Flying is sometimes described as long periods of boredom interspersed with short ones of pure terror, so Virgin Atlantic's new iPhone App aimed to help people overcome their fear of flying seems like a winner. The App can be used by everyone from people who just want some reassurance during those terror moments to those who can't even get on a plane in the first place. Either way, they deliver a better customer experience for the mild phobics and even open up new potential markets to the hard core flying haters.

The App delivers videos which talk through the detail of what happens during the flight and explains some of the science behind phenomena like why the wings flap up and down and what happens during turbulence. And if this isn't enough, you can click on the Fear Attack Button mid-flight, which talks through breathing exercises and murmurs reassuring phrases like "This is natural. We know you're scared. You will be ok."

For those interested in the whole flying and crashing thing, I really recommend Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. Most of the book covers how people achieve excellence -somewhat anti-climatically, they just need 10,000 hours or more of practice. But there is a section which explores some of the crashes that have happened and the main reason tends to be a series of mis-communications in the cockpit and with ground control. Reassuringly, airlines know this and spend millions of dollars every year training their crews on effective communication.

iPhone Apps are clearly the marketing channel of the year and as Android starts to hit the runway in 2010, Apps generally are only going to get bigger. The challenge for marketers is increasingly about how to stand out in a crowded marketplace of 100,000+ Apps and as a result, in-App advertising is taking off too.