Social video apps proliferate

The rising popularity of social video apps could be making a dent in YouTube's monopoly on video sharing, according to research firm Flurry, Pocket Gamer reports.

In light of Facebook's recent acquisition of photo-app Instagram, Flurry's latest research sets out to find which types of apps users might be flocking to next using its sample of eight million active mobile users.

Charting growth based on minutes spent since October 2011 to March 2012, photo and video app usage has grown 89%, followed by music and productivity apps with 72% and 66% growth, respectively.

According to Tech Crunch, this data is based on Flurry's analysis of the 180 000 apps that currently use its analytics software on iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry and HTML5.

Other mobile app categories that, according to Flurry, are currently growing fast are social networking (54%) and entertainment (40%).

“Trained by the sharing behaviour of Facebook, and enabled by a confluence of underlying technology like built-in HD video cameras, hardy on-device processors, increased network bandwidth, cloud storage and user-friendly applications like Viddy and SocialCam, social video apps are taking off,” Media Post quotes Peter Farago, Flurry VP for marketing, as saying in a blog post.

While these apps have gained greater attention lately, he points out that time spent with photo and video apps has been building for some time - with growth up 166% since July 2011, and 141% since March 2011.