, it provides some great examples of how mobile applications are sweeping the travel industry. bitHeads was asked by Eye for Travel to contribute to the report as an expert on mobile application development best practices (see section starting on page 52). More detail on best practices is given in bitHeads’ white paper Mobile Application Development: Challenges and Best Practices.