The mobile apps marketplace will top a staggering 25 billion downloads by 2015, according to new research by Juniper Research. To put that in further perspective: the estimate is that smart phone sales will reach 1 billion annually by the same period. That’s an impressive number of downloads per handset user.

To reach 25 billion downloads the growth rate would have to jump nearly ten-fold on last year’s 2.6 billion. Right now the market is dominated Apple’s iPhone but, with the recent news by Android’s AndroLib that it has reached 100,000 apps and 1 billion downloads, it is projected that Android devices could surpass the iPhone’s market share by the end of the year.

The money involved in the app marketplace is another growth factor. In 2009, Apple made $2.4 billion through app downloads, with an average price per app being $3.10. In a neat infographic, onlinemba.com sums up what’s happening in the marketplace right now:

Digital downloads aren’t limited to apps, though. Amazon on Monday reported Kindle e-book downloads now outpace hardcover sales. In the past four weeks the number has risen to  180 e-books for every 100 hardcovers.

Apps are only a small testament for our drive to suck up more digital media, all the time. But with the staggering growth of the market, don’t count out apps as being the next major reorganization of the way we work, play and communicate online or wirelessly.

The London 2012 Olympic website is expecting an astonishing 10 billion page visits by the end of the games, making it one of the most visited web sites ever in the world of sport. But there’s one fickle group that still must be won over: videogame-obsessed teens. Bernhard Warner, SMI editor, got an inside perspective on the massive digital logistics of the Summer Games from Alex Balfour, Head of New Media for London 2012, on the sidelines of the Social Media Influence conference.

In the interview, Balfour announced their goal of 10 billion visits, a would-be Olympics record, and noted that a good portion of the visitors, as much as 50%, would access the site from within the UK. To do this, he plans on attracting the younger generation of website surfers by delving into the social channels they already call home. Of course, this will involve an organized and well-connected social media landscape that incorporates everything from location-based applications to social mini-games. Hear what he has to say:

Seven out of ten retailers have already implemented or plan to implement the Facebook Like button into their websites, concludes a new survey by SeeWhy Research. But taking a closer look at online retailers, the ground-zero for next-generation social shopping, it seems like the biggest retailers are merely paying lip service to “Like.”

To our surprise, big-name retailers that still don’t have the Like button include Best Buy, Crate & Barrel, Amazon, and the Gap. They are relying on the traditional recommendations built into the website (something Amazon is famous for). This group does, however, provide a social media “quick share” button, which allows customers to instantly post their desired product on Facebook and Twitter.

Still, this is hardly the kind of social shopping that we’ve been promised. Levi’s, for example, has Like buttons all over its website, making it easy to vote up what you approve and share these recommendations with friends, plus compare how many people have Liked a certain Levi’s products, side-by-side.

Aside from Levi’s, who else likes Like? Urban Outfitters, Zappos, and ASOS all inserted the Like button into their online shopping experience recently, and a large group of customers are making use of it, it appears.

It was reported that within six weeks of launch, 100,000 websites had integrated it into their back-end code. This is no small number. But there are limitations as to who is taking it up: the Like button is used more by companies that aim for younger, more social-savvy customers. The utilization of social communities and recommendations is proven effective, as shown by ASOS’ major growth in revenue in the past year. With geo-social shopping emerging and with the rise of 40+ active Facebook users, retailers of all shapes (ahem, Amazon) are going to have to explore what’s so likable about Like.

Is Twitter adding a new pay-for-followers scheme to boost sagging brands and would-be celebs? What about a new real-time analytics tool to make sense of up-to-the-minute conversation streams? These are but two of the latest bits of detail to come from Twitter watchers and the legions of tea-leaves-readers out there trying to figure out how this wildly popular service, which went down again last night during the World Cup finals, will some day make money.

Let’s look first at the more controversial of the two: tools to boost followers. If true, as All Things Digital notes, it would represent a major about-face. Twitter used to not only look down upon such follow-me-I’ll-follow-you services, but it actually booted legit accounts it thought were gaming the system by trying to force new followers into the fold. But times, as the old song goes, they are a changing. And Twitter needs to start showing a path to break-even. As All Things D writes: “TweetUp, a prominent and well-funded new start-up, has its own follower-building offering, so perhaps that has caught Twitter’s eye.”

Twitter’s press team at the moment is distancing itself from the speculation, but look for such a service to emerge if Promoted Tweets fails to take off.

Moving now to the murmurs of a Twitter-powered real-time analytics engine…Twitter engineer Ryan King posted to the Twitter blog on Friday more geeky details about new service enhancements, including: “Our analytics, operations and infrastructure teams are working on a system that uses [open source distributed database Apache] cassandra for large-scale real time analytics for use both internally and externally.”

Currently, Twitter’s engineers use it to stay on top of local trends and top-tweeted discussion topics that appear on the homepage.

ReadWriteWeb is convinced this all points to a powerful new real-time Twitter analytics tool, a potential gold mine, we would add, for any brand or organization wishing to monitor public sentiment around certain discussion topics in real-time. Plenty of tools promise this level of sentiment-crunching, but the tools are only effective if Twitter can reasonably store and sort the tens of millions of Tweets published every hour.

It will be interesting to follow these two developments. Even if neither make it to the light of day it’s good to know Twitter’s profits-push could mean a more dependable service for outfits looking to mine the social media sphere for relevant conversation and to build community.

When a tech giant like Microsoft releases a device specifically targeting the hundreds of millions of us who use social networks each day you might expect greater than 500 units sold. Not so for the Microsoft Kin smartphone, which was pulled from the market after just 48 days on Wednesday. Will anyone miss the Kin? We’ve actually found a few mourners.

After searching through the Twitter feed for watery-eyed Kin lovers, this is all we could find:

Well that’s not entirely true. The folks over in Europe, perhaps unaware of the phone’s major drawbacks, were disappointed that it didn’t make it to this side of the pond:

Word on the web is that there were only 500 Kin sold since its release in May, which isn’t surprising considering it gained a loyal following of only 175 fans on its Facebook page. So what can Microsoft do to restore a little credibility in the mobile market? It’s focusing all its energy on the Windows 7 Phone, which is set to directly compete with the iPhone and Android. You can feel the trembles at Apple and Google as we type.

What are the Windows 7 Phone’s prospects? If Facebook is any indication, there’s actually a good bit more anticipation. There are already 700 members of the Facebook page; not bad relative to the Kin. But there are already doubts on the wall there about the limitations of Microsoft’s upcoming release in October.

Not a good sign.

Apple’s mobile advertising scheme, iAd, hasn’t yet been released (that comes later today) and still it’s generating some controversial first impressions. Apple is claiming iAd will push mobile advertising into the mainstream and boost the branded apps market along with it. But many developers, and some advertisers too, grumble that its proprietary nature is too limiting. Leave it to Apple to divide the market yet again.

Whether you’re developing apps yourself and are looking for some extra cash or if you’re just in it for the iBeer, here’s what you need to know about the iAd.

It looks cool, practical and smart, but… When Steve Jobs presented iAd in April he laid out some good prospective functions. Adverts made with the iAd will be built right into the OS of the iPod/iPad/iPhone device, so creating, placing and viewing ads on an app is designed to be easy and non-glitchy. It centralizes monitoring so ads go to their intended audience, and the ads are better able to utilize all the functions of the mobile device such as location, video and sharing without leaving the host app.

It’s proprietary and expensive, thus limiting smaller developers and advertisers. For an unspecified period Apple will make the iAd available only on “high-end” apps, so it isn’t fully clear if Jobs’ pronounced intention of helping small developers innovate is entirely true. And even big advertisers groan the iAd platform seems pricey and time consuming. Apple is charging $1 million membership fee for advertisers to be part of iAd, and its $10-per-1,000 impressions for banner ad rate card is, in a word, outrageous. What’s more, since Apple is insisting on having such a big part in the production of its mobile ads, AdAge pointed out that it could take two months just to make an ad, longer than it would to crank out most TV ads.

Other ad networks can still participate, for a price. This is Apple territory, so tread lightly Google and Microsoft. This is essentially the feeling over at Apple, where there is a strong determination to keep Google’s AdMob out. After back and forth revising of terms, Apple is allowing other ad networks on its mobile devices, but it is preventing any sort of in-depth performance reporting capabilities by outsiders.

iPad geeks will be spared deprived the iAd for several more months. Apple says no iAd for the iPad until November, at the earliest. By then Apple may have very well worked out all the kinks for watching ads on the largest of its device screens, but you have to think that, judging by iPad’s phenomenal sales, it really missed a golden opportunity here. If Advertisers stay away for a few months, you can blame it on this omission.

Foursquare, the location-based mobile application, announced yesterday it scored a fat $20 million investment and a new funding partner, Andreessen Horowitz, the VC co-founded by Netscape whiz kid Marc Andreessen. What will the loss-making start-up look like now that it has actual money in the bank?

First up, a new office! Yes, the company will be using the capital to improve its back-end, primarily by purchasing more equipment, hiring more engineers, and getting a sweet office in New York City. Not bad for a company that was based round a kitchen table a year ago.

But the real gain is the company’s newly minted legitimacy (an 8-figure investment will do that) as a technological innovator. We’ve written on the geo-based possibilities in general before, noting, in particular, the impact it will have on the retail sector. But now with ample backing from the likes of Marc Andreessen, a man who knows a thing or two about big tech bets, Foursquare has the funds to expand its current 1.7 million user base and streamline the capabilities of its service for commercial advertising. In an excited blog post, Andreessen noted:

Users have been so excited about the product that they’ve actually been signing up local businesses to run promotions for Foursquare’s mayors and active users… and over 10,000 businesses are currently working with Foursquare to build customer loyalty and drive traffic.

One of those 10,000 businesses is Starbucks, which started a loyalty program in the U.S. for avid users mayors. Another isWhole Foods. We haven’t seen much from European retailers, but a fresh funding round could make that happen, and jump-start the social shopping sector here.

As Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley says, “we’re just getting started.”

Morgan Stanley’s latest crystal ball-gazing reveals some fascinating insights into how far we’ve come and where we’re heading with online innovation. Amazingly, we’ve downloaded roughly 4.5 billion apps and, by 2012, smartphone shipments (all those iPhones and Android-powered handsets) will outnumber PC shipments, the new research says. What’s more exciting is what’s ahead in mobile: “faster, cheaper and better” is the message, meaning day-long battery life and super-fast, always-on connectivity. When? Just a few years away. Cannot come soon enough.

We’ve written a lot here about PepsiCo’s philosophy on social media, a philosophy that starts with using the public’s feedback to not only connect with its customers’ likes and dislikes, but to make better products and to possibly bring about some worthwhile change to the communities where we live. What’s next for PepsiCo’s social brand crusade? Crowd-sourcing the perfect Pepsi mobile application, apparently.

As we’ve detailed here, PepsiCo has an accomplished social media track record. Using its massive following on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube it decided to forgo the expense of a few Super Bowl spots in January to instead fund virtuous civic projects with the Pepsi Refresh Project. Then, keeping an ear out for the concerns of its customers, it reintroduced Mountain Dew to the thirsty UK soda market after a fan created an online petition to bring it back. B. Bonin Bough, PepsiCo’s director of digital and social media, will be discussing at Social Media Influence on June 22 how one of the world’s biggest brands has adopted a consumers-first movement to shake up its global business operations.

True to form, PepsiCo is putting the fate of its new mobile applications in the hands of its fans. The PepsiCo10 contest, launched last week, will select 10 aspiring start-ups and give them all the in-house resources they need to fulfill their app plans for one of PepsiCo’s brands.

Only the future will tell what the start-ups can come up with, but they are sure to draw upon what PepsiCo has already done in the mobile market. It recently released a location-based app called Pepsi Loot, which gives users free iTunes music credits any time they go to a venue that carries Pepsi products. It also just partnered with Foursquare to explore new possibilities with its retailers of maximizing the sale of Pepsi products.

Lest you think this is just social media pixie dust, PepsiCo has begun allocating a portion of its marketing budget to innovative online projects like these. Seth Kaufman, PepsiCo’s director of media strategy and investment, tells Forbes.com:

We separated this money so that we knew we could take some risks. We want to help educate ourselves so that we’re relevant and are on the platforms that matter.

It’s all part of PepsiCo’s philosophy about social media’s role in a company’s brand image. “Social media happens to be one of the communication channels at the heart of this social engagement effort. It is the mechanism we are using to demonstrate the power of the individual, and individual ideas,” Bough told us earlier this year.

Editor’s Note: If you want to learn more about social media best practice and hear PepsiCo’s B. Bonin Bough in person please join us at Social Media Conference, June 22. Members of our LinkedIn Group are eligible for a great discount.

The battle for supremacy in the billion-dollar e-reader market keeps getting better and better. For us, anyhow. Now, the Kindle e-book reader is set on providing readers with a new social reading experience that–get this, Jane Austen fans–allows you to share book passages with your friends. Is that enough to silence the iPad buzz?

The tech blog Engadget reports that Kindle users will now have the option of sharing highlighted book passages with their friends on Facebook and Twitter. Get ready for Mr. Darcy quotes filling in as Twitter and Facebook status updates. What’s more, users have the option of viewing their friends’ highlights directly on their own Kindle.

Read it how you want, but the iPad vs. Kindle debate is still up in the air. Where the Kindle dominates in book variety, the iPad trumps the aesthetic eye. Indeed, the iPad e-book reader has already proven to be convenient and amazingly beautiful, critics say. We wouldn’t necessarily know (yet) in Europe though as we patiently wait for shipments.

Apple’s e-book service iBook has made no announcements about incorporating social functions into its books. And while the iPad packed a punch with its one million sales in under a month of launch, the Kindle has at least 3 times as many users already. As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told investors yesterday, the strategy for the Kindle is to focus on serious bookworms. There’s a downside though for gadget lovers. You can forget about a color screen any time soon.

Editor’s Note: Want to learn more about social media best practice? Join our LinkedIn Group and enjoy a great discount on attending the Social Media Conference, June 22.