The Wireless Industry Partnership has released their July App(lication) Report. Here’s a snippet of its summary:

Looking through many of the major app(lication) stores reveals a few things that haven’t changed all that much since the days when carrier WAP portals dominated the mobile content business. In particular, the dominance of larger app makers in the top-download charts and in the “featured app” slots harkens back to the days when the biggest winners in the mobile content space were the companies with the best biz dev teams, not the best apps and content.

Some app(lication) stores, such as the iTunes App Store, do a decent job of highlighting content from lesser-known developers alongside the big names, but the reality in most stores is that it’s truly a long tail game. Like in so many things, the 80/20 rule provides a good rough estimate: in this case, 80 percent of the apps are sold by 20 percent of the providers — leaving the other 80 percent of developers fighting over the rest of the market.

Read the report (PDF) at WIP Connector.

Over at Mobile Advance a new interview series called 10 Questions. Here, Mobile Advance interviews people involved in and around mobile ministry activities.

The latest of these interviews is with Alex Kerr from the UK. Here’s a snippet of that interview:

5. What are some of the biggest obstacles to implementing effective mobile ministry? For you/your ministry? For the Christian world in general?

A couple of things I think need to be overcome in mobile ministry in general to see it being as effective as it can be. Firstly, a raising of awareness amongst churches globally that the mobile phone is a channel to reach people in general, and especially youth (though most certainly not limited to them). I know big, globally known churches, that don’t even have mobile on their radar. It does depend who your audience is for a particular outreach – maybe mobile really isn’t appropriate for something – but generally I think awareness needs to increase considerably, just so it’s at least on the table in people’s minds as an option (along with other routes to reach people)…

Read the rest of this interview at Mobile Advance.