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Android developers waiting for Google to implement an official method for in-app purchases finally have some alternatives. This week, there was good news from Papaya Mobile, a mobile social platform with 3 million users. The company partnered with Zong, an international mobile payments company to offer in-app virtual goods purchases within its gaming platform.

But Zong isn't the only company operating in this space. Another mobile payment startup, Boku, is offering a similar solution, active now in 60 countries and 198 carriers through its beta program. And PayPal announced in-app billing back in April. If you're a developer waiting on Google to offer in-app purchases, it's time to consider your alternatives.

This week, an interesting new startup called Appbackr launched, creating the first wholesale market for iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch) applications. The idea is that developers can submit apps to Appbackr instead of the iTunes App Store at wholesale prices.

So why would developers want to do this?

Mobile ad company Millennial Media found that Android ad revenue has, for the first time ever, beaten iPhone ad revenue on the company's ad network.

According to its September "Mobile Mix" report, Android is the second-largest device on its network, and has been since July 2010. Since that time, Android has increased its share of impressions 2% month-over-month and is now at 29%. In comparison, Apple's iOS platform, in the top spot, accounts for 46% of impressions. That makes the news that Android ads generated more revenue last month even more startling.

The human brain's predictable fallibility leaves us susceptible to the creation of false memories by brand marketers through retroactive product placement into our photos posted on Facebook and other social networks, Creative Lead for Firefox Aza Raskin said in a keynote speech at the University of Michigan School of Information posted online today.

"Changing pictures on Facebook to include product placement will create false memories," Raskin warned at the conclusion of a 45 minute presentation about the plasticity of human memory. "We will have memories of things we never did with brands we never did. Our past actions are the best predictor of our future decisions, so now all of a sudden, our future decisions are in the hands of people who want to make money off of us. That makes me very, very scared. I can see this happening and I can see it happening very soon."

In June 2010, Apple released the latest revision of Safari. Included in the release was a fancy little feature called "Reader" which gives users the ability to view Web content separately from the collective clutter of banner advertising, top lists and social bookmarking widgets. The release marked the first time a browser with real market share shipped with native functionality that provided users with the ability to free themselves of that clutter.

What's important is not who is credited with capitalizing on the idea that clean content is easier to read first, but that more and more people are looking for, and finding ways, to get away from the clutter that adorns the margins of so many sites.

Publishing service Twitterfeed announced this week that it has partnered with UK startup SkimLinks to offer publishers an option to automatically turn product links and references on blogs into affiliate sales links. Twitterfeed automates the publishing of blog feeds into Twitter and Facebook.

SkimLinks over-writes links to products with affiliate links to any of several thousand vendors, and typically takes 25% of the affiliate revenue resulting from purchases originating on a publisher's site. Publishers retain 75% of revenue in exchange for producing the content and providing distribution.

Keeping up with every RSS feed item, tweet and emailed link is hard enough for anybody, let alone someone who's trying to run a business. That's why each Friday, ReadWriteBiz rounds up the week's most important tech news and insights for small and medium-sized businesses.

Twitter revealed the latest piece of its monetization puzzle Monday by announcing that it would be rolling out a self-service advertising platform for small businesses next year.

Mobile developers looking to monetize free applications should pay special attention to a new report from mobile analytics firm Flurry. According to this study, conducted using a sample of leading iOS applications with a combined reach of 2.2 million users, in-app purchases have taken over as the leading source of revenue for social networking and social gaming applications.

Google has made a couple of announcements over the past few weeks to demonstrate it's innovating in some surprising areas - self-driving cars and wind transmission projects. But at the company's quarterly earnings call today, Google made it clear that it is excelling in the area in which it has been best known: search advertising. And revenue from that helped push Google to a better-than-expected report today, with revenue up 23% and net income up 32%.

A group of the largest media and marketing trade associations announced today the details of a self-regulatory program aimed at giving consumers better control over the collection and use of their Web viewing patterns for online behavioral advertising purposes. The program will feature an "Advertising Option Icon" to notify website visitors about ad tracking and to give them the option to opt out.

The program will implement practices in support of the Self Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising, which the industry released a year ago. These principles address questions of choice, security, and accountability and are meant to address the Federal Trade Commission's call for more transparent practices around consumers and behavioral advertising.