It didn’t last long.

After much controversy, the iPhone app store has dropped “Hottest Girls,” the first Apple-approved iPhone and iPod touch application to offer adult content.

The application, which serves up a host of topless models and other mature content, caused an uproar when news broke that Apple was breaking its somewhat squeaky clean reputation by including the application in its offerings.

The negative press, however, must have been too much to handle.

“Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography,” said Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr. “The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store.”

Despite claims from TechCrunch, the developers of “Hottest Girls,” that they were the ones to pull the app from the store, it is becoming evident that Apple was the deciding force that ultimately pulled the plug.

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Barnes & Noble has unveiled a new B&N Bookstore application for the Apple iPhone.

Providing access to millions of books now at the touch of your finger, Barnes & Noble worked with software partners Evryx Technologies and Spotlight Mobile to design, customize, and launch the new app, which is a red-hot download so far this week.

The app lets users take a photo of a book cover and, seconds later, the user gets all the information his or her heart could possibly desire about the title, author, publisher, etc.

More importantly from a business standpoint, however, consumers can use the app to purchase or reserve a copy of their desired title directly from the application.

The decision to plunge into the mobile realm isn’t new for the book giant. B&N recently bought digital book retailer Fictionwise for close to sixteen million dollars.

Given that Barnes & Noble operates nearly eight hundred bookstores in all 50 states, there is huge potential for this seemingly long-overdue app.

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Visual search is a new concept aimed at making the overall search experience more user-friendly, interactive and quicker for the end-user.  While there are visual search engines on the traditional Web, the concept has been better received on the mobile Web- where quicker and more visual search results are more welcomed given the nature of the devices used.

To heed this trend, Searchme has been busy introducing mobile applications that bring mobile visual search to the various mobile platforms.  While an iPhone, Android and even Nokia Ovi Store version already exist, the Windows Mobile platform has lacked an app.  That’s now changed with Searchme’s debut of a beta version of its mobile app for Windows Mobile users.

Instead of a list of blue links, Searchme delivers images of web pages, videos, music and products that play right on the search result page making it easy to find and consume information on a cell phone.  Searchme offers significantly improved performance for searching on a phone because it runs as a native Windows Mobile application, rather than in a slow-rendering web browser.  Unlike other search applications, Searchme supports a full touch screen interface.

In the beginning, I have to say I wasn’t impressed with the idea of visual search.  It’s a slower process and I found it harder to find exactly what I was looking for given the plethora of media that’s presented with each search.  Text-based search results just feels more natural.  With the advent of bringing visual search into a separate mobile application, the idea seems much more viable.

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Google is getting one step closer to dominating mobile contextual advertising much like it did on the traditional Web with the launch of a public beta for its new AdSense for mobile apps solution.

Aimed at providing both contextual and graphical ads for apps running on both the iPhone and Android platforms, AdSense for mobile apps is taking on niche mobile ad networks such as AdMob and Greystripe who have been serving up ads in mobile applications for quite some time now- AdMob, in particular, has done very well thus far.

The solution will work similar to Google’s other AdSense products and will display ads based on keywords, demographics and location.  In addition, advertisers can also directly bid for placement in certain apps.  The application developer can even determine the positioning and appearance of any ad displayed in their app, and can filter out any un-wanted ads if they desire.

At the moment, the public beta is limited to apps that garner a minimum of 100,000 daily pageviews, which is a small number of apps, but should be released to the masses shortly.

This is significant only because of the vast reach Google already has, as well as the fact that it will be easily integrated into Google’s other AdSense solutions.  Although it’s separate now, when marketers can check mobile apps as part of their overall AdSense campaigns, there should be a lot more bidding for those mobile ad spots within iPhone and Android apps, which will also increase the bid amounts and make the overall task of advertising within mobile applications much more streamlined.

As it stands right now, Google already has more advertisers than any other startup that’s deemed their competition (AdMob), and the solution hasn’t even launched yet.  With that kind of inventory integrated within Google’s already vast AdSense/AdWords networks, the launch will undoubtedly be a game-changer.

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A major lawsuit is rocking the mobile world.

ASCAP, a performance rights organization abbreviated for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, isn’t happy with AT&T.

The organization claims that the ringtones supported by AT&T violates performance and copyright law when they are played in public.

As a result, ASCAP has filed suit against AT&T.

Although mobile carriers and content providers pay songwriters and music copyright owners a license fee to carry the downloadable ringtones, ASCAP contends it isn’t enough and that additional royalties are due.

Now.

The legal eagles are weighing in on both sides at this hour. And while it isn’t clear exactly what will happen, it’s unlikely that consumers will be deprived of their beloved ring tones as a result of the suit.

After all, if we want to listen to “Ice Ice Baby” when we’re in the middle of grocery shopping and our mom calls, that’s our prerogative entirely.

Not that I would know anything about that.

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Amazon.com search subsidiary A9 has scooped up SnapTell, a company, as we all know, that allows mobile users to take photos of products or advertisements to get special deals or more product info.

Although no dollar amount was ascribed to the acquisition, the development can prove quite valuable to SnapTell users, particularly those who download the application to their iPhone and then use their phone camera to snap a picture of an advertisement or a product and then send it to SnapTell in return for a variety of information about the product or the company that produces it.

SnapTell also has a database of “millions” of pictures of DVD, CD, book and video game covers. When end-users snap a photo of a cover and send it to SnapTell, they get information back about prices for the product at stores.

Looking to build upon their popularity, SnapTell is now taking their brand one step further.

“One of the most heard requests was how we could integrate better with Amazon’s fabulous shopping experience,” SnapTell said in a public commentary regarding the acquisition. “We should be able to do so pretty well now.”

Amazon created A9 in 2003 to develop search technologies, including Search Inside The Book, which lets users search for a book by character names or even obscure phrases.

SnapTell fits with A9 like a glove.

For more information, check out www.snaptell.com

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The king of all commercial sponsors is back. And this time, we get to learn a thing or two from the master himself.

Tiger Woods is teaming with AT&T to provide subscribers with exclusive and really cool video content from a “private golf clinic” sponsored by the youthful golfing legend recorded at his recent Tiger Jam XII charitable event.

Tiger Jam was created by the Tiger Woods Foundation, an organization dedicated to empowering young people to reach their maximum potential. Since its inception in 1996 by Tiger Woods and his father Earl, the Foundation has reached an estimated 10 million young people through character development, career exploration, scholarships and grant-making programs.

AT&T will give subscribes free access to the exclusive footage from the event on its AT&T U-verse TV On Demand library as well as the AT&T FanZone web portal. The footage relays expert golf tips from Tiger, who has been at the center of a renewed media love affair as the golf champ prepares for the 2009 U.S. Open.

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