The U.S. mobile advertising market is on fire, growing faster than even the most optimistic of industry analysts had projected in recent months.

Fueled in large part by Google’s mobile search advertising business, the industry reached new heights in 2011 and 2012 is already shaping up to put 2011 to shame.

Aided greatly by the surge in smartphone ownership and the ubiquitous dominance of mobile ad networks – with Google’s AdMob, Apple’s iAd, and Millennial Media chief among them – new estimates from eMarketer place mobile advertising’s growth off the charts.

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In June 2010, Apple announced it had paid $1 billion to developers to date. Twelve months later, that number more than doubled to $2.5 billion. And today, Apple says it has now paid in excess of $4 billion to its dedicated army of developers.

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.

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Mobile app developers remain the lifeblood of the mobile application industry. And their preferences go a long way to determine smartphone operating system supremacy in the contemporary mobile market.

That said, it could come as a significant blow to Apple that a growing number of mobile application developers are favoring the Android platform over iOS.

Based on the findings of Ovum’s second annual developer survey, the independent technology analyst reveals that Android looks set to replace Apple’s iOS in terms of importance to developers within the next 12 months.

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The White House just took another major step in social media’s direction today by launching an official Google + page.

The addition of the White House to Google’s social network follows President Obama’s decision to join Google + just two short months ago.

The page promises visitors “news from the blog, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, plus chances to engage with administration officials.”

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Somewhat catching the tech world by surprise Wednesday is the rather unexpected news at Yahoo.

As it turns out, Tuesday was the last day on the job for prominent Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, who stated his desire to pursue other interests.

Upon his departure, Yang expressed that his tenure at Yahoo “encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life.”

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On Wednesday morning at 12:01 a.m., Wikipedia went dark for the first time in history over a high-profile and highly controversial protest against pending legislation in the U.S. Congress that could, if enacted, forever change the Internet as we know it.

“For more than a decade,” the Wikipedia site reads, “we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.”

In October 2011, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. On the surface, SOPA was aimed at eliminating the illegal copying and dissemination of movies, music, and other digital content.

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On Tuesday, comScore released data from the comScore Video Metrix service. The findings draw attention to the runaway momentum of online video consumption.

According to the information presented by comScore, 182 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in December 2011.

That’s averages out to more than 23 hours per viewer.

The total U.S. Internet audience viewed 43.5 billion videos. Not surprisingly, Google Sites – but YouTube chiefly among them – ranked as the top online video content property in December with 157.2 million unique viewers.

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