Another one bites the dust. This time, instead of banning a new app, Apple has denied a music streaming app called CastCatcher from releasing an update, due to "unreasonable volume of traffic." As with the past bans, the developers come out as the folk heroes, but an evil corporate overlord would have helped CastCatcher a lot. Here's how:iPhone music apps comes in a variety of flavors, from licensed tracks streaming apps — such as Pandora — to radio streaming apps — such as AOL Radio — to computer music streaming — such as Simply Media. But they are all mostly corporate owned. AOL Radio is powered by CBS, Last.fm is owned by CBS. ClearChannel Communications, the radio monopoly has its own iPhone app. CastCatcher's main feature was the ability to stream things called shoutcasts, a media streaming format developed by Winamp creator Justin Frankel during his anti-corporate punk days at Nullsoft. Some radio stations have used shoutcast software to bridge their transmission online, but most shoutcast sites are operated by hobbyists — ham-radio operators, amateur DJs, sports coverage, or talk shows. That means no revenue to share with Apple. And that means Apple has no room for them to hog AT&T's bandwidth. Why don't you kids go make a podcast instead?(Photo by otakuchick)

Tracking the number of reviews written for each iPhone application sold in the iTunes App store won't tell you how many times that application has been purchased and downloaded. It won't reveal that apps' volume writes Medialet's David Hill. But Hill contends tracking the number of reviews users give apps will give you a sense of each app's "relative volume" — the app's approximate share of of the App stores' overall volume. Multiply the number of an app's review against the app's price and Hill says you get an approximation of its revenue, or at least its "relative revenue," which is good enough for making comparisons. Doing this math, Hill worked up the chart above. What's Hill's chart reveal? That there's riches in niches. Check out ForeFlight mobile, an app for airline pilots that costs 70 bucks a pop, earning more more revenue than any other app but one.