ReadWriteWeb

The first interactions a user has with an app will determine its overall success ands longevity. If a user likes an app, its long-term potential greatly increases. If not, well, it is destined to the black hole of app oblivion.

That is why the ability to track the first few sessions a user has with an app in real-time is critical. Mobile marketing and analytics startup Apsalar is releasing an update to its platform called Daily Cohorts that allows publishers to track app analytics in real-time the day it is published. Developers can then make determinations on how best to market and monetize the app while it is still fresh in the users' mind.

Although predictions last week raised expectations about the role that social media would play in reshaping what has historically been one of the most engaging non-holiday events in the U.S. every year, the first analysis of yesterday's public social network data by advertising analysis firm Networked Insights makes a compelling revelation: Almost three-fourths of the chat taking place among Twitter and Facebook users Sunday night had nothing to do with the game itself.

In fact, according to Networked Insights' data, the Super Bowl topic that trended in third place was "Brady," but when you break that topic down, you realize it may actually have been more about Mrs. Tom Brady - supermodel Gisele Bundchen, who appeared on camera perhaps once during the game, whom Tweeters evidently referred to as "Mrs. Brady" or perhaps "Lady Brady" - than about the New England Patriots quarterback.

Twitter may become the heavyweight in analytics of its own content, boxing out rivals HootSuite, bit.ly and Klout.

As first reported by ReadWriteWeb, Twitter plans to launch sophisticated analytical tools, according to Erica Anderson, Twitter's manager for news and journalism.

Anderson, who made the comments last weekend at a social media conference at Columbia University in New York, said the analytical tools will better help publishers track the reach of tweets sent through the microblogging service. Twitter already offers similar services to its advertisers.

Mobile analytics and monetization platform Flurry is adding a new vertical to its platform offering today. Recognizing the coming growth of mobile Web apps, Flurry will begin tracking HTML5 mobile Web apps starting with a beta software developer kit today.

Flurry supports five other mobile platforms. That includes BlackBerry, iOS, Android, Windows Phone and J2ME. Flurry notes a recent survey by Kony that says that 74% of Fortune 500 companies were planning on some type of HTML5 integration. Only 7%, however, said they would replace their native apps with HTML5. In an ecosystem that is becoming increasingly diverse, Flurry is making sure it can be everything to everybody.

The necessity of having a clear and cohesive mobile marketing strategy has never been greater. Companies that do not have a mobile marketing strategy now are light years behind the curve in the face of booming smartphone adoption and changing consumer behavior. Research firm Forrester took a look at some of the biggest and best mobile marketing companies to see how they stack up and what benefits they can add for companies.

There is a problem with Forrester's research. Mainly, it looks only at the biggest and best. It is an enterprise-focused report that narrows in on nine mobile marketing companies and the strengths behind each. Fundamentally, this is the wrong approach to take in a world where dozens of innovative startups are tackling the idea of mobile marketing with fresh ideas and eager teams.

Looking for innovative ways to use R, the Big Data open source analytics language? Then take a gander at the two top winners of the first of a series of contests that R's corporate caretaker Revolution Analytics has produced. The winners, announced today, receive prizes that range from $1,000 to $10,000 for their submissions. It is an interesting collection and shows off the power of the language itself.

Mobile analytics company Flurry has been tracking the progression of iOS and Android application penetration across the world. No surprise, the United States is the most mature smartphone market on the planet. The rest of the world is catching up. China and South Korea both have made great leaps in 2011 to bring smart devices to users and where there is a smartphone, there is an app for that.

The U.S. has the highest install base of Android and iOS devices running apps in the world at 109 million. China is second at 35 million with the United Kingdom third at 17 million. The mobile app market is by no means saturated. Flurry still sees lots of room for it to grow.

Earlier this week on his personal blog, one of Google's product management directors, Hunter Walk, posted a very interesting sampling of responses from technology journalists about the broad question of whether they are receiving the level of journalism from our business that they deserve. I found it very interesting that a product manager from any company was able to reveal at least as much, if not more, about the folks who usually interview him than they reveal about his company.

The emerging theme from the journalists' responses was distinct exasperation and frustration with the level of interest that you, their reader, have demonstrated in their product. It's getting "harder... to convince people to read these stories" on broader subjects like piracy, said one. Another remarked, "I wish more people cared about" the very topic on which his publication was founded (you'll know the one I mean), and which you would think his livelihood is based. And a third went so far as to blame readers for being interested in the wrong things, saying, "I am dismayed every day by the crap that people seem to find worthy of page views."

Android is making some big news at the end of the year. The platform is seeing a billion app downloads a month, it controls nearly 50% of the smartphone market, new devices are being released every week and Ice Cream Sandwich is starting to make its way into the hands of consumers. With everything Android has going for it, you would think it was the No. 1 choice of app developers, right?

Not so fast. Mobile analytics company Flurry shows that new projects by developers are still dominated by iOS. Google chairman Eric Schmidt said last week that developers would be making apps for Android first by the middle of 2012. If that is going to be the case, the platform has a lot of catching up to do.

In a New York Times interview published yesterday, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff - who was no doubt relishing his place in the spotlight - poked a little fun at his competitors, whom he now perceives as challengers to his position. "Where are SAP, Microsoft, Oracle?" Benioff asked. "Why haven't they taken our customers?"

Well, Mr. Benioff might want to look over his shoulder. SAP, which still touts itself as the world's largest provider of business software, is entering one of Salesforce's prize markets in a very big way this morning: with a live social media analytics tool that leverages an existing mother lode of data on consumer sentiment from market research firm NetBase. The objective is to enable manufacturers and service providers to get live analysis of consumer sentiment about the services and products they offer, based on what they're tweeting to Twitter and Facebook.