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Mobile apps are proliferating so quickly that getting yours discovered is a big challenge. Leading New York startup incubator Betaworks (Twitter, Tweetdeck, Bitly, Tumblr), in collaboration with technology shop Prehype and NYC tech community organizer Nate Westheimer, have launched a new app promotion service that brings a familiar formula to a new mobile app context. It's called Allify.

The idea is simple: run ads for other iPhone apps on your app or web page and get credits to apply toward promotion of your app in other peoples' ad space.

Mobile game maker Rovio released a free full version of their popular Angry Birds app for Android users today and the launch has subsequently taken down the company's website and, at times, has impacted the app's download page on the independent app store, GetJar, where the app is being exclusively launched. In fact, the app is proving so popular that GetJar is recommending users visit m.getjar.com from their mobile phone browser instead.

We've talked about design a lot recently, highlighting the nuances of thoughtful placement and treatment of various elements of a web page. Today I stumbled onto an interesting blog post by Ryan Spoon of Polaris Venture Partners about how small changes or additions, specifically in design, can at times make a huge difference for a product on the Web. In the example Spoon references, Facebook added a post log-out message to their homepage which for some users will suggest they look into using Facebook mobile - a small change that is proving useful for the social media powerhouse.

If you're a mobile app developer, one of your biggest concerns is getting noticed. Companies like Smule and Tapulous already have recognized brands; however, for the independent app designer, the promotion process requires a fair amount of strategy. One proven method of increasing downloads is becoming listed as one of the App Store's top selling services. We spoke to faberNovel's Baptiste Benezet to find out how indie developers can hack the App Store ranking algorithm.

In an email sent to users today and in today's blog post, SocialToo CEO, Jesse Stay, announced that users would no longer be receiving nightly Twitter autofollow and unfollow stat emails on the company's dime. Email from SocialToo now costs $20.

This comes in the wake of a "no guarantees" policy toward accuracy or speed for Twitter users with more than 2,000 followers and general claims of delays, issues, and inaccuracies. Do we smell inadequate infrastructure?

Users are bombarded with new sites and apps that spring up every five seconds. It's becoming increasingly difficult to know what's the next big thing and what's just more noise and clutter.

Enter new media marketing for new media products! A rash of online promo videos for social products show how Internet and mobile entrepreneurs have taken lessons from traditional broadcast advertising as much as they have from YouTube.

What do you get when you combine a platform for creating user-generated video content with the micro-blogging sensation that is Twitter? According to 12seconds.tv, you get a viable business model for your company, a platform that allows brands to leverage Twitter for communication, and a way for everyday Twitter users to have fun and earn prizes. Does that sound like a win-win-win all around? It very well may be...or it may just be the first example of how Twitter is transforming from a fun, communication tool used among friends to a commercialized platform for mainstream marketing.

According to the latest data from Hitwise, Twitter sends most of its traffic to Google, Facebook, TwitPic, and MySpace. Overall, Twitter sends about 1 in 5 users to social networks and another 1 in 5 to entertainment sites like Twitpic, YouTube, or Flickr. Even though some people think that Twitter is just a 'poor man's email system,' Twitter's clickstream profile is very different from that of most email services.

Red hot TV and movie site Hulu has added a major new feature this morning on the one year anniversary of the site. Logged in users are now able to securely pull in their list of contacts from Facebook, Google, MySpace, MSN and Yahoo. The company calls it "Hulu Friends." Though some skeptics have questioned the impact of social video watching, this kind of move is exactly what we've been hoping all sites around the web would do.

Identity providers are now making it easy for 3rd party content sites to turn content consumption into a social activity. From real-time conversation to recommendations, there's a whole lot of potential here. That said, we do have some concerns about Hulu's implementation.

In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup, our newsletter summarising the top stories of the week, we look at the latest social networking statistics showing that Facebook has overtaken MySpace, review a product that's had great success using OpenID, continue our series on recommendation engines, check out the new version of Amazon's Kindle e-book reader, review 4 innovative location-based apps, and more. Also check out the highlights from our Enterprise Channel and Jobwire, ReadWriteWeb's new product which tracks hires in tech and new media.