Mobile is hot, and Swype is the latest company to succeed. For those of you how have not used it, Swype has a specially designed keyboard for mobile devices that allows the user to enter text by simply sliding their finger from key to key to spell a word. It includes the functionality to learn new words and make guesses about what the user has entered. Some people love the Swype keyboard, and it is installed across 50 million Android devices.

It has just been purchased by Nuance for $102.5 million. Not bad since the Swype keyboard is free and has no room for ads. Swype also raised a total of $14 million in funding. The deal had links to both companies’ past. Swype was created by Cliff Kushler, who also pioneered the T9 text input method at Tegis Communications. Tegis Communications was purchased by Nuance in 2007 from AOL for $265 million.

It will be interesting to see how Nuance leverages the Swype technology in the future. It will also be interesting to see what startup Cliff Kushler works on next. 

It has been a force that the telcos have been fighting since the Internet became such a success. The age of the dumb pipe for telcos is coming, even if the governement has to force it down their throats.

The UK governement has release a tender for a new mobile payment system to integrate the payment systems of the three largest UK banks. It is based on the traditional Internet model when the telcos would just deliver the data over their network but would not be part of the financial transactions. I am sure that the telcos will not take this quietly.

Digital data is growing non-stop. AT&T is shuttling their mobile data from their telecom networks to WiFi in an attempt to keep up in a few key high traffic area. To quote FierceWireless,

AT&T uses 24,000 Wi-Fi hotspots to supplement macro cellular coverage in a handful of locations in key markets. The areas, which AT&T calls Wi-Fi hotzones, include Austin’s Sixth Street, Chicago’s Wrigleyville, downtown Charlotte, N.C., New York’s Times Square and San Francisco’s Embarcadero district.

Fierce Mobile Content just published some great info on the number of apps on the top app markets. The info comes from Distimo’s report on app metrics. To quote the article

Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android Market now offers more free mobile applications than Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) rival App Store, according to new data published by app marketplace analytics firm Distimo. Android Market now touts over 134,000 free apps, compared to almost 122,000 free selections in the App Store. The increase of free Android apps is one facet of Android Market’s overall growth: According to Distimo, at its current pace Android Market is expected to offer more total mobile  applications than any other store approximately five months from now, followed in descending order by the App Store, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone Marketplace, Research In Motion’s (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry App World and Nokia’s (NYSE:NOK) Ovi Store.

For now, the App Store remains in front with over 330,000 applications for the iPhone and iPod touch, with the iPad App Store offering over 75,000 tablet-optimized solutions. Android Market is next at more than 206,000 apps. From there, the decline is steep: Ovi Store checks in at almost 30,000, BlackBerry App World is close to 27,000 and Windows Phone Marketplace trails at close to 12,000. “Only moderate growth was observed in most of the application stores over the course of the past several months, however overall growth picked up again in March,” Distimo notes. “The App Store for iPhone is the largest store in terms of all applications available–however, it was among the slowest growing stores in terms of relative growth [last month].”

Distimo adds that despite increasing competition from Android and BlackBerry tablets, the iPad enjoys a sizable lead in the category. Daily downloads in the Top 100 overall paid and free applications for iPad combined exceed 500,000, corresponding to daily revenues of about $400,000, excluding in-app purchases.

Last night, I taught an intro class on Android. I got the question that I always tend to get: How do you make money with Android apps? Thanks to a post from FierceMobileContent, I now have a better answer than the Android Market.

Multiple new Android app markets are being created with better options for developers to get paid for the apps To quote the post from FierceMobileContent,

Developers in only nine countries are presently able to offer paid apps via Android Market–moreover, paid apps are available in only 14 of the 46 countries that the storefront serves. On top of that, consumers must register for a Google Checkout account in order to download paid Android applications, except in locations where operator billing is available.

Developers can now try other options including Amazon’s upcoming apps store and Verizon’s V-Cast store with billing directly to the customer’s phone bill.