Google Wave, the search giant's new Web conversation aggregator, is set to get its own version of Apple's App Store. Google Wave software engineer Lars Resmussen previously suggested Wave developers have been clamoring for such a store. Also, developers have already used Wave's API to put together apps like teleconference and videoconference tools, and even multiplayer games. These coders have likely looked at the millions of dollars being churned out to developers from the 100,000 apps on the iTunes App Store and figured that they'd like a piece of the action on the Wave platform. Resmussen has even …

The Sydney Morning Herald has new details on Apple's yet-to-be-confirmed "tablet" device, which many believe is destined to do for newspaper and magazine publishing what the iPhone has done for mobile. According to the paper, Apple is set to release such a device in various global markets, including Australia, by early next year, and has been in discussions with media companies about including their content on the device. It describes the "tablet" as a larger version of Apple's iPhone -- "small enough to carry in a handbag but too big to fit in a pocket ... It will …

It looks like Google has resolved the biggest issue users have had with its Voice service, having to switch to a new phone number. Yep, now your existing phone number will do just fine. Still, using Voice with an existing number means using a "lite" version of the service, where users mainly get to use Google's voicemail service. Anytime someone leaves you a voice message, it gets stored in your Voice account, where it's transcribed. What's more, using this stripped-down version means users lose some of the service's most impressive features, including the ability to have one phone …

Not to be outdone by the new "social" establishment, Google just unveiled its "Social Search" tool to an odd mixture of trepidation and golf claps. The Google Labs experiment "creepily helps users probe more 'relevant public content' from their 'broader social circle,'" is how The Register (UK) framed the announcement. "The company has already been improving search results to make them more personally tailored to an individual surfer's stalker needs." That said, "Just about any social-networking-focused product that Google rolls out brings a group of naysayers pointing fingers and calling it creepy," writes the Los …

The Los Angeles Times says a very long goodbye to Yahoo's GeoCities service, which, during its heyday, was apparently "a central meeting place for a massive chunk of American Web surfers." GeoCities allowed anyone to build a custom Web page for free and reserved a small amount of virtual storage to keep pictures and documents. It was, according to the paper, "perhaps the first mainstream example of an open, participatory and personal Internet." Dying with it will be tons of memories: family sites created by fathers; Pokemon pages created by kids; Backstreet Boys fan pages created by teenage …

In a story that potentially bodes well for the broader publishing industry, some UK libraries are reporting a spike in reader interest since the adoption of e-books. Granted, only a handful of libraries have started to offer such services, but many in the library community are hopeful that the revolution in digital reading will help transform their fortunes, and that the majority of libraries will soon offer downloads. With e-readers, users need not remember to take their books back on time, because the digital books are automatically deleted after 14 days. What's more e-books are cheaper, because of …

Twitter itself is among a growing number of companies using the micro-blogging service to closely monitor what consumers are saying about their brands, products, and services in real time. It also watches how people use its service, and which ideas catch on, and then enlists its engineers to turn those popular behaviors into new features. In the next several weeks, Twitter users will discover two new features, Lists and Retweets, that apparently had the same user-generated beginnings. As The Times explains, this strategy of following users' lead turns the classic top-down approach to product development on its head. …

A priest, a rabbi, and Steve Jobs walk into a bar... The Times' Saul Hansell uses a little comedy to make the point that Google's mobile future will be secured merely by beating Microsoft. "So far, neither Google nor Microsoft has proven they can slow the growth of the iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry," he says. "But that probably isn't Google's motive." What is it? Unlike Microsoft, Google's only aim with its open source mobile operating system is to expand the use of the mobile Internet, so more people will use its search engine and other products through which …

Like Apple's iPhone app marketplace before it, are we about to witness a boom in the development of Android app's? There are certainly plenty of Android OS-based smartphones on the way. Flurry, a San Francisco-based mobile metrics company, is reporting a 94% rise in the number of projects started by Android developers between September and October. Meanwhile, AdMob, which serves advertising inside mobile apps, recently noted that Android OS accounted for 17% of all smartphone traffic in its network in September -- up from 13% in August.

The emergence of a fourth screen through which publishers can distribute subscription and/or ad-supported content is all but certain, according to an "off-the-record" speech given last week by Bill Keller, executive editor at The New York Times. "I'm hoping we can get the newsroom more actively involved in the challenge of delivering our best journalism in the form of Times Reader, iPhone apps, WAP, or the impending Apple slate," he said during an "internal chat," which was later posted online by the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard. The remarks follow widespread rumors that The Times, along …