Now, the application process is finally open for the third and final round of the Knight News Challenge, this time focused on mobile. That makes it time to put your talent where the future is, or at least put yourself and your mobile idea out there for a share of the $5 million prize money. That’s free money to make your idea happen.

Remember, the purpose of these challenges — previously this year they focused around the themes of Data and Networks — is to encourage innovation in the news gathering and reporting business. How could your phone or tablet make that happen? How would you make the revenue part of that awesome idea work? Those are a few of the questions to address in the application. But really, the application is easy — just like the best mobile apps should be — and consists of just eight questions about your idea, how much it would cost, what’s already done and who you are/who you know who’ll help you succeed.

The application process opened today, Aug. 29, and runs through Sept. 10. Sounds like a good use of the Labor Day weekend (in the U.S. at least this is a holiday, but the News Challenge is open to anyone, anywhere). For more background, read the FAQ.

You can follow along on the ideas submitted so far on the News Challenge Tumblr. That’s also where the application form is. For more background, read about this challenge here.

Winners will be announced in early 2013. The winners from the second round, on Data, are expected to be named in mid-September.

Good luck!

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Why #mobile for #newschallenge? There are 6B mobile devices worldwide & they’re much more than just phones kng.ht/QyoJTK

— Knight Foundation (@knightfdn) August 15, 2012

Shortly after recently announcing the theme of  this year’s third News Challenge installment  – “mobile” — the Knight Foundation tweeted an impressive stat backing up reasoning for its choice: there are 6 billion mobile devices worldwide.

Billion. With a “B.”

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

MediaPass, a subscription manager for websites, announced that it has raised $1.75 million in series B funding. Established to offer monetization solutions for online content, MediaPass offers web publishers, big or small, a simple way to implement paid content models. While developing and applying a paywall can be complicated and time consuming, users of MediaPass simply need to copy and paste a few lines of code. The service is highly customizable, and allows users the options of metered paywalls and choosing specific content that requires subscriptions. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.