Distimo, a startup focused on providing app store analytics, has published its latest report detailing the mobile app ecosystem across the Apple App Store for iPad and iPhone, BlackBerry’s App World, the Android Market, Nokia’s Ovi Store, Palm’s App Catalog and the Windows Marketplace for Mobile for July 2010 in the United States.

Similar to previous reports, Distimo primarily looked at pricing characteristics across all major app stores to determine the proportion of free vs. paid apps and the average cost of which, which continue to rise.  The Android Market continues to have the largest share of free apps compared to the others, with 60% of the total, compared to just 29% for Apple’s App Store for iPhone and 26% for the iPad App Store.  Android has more than double the amount of free apps than any of the other six App Stores in the report.

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On the heels of announcing a major mobile push with “Places,” Facebook announced today usage numbers for its various mobile apps — namely iOS, Android and Blackberry.

A big reason Facebook Places was such a big deal in the LBS world was Facebook’s massive installed mobile user base.  To give a glimpse of that user base, Facebook indicates there are nearly 105 million active monthly iPhone users.  This is truly impressive given the fact that Apple themselves said only a few months ago that they were approaching 100 million total iOS users.  If this is true, it could indicate nearly every iPhone user is using the Facebook app, though that’s doubtful and some obvious variables exist in the figures.

While its iOS app is by far the most widely used, BlackBerry comes in second with 60M total active users using the Facebook application, which is impressive as well.  On the Android front, Facebook indicates an installed user base of roughly 12 million, which seems low, but remember the Facebook app for Android has always left a lot to be desired when compared to its iOS brethren.  With these figures, it’s no wonder why Places is only natively available in the iPhone app, though the others are coming.

Spring may be when a young man’s fancy turns to love, but this summer has been when they used their cell phones to do something about it.

The mobile intelligence firm Ground Truth reports today that the number of unique visitors to mobile dating websites rose 92 percent between the first week of June and the last week of July. The mobile-optimized site Flirtomatic saw 65 percent of mobile daters for the week that ended August 8–a much bigger audience than those for online dating stalwarts eHarmony and Match.com, which ranked 17 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

While it also has a PC version of its site, Flirtomatic seems especially able to tap into the go-go-go mindset of a mobile consumer. Users can send instant messages and images to fellow networkers, in keeping with the immediate gratification afforded by the mobile platform. Meanwhile, part of its $9 million third-round funding will reportedly be used to develop a GPS feature, allowing users to “flirt” with people immediately nearby.

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Android seems to be in the spotlight more than ever these days, surpassing Apple in activations, mobile Web browsing and other important categories.  According to new data from Chitika, Android now beats the iPhone on yet another vital front — mobile advertising CTR.

In a break down of iOS vs. Android mobile-ad click rates provided by Chitika, Android users clicked on ads 81% more frequently than iPhone users, signaling an important milestone as Google and Apple continue to battle on the mobile advertising front.  Granted this is just one of many mobile ad-networks (Chitika), but it’s interesting nonetheless.

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Flush with numerous smartphone services that it offers consumers who own its devices, Nokia will soon be better able to serve mobile marketers too. Today the Finnish mobile phone giant said it will purchase Motally, whose mobile analytics service offers in-application tracking and reporting and helps app-creators better develop their products according to the way users engage.

We’ve written about Motally, based in San Francisco, several times this year. Its import APIs allows for the uploading of bulk data directly to Motally for processing, making it especially useful for platform providers who want to send large quantities of data for analysis on behalf of their user base. Its two-way mobile app communications allow developers to make changes in real-time without having to resubmit their app to app stores and go through the strenuous process of re-approval. In short, Motally makes it possible for marketers to create the most effective mobile campaigns possible–and then measure their success.

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Millennial Media today published its “Mobile Mix” report for July, highlighting device trends from OEMs and others in the mobile ecosystem.

Apple devices and the Android OS still reign supreme as Android is now the second largest OS on Millennial’s platform for the first time and Apple’s devices now account for nearly 35% of total impressions.  Motorola showed growth for July as well, with the Droid moving into the top three in July’s “Top 20 Mobile Phones” with a 5% share of impressions and the Motorola Cliq entering the Top 20 for the first time.

Surprisingly, Nintendo made its entrance to the “Top 15 Manufacturers” in July, coming in at number 15, while the iPad continued its insurgence with a 32% increase in total requests.  Also interesting is news that RIM is growing in popularity with developers, as RIM apps now represent 11% of the “US Developer Platform Usage Mix” for July.

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Yellow Pages recently released data in conjunction with comScore that dove into the mobile search sector with an emphasis on local mobile search.  While the concept is obviously growing, the data shows some interesting insight into how consumers are interacting with the medium.

The research shows that the number of mobile subscribers accessing business directories on a mobile phone increased 14 percent year-over-year to 17.3 million users in March 2010.  This increase outpaces the 10 percent growth in the number of mobile media users who browsed the mobile web, used applications or downloaded content during the same time period.

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