ReadWriteWeb

The mobile advertising industry was a $1 billion business in 2011. It is expected to hit $6.5 billion by 2014, according to eMarketer. For reference, it was 1998 when Web advertising hit the $1 billion mark. In 2010, it was a $26 billion industry fueling the growth of companies like Google and other Web-centric properties.

What does this mean to you, the mobile app developer? Well, there is opportunity in front of you that is not correlated to paid downloads or in-app purchases. Mobile targeting platform Jumptap's MobileSTAT report for January 2012 shows that the mobile Web and native apps are a 50/50 market. Where does your focus go? Jumptap recommends taking a look at your target audience.

When it comes to HTML5 mobile Web app development, a lot of developers are waiting for a blue print of success to follow before jumping into the deep end. Sure, HTML5 mobile Web apps have the potential to change the entire mobile app ecosystem, but right now native apps are a tried and true channel that developers have come to trust. It will take several prominent and successful HTML5 mobile Web apps before the rest of the ecosystem jumps on the bandwagon.

One of the companies laying the architecture for a successful mobile Web app could be social conference directory Lanyrd. Today, Lanyrd is releasing mobile Web version of their app that will take advantage of HTML5's offline caching, making it easier to find your way around a conference filled with bandwidth guzzling revelers. For HTML5 developers, watch the way in which Lanyrd innovates within the spec and the blueprint for success may be in front of you.

Joe Hewitt, one of the most important software developers in recent history, published a provocative and sad post on his personal blog today, predicting that unless the open and free Web gets someone to own and take responsibility for advancing it, it will inevitably fall into virtual obscurity in the dust of fast evolving platforms like iOS, Android and Windows. Chris White, one of the co-founders of Android, offers a compelling argument against Hewitt's perspective, though.

As one of the primary co-creators of Firefox, Hewitt single-handedly built the Facebook iPhone app. and when he left Facebook fed up with Apple's approval process for apps, he announced that his next aim was to build tools for mobile HTML5 developers. Apparently that work has led to some frustrating experiences trying to support the open web. It's not surprising, but it is pretty heartbreaking. It's hard to imagine a decentralized platform like the web evolving to make as many things possible, as quickly and at scale, as the big centralized app platforms.

Lashou.com could become China's first daily deals site to launch an IPO in the United States, pitting it against major challenger Groupon, according to a report by Bloomberg.

But the news could be all bluster and roadshow theatrics. The China-based site is also looking to replace Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as the IPO-backing banks, the report said. Groupon recently pushed back its impending public market launch due to swings in the market.

It was a matter of time before a mobile development company made a framework that makes it very simple to create mobile Websites. Web2Mobile has launched a product called FiddleFly that allows companies to easily create a mobile presence with templates, themes with drag-and-drop ease.

Mobile and Web developers have been dreading it, but the cut-and-paste revolution that dominated late 1990s Web design is coming to mobile. Unlike the 1990s though, where Web pages were static digital posters, the mobile version of this evolution can at least create dynamic sites that users can interact with on their smartphones and tablets.

AppMobi has launched a new "XDK," which allows developers to build HTML5-optimized applications for the Web or for mobile platforms. The resulting code can be used to deliver great HTML5 applications, like those found in Chrome's Web app store, but it can also be used in hybrid apps submitted to Apple's App Store or the Android Market.

The XDK itself is a Web app, and is available in the Chrome Web app Store for free.

PhoneGap, the open source mobile developement framework that allows mobile developers build apps using Web standards, is launching today into version 1.0. This is a milestone release for the platform, which now adds additional APIs, features and improvements in its newly updated product.

The launch is being celebrated in Portland, at an event called PhoneGap Day held at Urban Airship, a company which just had some major news of its own. Champagne all around!

Sencha Touch Charts are a new offering from mobile app framework and tools provider Sencha. Recently launched into beta, these charts lets mobile developers build HTML5 Web applications for data visualization and exploration.

Mobile users can then manipulate the charts using familiar gestures - swipes, pinches, reverse pinches, drag-and-drop, etc. - to really interact with data, on either their phone or tablet computer.

Over on Google's new social networking service Google Plus, Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur started a great discussion on the differences between HTML5 mobile Web apps and native iOS and Android apps. The question he raised is what can you not do in a mobile Web app? You can't do video capture, for instance, or push notifications, among other things. But what else? What are the real challenges here?

At last count, 87 comments from Google Plus users helped to fill in the blanks. The resulting discussion is remarkably similar to something you would see over on Quora, minus the comment threading and answer summary. For mobile developers, this is one discussion worth checking in on.

AddThis, Clearspring's online content sharing platform, has just arrived in a format for mobile app developers to take advantage of, on both iOS and Android ( the latter in beta). "Everything is shifting to mobile very quickly," explains AddThis CEO Hooman Radfar. "Our community of 9 million plus publishers are building more and more for the mobile Web, and they want the same functionality for mobile apps."

With the new suite of tools including AddThis for the Mobile Web, AddThis for iOS SDK, and the forthcoming SDK for Android, that will finally be possible.