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Online social networking sites have often been accused of separating people from the real world, and providing them with the illusion of connection through virtual relationships which aren't the equivalent of their offline counterparts. But that's not actually the case, a new study says. Facebook users actually have more close relationships than non-users, and are more trusting, more politically engaged and get more social support than other Internet users.

According to a report from CNBC, Facebook is planning a Q1 2012 IPO which could be "pegged at north of $100 billion." The social networking company's IPO may be triggered by a section of the Securities and Exchange Act known as "the 500 rule," which states that a private company with over 500 investors must begin to release quarterly financial information to the SEC, just as public companies do, CNBC explains.

This news comes alongside a second report, which states that Facebook's growth is slowing down in certain key markets, including the U.S.

Social media monitoring firm SocialNuggets was tuned into Apple's developer conference (WWDC) this week, and specifically the news revealed during CEO Steve Jobs' keynote address. The firm's goal was to see what Internet users had to say about all of Apple's new products and services.

To reach its conclusions, SocialNuggets monitored over 12,000 social media mentions, blog posts, forum postings and other online mentions. The results are not surprising. For the most part, the reaction to nearly all of Apple's announcements, from iOS 5 to iCloud and beyond, was overwhelmingly positive.

95,000 of the roughly 300,000 mobile applications that have ever appeared on the Android Market are no longer available - an app attrition rate of 32%. In comparison, 80,000 apps out of approximately 500,000 (or 16%) created for iOS devices including the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch have similarly disappeared. This is a notable difference between the two marketplaces, especially given the Android Market's shorter existence.

Why do these numbers matter? For one thing, the app attrition rate is often a factor in calculating store sizes. More broadly, the differences also speak to the opposing cultures of the stores themselves. Many Android developers appear to approach app publishing as an experimental effort, not a business, and publishing and pulling apps far more often than those on the App Store do.

Did you know that men aged 30 to 49 do more mobile shopping than their peers? Or that 50% of Groupon's business over the next 2 years will come from mobile devices? Or that Starbucks has seen over 3 million micro-payment transactions? These are the sorts of tidbits of information that a new infographic on mobile shopping and e-commerce trends helps to visualize.

Last week, we cited a study from mobile analytics firm Distimo that stated the majority of paid Android applications were downloaded less than 100 times. On Android, folks like the free apps, it seems. Now, to back up that report with additional data, we have mobile search firm Chomp's report for the month of April.

During this past month, 97% of all Android downloads throughout its search properties were free apps, and that number has increased by 2% over March, the company says.

A new report from mobile analytics firm Distimo takes an in-depth look into the download volumes in Google's Android Market, and the numbers it finds are somewhat surprising. Android may have a larger number of apps - 200,000 Google reported earlier this month - but it doesn't have a large number of "winners."

Distimo found that just 96 applications have been downloaded more than 5 million times in the Google Android Market, for example. In addition, 20% of free apps and 80% of paid apps have been downloaded less than 100 times to date.

Isis, the NFC-enabled mobile payments venture led by three of the top four U.S. mobile operators, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, is accelerating and broadening the scope of its offering, not scaling back, as The Wall St. Journal recently reported. This is according to Jaymee Johnson, Isis' Marketing head, who also says that the group was "very displeased" with WSJ's article, which he called "massively misleading." But the Journal had picked up on something going on within Isis: change.

Instead of going to market with one issuer and one payment network, as originally planned, Isis is planning to partner with multiple issuers and networks, Johnson explains.

Location-based media company JiWire has released a new report detailing the mobile shopping trends among the "on-the-go" audience, which JiWire defines as people using tablets, smartphones or laptops away from their home or workplace. According to the study, 79% of these users are becoming more comfortable making purchases on their mobile devices, even for big ticket items over $1,000.

It also found that these consumers are heavily engaged with local deals services like Groupon and LivingSocial, for example, and had a high demand for tablet computers.

Millennial Media's April 2011 report, a snapshot of the company's large mobile advertising network and the trends it contains, found this month that ad impressions on iOS devices have increased by 47% since January of this year. At the same time, Android impressions have grown just 19%.

And when breaking down the revenue generated by all apps, iOS apps accounted for 50% of revenue, while Android accounted for 39%. This was a 6% month-over-month increase for Apple.