Marty Wetherall

When it comes to applications, the Android ecosystem is pretty different from that other far more controlled alternative. Sure, the Android Market may not have 100,000 options just yet. But it does offer plenty of powerful programs -- somewhere around 10,000 total -- and, in a refreshing twist, it lets you decide what apps you want, instead of frequently censoring selections for you. We've compiled a list of 10 top-notch Android apps to help get you going with your Android experience. These are all highly ranked programs that'll be strong starting points as you work to make the most of your new Droid device. After all, the much-discussed turn-by-turn GPS navigation system isn't the only thing out there. - Marty Wetherall

ABC is introducing a new feature aimed at encouraging viewers who stream their favorite shows online to make the experience more social. This Saturday (Nov. 4), the network will launch ABC Social: Episode Commentary on ABC.com. The new tool allows Web viewers to add their two cents by commenting on the show in an adjacent window to the left of the site’s video viewer. Users can log in to this feature using their Facebook accounts and can instantly share their personal commentary with their Facebook friend circles if they so choose. - Marty Wetherall

Inspired and informed by a fun, little book called Designing Gestural Interfaces, I compiled a very brief and an entirely incomplete history of gestural interfaces in order to help us remember where we're coming from and where we haven't gone yet. By Tali Krakowsky - Marty Wetherall

So much for the first generation of big Facebook/MySpace social application startups. Slide and RockYou both got huge valuations in venture rounds. But a new generation of application developers has taken center stage and are racking up big revenues and their own eye popping valuations: Zynga, Playfish and Playdom. All three own popular social games on Facebook and MySpace. Zyngas Farmville has 61 million monthly users. Playfishs Pet Society has 21 million monthly users on Facebook. And Playdom has 16+ million monthly users of Mobsters on MySpace and Facebook Combined. These three companies may be generating as much as $300 million annually on sales of virtual goods. Need a shotgun to do that next job on Mobsters? No problem. Pay with a credit card, paypal, or your mobile phone and its all yours. And people are obviously very willing to buy these virtual goods. Nothing new there. - Marty Wetherall

There is a lot of chatter about TweetMemes rather robust growth to over 18 million unique monthly visitors on Compete.com. That puts them ahead of well known sites like LinkedIn and gmail.com with 15 million and 9 million visitors, respectively, on the service). In fact, Tweetmeme currently sits as the 68th largest site on the Internet, according to Compete. What does TweetMeme do? They offer other sites a retweet button that makes it easy for readers to send story links to Twitter. We use it on all our sites, you can see it on the top right of this post. They also have analytics around tweets sent via the service, and a home page that shows the most retweeted Tweets at any given time. It competes with Digg, TechMeme, Google News and other news aggregators to show breaking news. But is TweetMeme really so big? The short answer is no. - Marty Wetherall

I get the 8020 rule. I get the 1% Rule. But what about those other 19%? It dawned on me that the gold is in the other 19%. Assume a web site content business (or social network, or bookmarking service, or something else along those lines) that incorporates user generated content (or user interaction) as a core part of it. Apply the 1% Rule. Youve got your active users these are the folks that are going to create content just because. In some communities Im part of that 1% and when I think about why I participate as actively as I do I always have some non-standard rationale or motivation. Now apply the 8020 rule. 80% of the users are the site are simply going to be fly bys. They wont engage deeply they are merely skimming / scanning content. Its nice to have them, but they are the consumers, not the contributors. That leaves 19%. This is the golden segment. If you can figure out how to engage these folks, you win. - Marty Wetherall

Chad Ochocincos Twittering has repeatedly gotten him into trouble with the NFL, but hes nonetheless embraced his online fans, launching an iPhone app and hatching plans to fly Twitter users to games. Now the irrepressible Cincinnati Bengals receiver is indulging his love of Twitter (Twitter) yet further: he claims to be launching a Twitter-based news network with Motorola. Hes branding it the Ochocinco News Network (OCNN) with the slogan, If I break it, you might as well believe it. - Marty Wetherall

EVERYWHERE you look these days, businesses are selling subscriptions. Cable television, Internet and cellphone services are sold that way. So are business software, office printing and car rentals like Zipcars. For a business model that was used by publishers of periodicals back in the 17th century, subscriptions seem as functional and popular as ever for a variety of goods and services. Marketers like them for good reason: Convince someone to take a subscription, and the revenue flows in for months to come. It is amazing how inertia takes over, says Peter S. Fader. Anyone who has signed up for a gym membership that is paid for but not used understands the genius behind subscriptions. There is another reason that marketers use them: When a product has built-in obsolescence, like new versions of software or a magazine with a short newsstand life, subscriptions extend the ownership period. It removes the impedance to upgrading, says Erica Mina Okada. - Marty Wetherall

Mobile advertising promises to be a huge growth area. The Kelsey Group, a market research firm, projects that the mobile advertising market will balloon from $160 million in 2008 to $3.1 billion in 2013. There is no doubt that mobile advertising will be much bigger in four years, perhaps even ten to 20 times bigger than it is today. Where will all of that mobile ad money go to? Here I think the Kelsey group is more on target. It projects that mobile search will go from 24 percent of the total mobile ad market last year to 73 percent of the much larger pie in 2013, according to a recent research note put out by Citi analyst Mark Mahaney. Display ads are projected to go from 13 percent of the total to 18 percent, while SMS ads will decline as a percentage from 63 percent to 9 percent (see charts). So once again it looks like search is going to be the big winner. No wonder Google is so focused on mobile search as one of its major sources of growth. - Marty Wetherall

Integrate brand advertising seamlessly into video content, transforming it into an interactive experience for viewers to engage with. Engage users in a creative way; connect with your target audience, leaving a positive and meaningful impression. Measure engagement and control your campaign's success rate with ease, using a powerful platform to generate detailed time-based reports. - Marty Wetherall

There has been an explosion of startup companies that place "sponsored tweets" into Twitter feeds and split the ad revenue with Twitterers. The first one to sell ads into Twitter feeds, Magpie, says its network now reaches more than 15 million followers. And Mediabistro.com is now giving job advertisers the option of putting their ad in the @mediabistro Twitter feed for a fee of $97. Those considering advertising on Twitter feeds or running ads in their feed often struggle with deciding which service is right for them. There are dangers and pitfalls of running advertisements on your Twitter stream, such as potentially turning off loyal followers. To help you grapple with this thorny issue, I've put together a rundown of some of the major Twitter ad networks. After talking to some of the folks who run these networks -- as well some Twitter fans -- I also developed eight tips to help you get the most out of sponsored tweets. - Marty Wetherall

Twitter gets 55 million monthly visitors, it has raised $155 million in venture capital, and it has generated intense interest from Hollywood to Iran. But it hasnt earned much revenue and certainly no profit. Twitter's chief, Evan Williams, said it would fit his company's open strategy to let both Google and Microsoft search posts. Back-to-back deals on Wednesday to make the companys steady stream of posts available to Microsoft and Googles search engines may point to a potential new source of cash. How large, however, is not known. The terms of the deals were not disclosed and Evan Williams, Twitters chief executive, said in an interview that revenue was not the focus of the deals. Microsoft said it did not plan to put ads on its Twitter search service for now, and Google said ads might appear at a later date. - Marty Wetherall

Volkswagen of America is launching the newest-generation GTI exclusively on an iPhone app, a cost-efficient approach the automaker said is a first for the industry. How cost efficient? When the marketer introduced the GTI in 2006, it spent $60 million on a big-budget blitz with lots of network TV. By comparison, an executive familiar with the matter estimates the annual budget for mobile AOR services is $500,000. And while an iPhone-only strategy may seem limiting, consider this: In September, Apple reported there are more than 50 million iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide. By comparison, CBS' "NCIS," the most-watched show for week ending Oct. 18, reached 21 million viewers and commands an average price of $130,000 for a single 30-second spot. - Marty Wetherall