Sean P. Aune is taking a much-deserved vacation right now, so you’re stuck with the Mark Hopkins version of the Mobile Monday report. Sit down with your free McDonalds caffeinated beverage and enjoy, because this is as good as it’s going to get (at least until Sean comes back next week). Sean takes vacations once every thirteen years; assuming we all haven’t migrated to brain-chips by then, I won’t be returning to this column again until 2022, so eat it up.

AT&T, Google and Apple Respond to the FCC

Unless you were sleeping under a rock this weekend (or, alternatively, have any sort of a social life on a Friday night), you probably have heard about the major news that came out of the letters that Google, Apple and AT&T wrote to the FCC regarding their various relationships with one another, and whether or not anti-competitive behavior was taking place with the lack of approval of the Google Voice app in the Apple iPhone marketplace.

Beyond the obvious glee we can take from this when we watch the big guys go head to head, there are a number of take-a-ways that the rest of us plebes can learn from.

The biggest one is this: it may be the end of an era. One of the things I explored in great detail is the developer uncertainty when dealing with the myriad of different app stores out there.  This debacle has shed a great deal more light on that reality, and from what I understand, this pleases the FCC none at all.  One of the goals of the FCC in the coming weeks and months will be to encourage everyone involved to be more transparent with their platform developers, since that is the primary source of innovation in this market.

If you want the full chronology, here’s a good set of links to get you started:

• Andy Kessler: Why AT&T Killed Google Voice
• FCC Opens Inquiry of Apple’s Ban of Google Voice
• Google: We Never Blocked Skype From Android
• Google-AT&T-Apple fight over Net calls draws FCC interest
• /SAbackchan discussion on the topic: Is Google Really In Trouble with the FCC and Skype?
• Apple Answers the FCC’s Questions
• AT&T Statement on Letter to the FCC Regarding Apple App Store
• Google’s Response To The FCC
• Skype: AT&T: One step closer to Skype calls over 3G
• Best one sentence summary award: Google Voice App Rejection: AT&T Blames Apple; Apple Denies It Happened And Google Hides

Enough AT&T #Fail for the Whole Family

Another hot news item last week was just how bad AT&T’s security is.  Register had the story, I had the analysis.

Register: AT&T, his cellular provider since he was released from prison more than nine years ago, have told him they no longer want him as a customer. The reason: his status as a celebrity hacker makes his accounts too hard to defend against the legions of script kiddies who regularly attack them.

The move by AT&T came this week after Mitnick hired a lawyer to complain that his privacy was being invaded by people posting Mitnick’s account information in public hacking forums. It included the eight-digit password Mitnick used to authenticate himself online, the numbers for his cell phone and land lines, his billing address, and the last four digits of his social security number.

SiliconANGLE: Certainly, maintaining Kevin Mitnick as a customer might be more difficult than the average consumer, but shouldn’t AT&T be worried about the fact that their systems can be penetrated so many different ways that Kevin doesn’t have just one or two hackers to worry about, but a legion of script kiddies?

Given that AT&T seems to continue to want to take the tactic throughout all their recent PR troubles that they’re simply a monolithic, impervious organization, I’m actually curious to see how they’ll try to spin this – at some point AT&T will need to address the mounting consumer concerns here in a real way other than simple spin. Otherwise, even Steve Job’s legendary reality distortion field won’t be able to help them.

There hasn’t been much follow up to the story, other than a statement from AT&T that said Kevin had offered his services as a network professional to seal the holes, AT&T responded by offering him out of his mobile contract penalty free.

In other words, the security holes are still there.  Good luck, AT&T customers!

App News of Note:

• Corporate BlackBerrys to get Google Apps syncing
• Yahoo vents frustration over App Store process
• BlackBerry’s App World comes of age online

Round the Horn of Mobile Monetization:

Admob looks like they are trying to create new markets for ad buyers in app developers, with two posts on the topic:

• Watch Video: AdMob has Driven Downloads and Boosted Rankings of Hundreds of iPhone Apps
• Advertising Your iPhone App

Wizzard Media is “Betting on Yo Mama.” Actually, more significant than it sounds – their strategy of monetizing podcasts with App sales is working out well, it sounds like. I spoke with some friends at the company this week, who said that creating apps for shows directly is a winning promotional strategy their using for their producers – with one app for a podcast! in the top 25 at iTunes. Keep an eye on Wizzard’s quarterly results next month to see early financial indicators as to whether this strategy is really paying off.

TapJoy offered advice for developers on quadrupling your App’s revenue (“Tapjoy Case Study: Virtual Good Monetization”).

…and in Sean Mobility News

And for those of you who just can’t get enough of Sean, he’s actually mobile (which is news).  Yeah, that’s the hook I’m using to put up news of his vacation goings-on in a Mobile Monday post.

• Scattercast Episode 57 – I’m A Ramblin’ Man – Sean prepares to leave.
• The Vacation Thus Far– Sean talks about his vacation thus far, his meeting with Mashable’s Adam Hirsch, Sharon Feder, Josh Catone and Brett Petersel.
• Sean P. Aune’s Articles For The Week Of August 17th – Posts Sean wrote for other jobs even though he wasn’t supposed to be working.
• Famous Graves Rock My World – Sean embraces his odd fascination with Boston’s gravestones.

Sean will be back next week. See you in 2022!