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Research firm Informa believes nearly 19 billion instant messages were sent per day in 2012 through chat applications, which has finally overtaken SMS texts which only 17.6 billion texts were sent in the same year. The 19 billion instant messages were spread across six of the most popular mobile chat applications: WhatsApp, BlackBerry Messenger, Viber, Nimbuzz, Apple's iMessage and KakaoTalk.

Mobile applications will drive serious growth in mobile advertising in the coming years, according to a new study. Juniper Research reported today that in-app advertising will hit $2.4 billion by the end of the year. By 2015, that figure will soar to $7.1 billion. In-app advertising is widely viewed as the key to success for developers in the coming years. Mobile users are becoming increasingly loath to pay too much for applications, driving prices down. In-app advertising can help soften the blow of charging so little for an expensive app.

Clothing retailer Neiman Marcus launches its new mobile personal shopping application enabling shoppers to select and find various items via their mobile devices. Through the use of location-based technology and QR codes, the iOS application lets users browse through their favorite products and find them through a store locator. Moreover, special events and new arrivals will be sent to the users via push notifications.

"According to the Recruit Tech website, the technologies on display in the video are all ones that already exist, albeit in early forms: Apple's new, Minority Report-esque indoor tracking device, iBeacon; the XBox application SmartGlass; Kinect; and the many applications developing within the growing field of augmented reality."

Application for Facebook allows College freshman to collaborate to decorate their dorm room

daily 7.29

"Sam Glassenberg, CEO of Funtactix, which develops social games for major motion pictures like The Hunger Games, said the in-game ad market presents both huge opportunities and new risks for brands and agencies. He cited statistics from NPD and said that there are almost 200 million online gamers out there who play games for an average of 13 hours a week. Yet, the majority of ad spend still goes to TV or banner ads and only a fraction to games, he noted. "How are we going to close that gap?" he asked. The discussion was organized by SponsorPay, a Berlin-based engagement advertising company whose application rewards users that watch an ad with virtual currency and other goodies. SponsorPay is one of a handful of companies out there including SocialVibe, Flurry and WildTangent seeking to help games developers monetize their product and brand advertisers engage consumers with such ads. Games entrepreneur Wilson Kriegel, formerly with Zynga, addressed this potential by discussing his involvement with mega-hit Draw Something, an online drawing game developed at his former company OMGPop, which Zynga acquired in March. The game allows people to draw things and share them with their friends. Since its launch early in 2012, it has seen over 90 million installs, 10 billion drawings created and was a top trending topic on Twitter.  Companies including McDonald's, Disney and Sprint have incorporated their ads into the game. Kriegel said that ad features including in-game banners, game features and in-game call to actions seen a clickthrough rate of 1 percent to 10 percent-unheard of in an industry where average CTRs are 0.7 percent."

"The company is running its new mobile advertising campaign within The Weather Channel's iPhone application. Home Depot has used mobile advertising in the past to bolster brand awareness and engagement. "By adding store location functionality to the ad unit, the brand expertly displays their understanding and appreciation of the unique contextual requirements of an audience made up of a sizable percentage of likely moving targets," said Scott Forshay, mobile and emerging technologies strategist at Acquity Group."

The social network's intentions, noble or otherwise, are to increase the pool of application makers who build Facebook hooks into their apps. With the purchase of Parse, Facebook has instantly moved from consumer social network to business service provider, playing host to the backend of thousands of mobile applications.

Fluid Configure, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) application

"By enabling developers to sell physical goods inside of games, it will not only open up a new way for them to monetize their applications, but it will also be a key point of differentiation for Amazon in going up against Apple and Google, which don't have physical distribution capabilities."

The 3.8 million-plus Facebook users who like the Resident Evil page can now access Shared Nightmare, an interactive video created by Capcom, developer of the iconic gaming franchise, and digital marketing and communications agency Crush, to promote the Oct. 2 release of Resident Evil 6. Shared Nightmare is a Facebook application that allows users to share their "last moments alive amongst the devastation of the game's global 'C-Virus,'" personalized by including their friends, including the ability to send them a final message in the middle of the video.

Mega-retailer Walmart, which launched a Shopycat Facebook application prior to the holidays, saw 275 million display ad impressions as a result of a paid media campaign on Facebook, but experienced an additional 117 million social media impressions thanks to the organic sharing activities of its Facebook fans and their friends, co-presenter and comScore CMO Linda Abraham shared.

Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers on Jan. 12 will begin accepting applications from businesses and other groups to create and operate pieces of internet infrastructure known as generic top-level domains

Neat application for personal data collection to create videos

Brands trust Google more than FB for commerce applications. Nods to m-commerce and t-commerce

New app for recommendations looks at what your friends and friends of friends like in a particular location

The Yankee Group study forecasts that tablets will account for 53% of mobile ad dollars in 2014 compared to 47% for mobile handsets. By 2016, tablets' share of mobile ad sales will rise to 60%. Ads within mobile applications in particular will help to drive growth. Yankee Group found that a quarter (24%) of tablet owners clicked on ads while using apps, and 29% purchased extra content.

Mobile messaging application Viber has released version 2.2, introducing group messaging as well as improved call quality and several user interface enhancements. The company also said it has reached 90 million users, with users making over 1.5 billion minutes of calls each month. This is a jump of 20 million users in just over two months.

Among those turning to smartphones or tablets to track the games, online browsers will trump application usage on both devices. Of those using a smartphone who will follow the Olympics, 77 percent will tune in using a browser while 63 percent will use an app for updates. Among tablet users, 80 percent will use a browser and only 58 percent will utilize apps.