Apps Gaining Ground

Nielsen reports that U.S. consumers are downloading more apps than ever before and using them for more minutes per day. Half of the country now owns a smartphone . . . and on that smartphone, they have an average of 41 apps this year, compared with 32 apps last year. Nielsen's study names these as the top five apps: Facebook, YouTube, Google Play (entertainment app), Google Search, and Gmail.

TechCrunch points out that Apple has more than 25 billion app downloads at this point, and Google apps reached the 15 billion download mark this month.

Meanwhile, with Facebook at the top of the app list, its upcoming IPO has sparked much discussion about how the social media giant can wring revenues from its popularity. Some industry observers see FB earning millions of dollars from mobile marketing in the near future. Other news reports question whether FB can leverage its app dominance for profitability. First, let's see how the IPO does on day 1 and then on day 2.