Why mobile app installs are a huge deal and 4 other stories you shouldn’t miss this week!

Week 18Here are the 5 stories not to miss from the week that was in the mobile industry.

1. Why Mobile App Install Ads Are Suddenly Such a Huge Deal (Wall Street Journal)Facebook’s mobile ad business has now reached close to 60% of its total revenue, according to its Q1 Earnings report. The WSJ took this opportunity to investigate the reasons behind the recent and overwhelming success of app install ads.
2. Mobile apps could hit $70B in revenues by 2017 (Venture Beat)In its latest report, Investment Bank Digi-Capital predicts that mobile apps will reach $70 billion in annual revenue by 2017. Mobile app mergers and acquisitions accounted for a record $35 billion in the last 12 months. Click here for the free executive summary.
3. Avoiding Simpson’s paradox in data analysis (MobileDevMemo)Eric Seufert explains how Simpson’s paradox (whereby different statistical conclusions can be drawn whether one looks at the whole population or at subclasses) can be avoided, especially for freemium products such as free-to-play mobile games.Hint: it’s about segmentation and dimension prioritization.
4. Apple vs. Google: A world view on the mobile gaming war (VentureBeat)In this instructive read, VentureBeat takes a comprehensive look at monetization patterns for mobile games on iOS and Android across various world regions.
5. OTT2: the second tidal wave of mobile ecosystems (Vision Mobile)Over-the-top (OTT) messaging apps represent the second wave of mobile ecosystems after the operating systems, argues Vision Mobile. They are mobile-first and twice over-the-top, as they are built on top of both telco services and app platforms.