According to the report, there are now roughly 466,000 jobs in the so-called “App Economy” in the United States. That’s a dramatic improvement over 2007, when that number was… well, zero.

TechNet also found that these App Economy jobs are spread throughout the nation. The top metro area for App Economy jobs is New York City and its surrounding suburban counties, although together San Francisco and San Jose together substantially exceed New York.

“America’s App Economy – which had zero jobs just 5 years ago before the iPhone was introduced – demonstrates that we can quickly create economic value and jobs through cutting-edge innovation,” said Rey Ramsey, President and CEO of TechNet. “Today, the App Economy is creating jobs in every part of America, employing hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers today and even more in the years to come.”

“The App Economy, along with the broad communications sector, has been a leading source of hiring strength in an otherwise sluggish labor market,” said Dr. Michael Mandel, the report’s author and President of South Mountain Economics and former Chief Economist for BusinessWeek.

To read the full report, click here.

The following is a guest post by Glen Suh, Director of Marketing for TapIt mobile advertising.

In today’s mobile world, smartphone users expect a lot out of their mobile phones.  Users desire fast processors, high data speeds, and a well laid out operating system. Furthermore, users also expect higher quality pictures and video playback as smartphone technology advances. HTML5 banners provide marketers with a richer canvas on which they can create a more beautiful and engaging advertisement.

With the demand of rich media increasing, HTML5 will play a large roll in changing the way ads are made in addition to the way users view and interact with mobile advertisements.  HTML is being implemented in today’s mobile advertising world due to the fact that it can be downloaded from an ad server and then displayed on the web or in apps. The ability that apps have to render HTML is a huge advantage for developers because Android and iOS both support this technology, which allows for multiple platform and OS compatibility across devices. HTML5 can be leveraged to fix the fragmentation issues even allowing advertisers to take a successful desktop campaign and run it on any mobile operating system that embraces the technology.

The utilization of HTML5 also benefits advertisers in the sense that they can now give mobile users a richer interactive experience without the need to leave a mobile-optimized site or app to view an ad. Also keep in mind that when a developer integrates a rich media ad kit, it generally tends to result in sluggish performance. However, with implementation of HTML5 the ad rendering engine is lighter and simpler, speeding up load times and making it more suitable for resource-constrained mobile devices.

While traditional mobile banner ads typically redirect users to an external mobile site, rich media ads built off of HTML5 technology gives advertisers another way to drive response rates without annoying or interrupting the user.

In a new interview with Tech Crunch, Google’s mobile search ads chief Surojit Chatterjee admits that mobile search has increased five-fold in the past two two years alone.

Chatterjee says that quality of search ads is increasing thanks to some of the new factors being considered in mobile search ad rankings. For example, mobile web-optimized sites are now ranked higher. Since August 2011, Google has seen more than a 50 percent increase in the number of AdWords advertisers with a mobile optimized sites.

As a result of the mobile search surge, Google’s mobile ad revenues are similarly projected to double from approximately $2.5 billion in 2011 to $5.8 billion in 2012.

To read more from Chatterjee’s interview with Tech Crunch, click here.

Leading the charge in this new direction is Best Buy. According to published reports from Bloomberg today, Best Buy’s Super Bowl commercial will feature mobile pioneers, not run-of-the-mill celebrities.

This is quite a divergence from previous years at Best Buy when the company has turned to the likes of Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Bieber for ads on the big game day.

In 2012, however, Best Buy is turning the spotlight on “innovators who could personify Best Buy’s selling premise: that no one knows more about gadgets and how they work together than the chain’s blue-shirt sales force.”

Until Steve Jobs died, Best Buy Co. was plotting a familiar course for its Super Bowl ad: hiring a celebrity spokesman. Then all the tributes poured in after the Apple Inc. founder’s Oct. 5 death, and Best Buy’s U.S. marketing chief, Drew Panayiotou, realized Silicon Valley inventors are today’s stars.

Best Buy’s Super Bowl commercial will highlight camera phone innovator Philippe Kahn and Instagram developer Kevin Systrom.

“They may not be at the same level as Steve Jobs, but they created some amazing stuff,” Panayiotou tells Bloomberg.

“Augmented reality has become the futuristic media of the moment, but many consumers,” Ypulse says, but even mobile’s core audience – young, hip, tech-wise adults – are “having a hard time figuring it out.”

Based on the findings of Ypulse’s research, only 11% of high schoolers and collegians have ever used an augmented reality app.

During the holiday season, retailers like Macy’s and brands like Starbucks tried to get customers in the spirit with AR apps. They’re fun and clever, but as with QR codes, Millennials don’t always get the point,” says Melanie Shreffler, Ypulse’s editor-in-chief. “They need to see value in using AR to make the effort to download and use the apps.”

Among students who have used AR apps

•  34% think they’re easy and useful;
• 26% think they’re easy but not useful;
• 18% think they’re useful but not easy; and
• 9% think AR apps are neither useful nor easy to use.

“AR apps have to be interesting enough to get users to download them, and they also need to be engaging enough to get users to come back to the apps again and again,” Ypulse says. “But mostly, they have to work right the first time.”

Are you a fan of augment reality or have you similarly found yourself bewildered by the functionality of AR in modern mobile apps?

On Tuesday, Markey released a discussion draft of the proposed Mobile Device Privacy Act, which, if enacted, would obligate wireless operators and their partners to “notify subscribers if they employ mobile analytics measurement tools like the controversial Carrier IQ.”

As MMW previously reported, the Carrier IQ software is a rootkit that is installed at a carrier’s request on mobile phones and sparks privacy concerns because it monitors and logs user activity.

Markey says the pending legislation would require full disclosure of mobile phone monitoring software when a consumer buys a new mobile phone. The carrier, manufacturer or operating system provider must similarly notify consumers if they install such software after the device was purchased.

Other key protections introduced by the bill include:

• Third party receiving the personal information must have policies in place to secure the information.
• Agreements on transmission to third parties must be filed at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
• Outline an enforcement regime for the FTC and FCC, along with State Attorney General enforcement and a private right of action.

“Consumers have the right to know and to say no to the presence of software on their mobile devices that can collect and transmit their personal and sensitive information,” Rep. Markey says. “While consumers rely on their phones, their phones relay all sorts of information about them, often without their knowledge or consent… Today I am releasing draft legislation to provide greater transparency into the transmission of consumers’ personal information and empower consumers to say no to such transmission.”

The data used for the infographic stems from a report White Horse published last year called “The Future of In-Aisle Mobile,” in which the agency conducted a first-of-its-kind ethnographic study on consumer use of smartphones to aid in-aisle shopping.  The result was a dramatic picture of the gap between consumer mobile behavior in the aisle and retailers’ readiness to channel that behavior into customer loyalty and sales.

In creating the report, White Horse surveyed 390 smartphone users and turned six of the most interesting findings into the below infographic.  The free report is available for download here.

Just two weeks ago, massive crowds outside of Beijing’s Apple Store caused Chinese police to deploy crowd-control measures to ease the iPhone 4S frenzy caused by the device’s long-anticipated arrival.

So unruly were Apple fans that the company was forced to strip the Aple Stores of their iPhone 4S unventory and revert back to selling the smartphones online only in China for the time being.

Not surprisingly, in response to the iPhone 4S frenzy, China is now seen as Apple’s next big market to conquer. In order to do so, says investment bank Morgan Stanley, Apple will all but certainly team with both China Telecom and China Mobile to make future generations of the iPhone available on all three Chinese carriers.

With such an eventuality likely before year’s end, Huberty predicts that some 40 million iPhones will be sold in China in 2013. That’s not bad, considering that Apple sold 68.5 million iPhones all around the world in 2011.

Huberty also believes that Apple’s Chinese ambitions will be greatly helped by the fact that the company’s sixth-generation iPhone may be compatible with China Mobile’s approaching 4G TD-LTE network.

Covering everything from the right calls-to-actions to proper testing, segmentation, and even the downfalls of developing a “pointless app,” the infographic uses original, primary research with references to eConsultancy and the Information Commissioners Office out of the U.K.

The full infographic is embedded below.  Let us know what you think and whether you agree or disagree with these “seven deadly sins” in the comments section.

Source: Text Marketer Bulk SMS Services

Along with the growth of sales receipts is the growth of the App Store’s offerings. As of this writing, more than 18 billion downloads have been initiated through the App Store. And that number stands to compound exponentially in the months ahead as refreshed iOS-powered devices roll out.

Industry analysts believe the iPad 3 will arrive within 60 days, bringing with it a likely surge in app purchases.

Although Google Chairman Eric Schmidt predicted last month that mobile developers will soon make Android apps a higher priority than iOS apps, it’s doubtful that Android will wholly trump Apple as iOS continues to be the most lucrative and high profile operating system to develop for in the entire mobile space.