The volume of app downloads rose in April for the first time since January, along with the cost to market those apps. That’s according to the latest figures from app marketing firm Fiksu, which has tracked more than 107 billion app actions on its platform that helps developers and brands optimize their iOS and Android campaigns. The company’s app store competitive index, measuring downloads of the top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps, rose 11% in April to 5.61 million daily downloads from 5.02 …

Facebook on Wednesday introduced verified pages to help users find the official presence of popular brands, celebrities and other high-profile people on the social network. The verified accounts will be labeled with a small blue icon with a check mark next to their name on timelines, in search results, and elsewhere on Facebook. Besides fan pages, the update is also rolling out to individual profiles. Page owners can’t request to have their accounts verified. Rather, Facebook is proactively verifying the pages and profiles with the largest audiences. While users can’t ask to get their accounts verified, …

Smartphone penetration among mobile users last year reached 50% or higher in U.S., South Korea and Australia, the U.K., Sweden and Norway. The worldwide smartphone adoption rate among mobile users will remain under a third this year and approach the halfway mark by 2017, according to a new eMarketer forecast. In regional terms, only North America will have average smartphone ownership above 50% this year, when Canada  joins the U.S. in crossing that threshold this year. Western Europe as a whole will reach that level in 2014. The eMarketer figures are based on more than …

Tablet shipments will outpace those of portable PCs this year as demand for PCs overall continues to slide, according to a new IDC forecast. The research firm project tablet worldwide shipments will rise 58.7% to 229.3 million units in 2013 while notebook computers will fall 6.7% to 187.4 million. IDC also revised downward is forecast for the total PC market from a decline of 1.3% this year to 7.8%, with shipments falling from 349.2 million to 321.9 million. Further, tablets are expected to surpass total PC shipments by 2015. The tablet surge “marks a significant change in …

Yahoo has submitted a formal bid to acquire Hulu, according to a Reuters report citing two sources with knowledge of the proposal. If so, the Web portal joins other companies reportedly bidding for the premium video service including Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, former news Corp president Peter Chernin and Guggenheim Digital Media.   Earlier this month, AllThingsD reported Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer had met with top executives at Hulu in connection with a potential bid. Hulu’s owners-- owned by News Corp and Walt Disney Co--have been considering selling the company for some months. Yahoo’s other …

Online radio service Pandora on Thursday reported revenue rose 55% in the first quarter to $126 million, topping analysts’ expectations. The company’s net loss widened to $28.6 million, or 16 cents a share, compared to a loss of $20.2 million, or 12 cents a share, a year ago. On an adjusted basis, the loss was 10 cents a share, in line with the consensus forecast of analysts polled by FactSet. Pandora’s quarterly revenue—which had been projected to reach $124 million—was bolstered by the addition of 700,00 net new paid subscribers, bringing the total to more than 2.5 …

Digital media sales vet Joanne Bradford Joins has joined Hearst's San Francisco Chronicle as president. She most recently was Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer of Demand Media, and before that was Chief Media Officer at Microsoft's MSN. In a related move, Hearst named Jeffrey Johnson publisher of the Chronicle, succeeding Frank Vega, who retires from that position, but remains chairman of the publication. Johnson joins from operating partner at The Yucaipa Companies focusing on media investments.

A 90-year old ad agency is using some new-fangled technology to celebrate today in real time via a digital billboard in New York's Times Square. WPP's Y&R turns 90 today. To commemorate the milestone the agency intends spark a social media conversation by inviting people around the world to post messages conveying what advertising means to them. They can do so via Twitter using the hash tag #advertisingis. The billboard will be live today from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Y&R is partnering with startup Hyperactivate to enhance the conversation. Hyperactivate has technology that captures the avatars from Twitter and …

After tackling the desktop, and then mobile, Opera lately has been expanding into the emerging realm of connected TV. The company’s software development tools already power browsers and applications on connected TV platforms from manufacturers including Sony, Toshiba, Sharp, and Boxee.   Opera also operates the Opera TV Store, an HTML-5 app store for smart TVs, set-top boxes and media players. In all, the company says its SDK and TV store run on more than 50 million devices worldwide. Now Opera plans to bring advertising to connected TV through AdMarvel, its mobile ad-serving and mediation …

Former NBC sales chief Marianne Gambelli is joining Horizon Media as executive vice president-Chief Investment Officer, succeeding long-time buying chief Aaron Cohen, who will move into a a "senior advisory role" in the company reporting directly to President, CEO & Founder Bill Koenigsberg. Gambelli stepped down as president of sales for NBC last fall, following the consolidation of NBCUniversal's broadcast and cable network ad sales under Linda Yaccarino.