The analysts at Experian Hitwise think it’s just a matter of time. In the latest Hitwise newsletter, the web usage measurement firm says that at 26 million users, the UK Facebook population very likely has hit its “saturation point.” Sure enough, a look at some tell-tale usage statistics show the Facebook growth engine in the UK just might be, gasp, running out of steam.

Big brands are going where the money is: social gaming. As Facebook boosts its advertising revenue due to a surge in membership and traffic, brands are buying in to get a piece of the viewing time. Meanwhile, Google is making moves to get into the social gaming arena. Could this be the perfect social gaming storm?

It’s never an easy decision to kill off a brand, particularly a geeky brand that was all the rage just a year ago. So, not surprisingly, Google’s announcement yesterday to pull the plug on Google Wave, a real-time communication/collaboration app, is not going over so well this morning with die-hards who’ve taken to Twitter, Facebook and blogs to voice their displeasure with Google. In real-time.

Twitter is imposing password resets for accounts that bought followers from third-party applications. Besides being against the spirit of grassroots community building, buying followers is often detrimental for the health of subscribing accounts.

As the tech press (and Diane Sawyer) prepare for the imminent, champagne-filled announcement of Facebook eclipsing the 500 million user barrier, we hate to be killjoys here at SMI but we feel it necessary to point out that the first 500 million, that was the easy part. For Facebook, the vast unconquered terrain lies in China, Japan, Korea and Russian-speaking countries where Facebook is an also-ran.

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.

Twitter is certainly banking on making money, and doing so soon. The company’s chief operating officer Dick Costolo told Reuters he expects no less than “hundreds of advertisers” to start paying for prime real estate on the micro-blogging platform’s by the fourth quarter of this year. A bold prediction, or a lot of hot air?

Google and Microsoft are making moves to reorganize the way we use email. It comes at a stage when we’re using social networks more and more in favor of the old email inbox. Why then all the fuss and investment? And, what does it mean for us?

Google launched in the U.S. earlier this year its own iPhone killer, the Nexus One Android. The launch plan centered on a bold step: selling the handset direct via its online shop.

Search engines handle well over 100 billion queries per month worldwide, and yet the experience of hunting down the relevant answer can still be such a frustration. For this reason, industry observers are now heralding social search, which promises to be more relevant and timely.