Verizon plans app mart for Hub Web phone

NEW YORK, April 15 (Reuters) - The Verizon Hub, a new kind of home phone with some Web add-ons like weather and traffic reports, will soon come with an applications market, following a trend among cellphone makers such as Apple (AAPL.O) to open up to third-party apps.

Verizon Communications (VZ.N) has been selling the Hub to its wireless customers since Feb. 1 as it looks for new ways to keep growing while U.S. consumers rapidly disconnect their traditional home phones to save money in the weak economy.

Two-and-a-half months after the launch of the product -- targeted at families looking to use a phone and access limited Internet services on their kitchen counter -- the company is revealing plans aimed at broadening its market.

Besides opening the device to new applications, it is also promising to take away a condition that Hub buyers have to be Verizon Wireless customers.

"We're in the process of getting rid of that restriction," said John Gravel, a Verizon product manager on Wednesday. "Why would you limit anyone from using this?"

Gravel sees the applications market attracting new types of customers with an array of software suited to their own interests, such as Internet radio.

Application stores have become a hot topic in telecommunications since Apple launched one for iPhone last summer. Google Inc (GOOG.O) and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM.TO) have followed with their own application stores for cellphones.

Gravel said the launch date for the Hub app market has not been set but it should be ready to go live sometime this year.

TOUGH SELL IN WEAK ECONOMY