According to the latest data made public by app marketplace analytics firm Ditimo, of the more than 200,000 applications currently available in Google’s Android Market, the vast majority are being poorly downloaded or altogther overlooked by consumers.

20% of all free applications and 80% of all paid applications have been downloaded less than 100 times in the Google Android Market worldwide to date.

Writing for the Distimo blog, author Hendrik Koekkoek says that it is “more challenging for developers in the Google Android Market than in the Apple App Store to monetize using a one-off fee monetization model. We found that only two paid applications have been downloaded more than half a million times in the Google Android Market worldwide to date, while six paid applications in the Apple App Store for iPhone generate the same number of downloads within a two month timeframe in the United States alone.”

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I’ve long wondered when someone would start leveraging existing LBS apps as a platform to add layers of functionality on top of, and it looks like a team at Jumpfox — a mobile app development firm — has done just that.

They’ve created a new startup and mobile app called “TappLocal,” which aims to emulate the rewards and location-based offers being integrated in existing LBS apps like Foursquare and Yelp, but do so independently to create a so-called “location-based ad-network” strictly for highly relevant LBS offers.  The tech is then offered up to partner LBS apps for integration.

Here’s how it works: TappLocal uses their backend to create a geofence around certain partner venues.  When a user crosses that boundary and happens to be using one of the partner apps, a deal indicator will pop-up in real-time.  Clicking this area opens a larger area explaining exactly what the deal is.  Simply click one more time to verify you wish to use the deal, show it to the store that it’s valid at, and the offer is validated and redeemed on-the-spot.

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Taptu today announced a major update to its popular Android app that allows you to search the “mobile touch Web,” or sites specifically suited for touch-screen devices.

Launched in late 2009, the Taptu Android app was known as a “lite” application that was basically a link to Taptu’s mobile site.  With the update, Taptu is now a native Android application.  In addition to search, Taptu now allows users to search the Android Market as well.  When you do a search on a specific type of information, for example, you’ll see traditional search results as well as top apps from the Market.  For example, if you search for Weather, you’ll see the Weather Channel’s website along side the Weather Channel’s application.

Another interesting update to the app is the addition of “Result Card Flick,” which returns search results as a deck of result ‘cards’ that are easily browse-able.  Whether the result is an image, blog post, website or Android App from the Market, you can flick through the cards to make things easier to find.  In addition, here’s some other major enhancements courtesy of the update:

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Mobile Roadie, a provider of a dead simple mobile app building platform for iPhone and Android apps, recently announced a new “Pro” version of the platform that allows for even more customization and functionality.

The platform offers a beautiful interface to design apps, allowing full customization of menu layouts, colors, buttons, and fonts.  The new Pro version also supports multiple categories of content, a global search for users and newly designed landscape views, just to name a few.

The new platform has already been used by some big names to create some pretty impressive apps.  Three examples include the Wynn Las Vegas, indie electro label Ninja Tune and music and lifestyle publication The FADER.  ”We are very picky and controlling when it comes to brand integrity,” says Andy Cohn, EVP and Group Publisher of FADER Media, Inc. “Every single part of our user’s engagement has to experience The FADER brand and culture.”  The FADER is also offering exclusive content available to view when people download their app.

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It was estimated today that the Android Market could hit 100,000 total apps by the end of July, indicating a huge milestone for the open app marketplace.

Through stats distributed by Androlib, it’s estimated that there’s roughly 90,000 total apps in the Android Market, with more than 9,000 added since the beginning of July- clearly indicating it will surpass the 100,000 mark by the end of the month, if not sooner.  What’s interesting about the equation is that Google last night announced App Inventor, which allows anyone to create Android apps with ease- which could be a good or bad thing for the quality of apps that hit the Market.  One thing’s for sure though, the sheer number of apps will surely surge in the very near future.

Apple’s App Store has surpassed the 200,000 mark, which is substantially more than the Android Market, but with  more and more Android-based devices hitting the market, and the promise of Android tablets coming down the pipeline, Android will surely be nipping at its heels soon.  With more devices coming, increased developer interest in the Android platform in general, and now the introduction of App Inventor, the Android Market will undoubtedly become the biggest mobile app  marketplace available.

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Last night, Google unveiled a new Android development tool called “App Inventor” that allows anyone without programming knowledge the ability to create Android apps using a simple drag-and-drop WYSIWYG-style editor.

The new service, announced via this New York Times article, aims to break down the knowledge barrier for creating apps for the Android platform, and has been in beta testing in educational institutions for the past year or so.  The service is a Web app that provides a dead simple way to drag and drop elements of an Android app, with the hard-coding being formatted in the background- the same way WYSIWYG editors tore down the barrier to basic HTML editing in the early days of the Internet.

Google claims the service was used by kids in the sixth-grade to create rather powerful apps, indicating just how easy App Inventor can be.  ”To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer.  App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge.  This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app’s behavior,” Google says on it’s Website.

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Mobile apps are a great way to reach and engage consumers from all walks of life, and the UK government seems to agree.  BBC News is reporting that the UK government has spent thousands of pounds on creating numerous iPhone apps.

The apps aren’t all government related either, some aim to make life easier for citizens- such as an app to help users quit smoking or change a tire, and even one that lets users search for jobs in the UK, Scotland and Wales.  While most of the development has been geared towards iPhones, Android versions are in the pipeline as well.

When hit with a Freedom of Information request, the government admitted that they’d spent between $15K and $61K to cover the cost of development for its various apps, not including the cost of some that the government wouldn’t reveal due to “security concerns.”  What’s interesting is that this comes at the same time the UK government issued a freeze on all spending for marketing and advertising- to include the development of all mobile apps as well.

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