Libraries play an important role for families with children under the age of 18. According to a new report from Pew Research, called “Parents, Children, Libraries, and Reading,” 94 percent of parents of minors say that libraries are “important” for their children, and 79 percent said that libraries are “very important.” In addition, 84 percent of parents of kids under 6 say that libraries are “very important.”

Compared to adults without children, parents of minors are more likely to own a library card, visit a library, as well as use the library website, and connect to the library with a mobile device.  In fact, 30 percent of these parents said that they started using the library more in the past five years, because of their child.

iPhone app downloads increased by 12 percent to 5.02 million daily downloads in March 2013, as compared to March 2012, according to new metrics from Fiksu.

However, the Fiksu App Store Competitive Index, which measures the average aggregate daily download volume of the top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps, revealed a 4 percent drop in download activity in March 2013 as compared to February 2013, which had 5.20 million daily downloads. In March, Fiksu also recorded its one hundred billionth app user action last month, meaning that the company has measured more than one billion app downloads on its platform.

“The ‘new normal’ continued in March, which was good news for mobile app marketers. Inventory has increased but costs have held steady, reflecting a maturity in the overall quality of apps and their ability to engage users,’” explained Micah Adler, CEO of Fiksu in a statement.

In February, there were 224 million monthly active users of mobile apps in the United States, according to research firm Flurry Analytics, making the number of app users a little bit higher than that of PC Internet users, which according to comScore, was 221 million during the same month.

Flurry also reported that app usage is slightly higher during nights and weekends. On average, apps experience 25 percent greater usage on weekends. And during app “primetime” there are about 52 million app users engaging with apps.

Here is more from the Flurry blog:

To get to an audience of that size, you’d need to combine the circulation of the largest 200 weekend newspapers in the U.S. or combine the audiences for the 3 most highly rated primetime TV shows during a good TV week (e.g., The Big Bang Theory). We believe this comparison says a couple of important things about the app audience: first that it has reached critical mass, and second that it is still highly fragmented relative to more traditional forms of media.

App downloads from four of the major app marketplaces – Apple’s App Store, Google Play, the Windows Phone Store and BlackBerry World – were up 11% in Q1 2013 as compared to all of Q4 2012, according to market research firm Canalys’ latest App Interrogator research.

The report also revealed these four stores combined had 13.4 billion downloads, and $2.2 billion in revenue. In addition, revenues from paid-for apps, in-app purchases and subscriptions combined grew 9% in Q 2013, over the whole year 2012.

Here is more about how sales broke down globally from the press release:

Some of the strongest growth was seen in emerging markets, such as South Africa, Brazil and Indonesia, helped not least by the growing base of smart device users in those countries. But robust growth, both in revenue terms and download volumes, was seen in mature mobility markets, such as North America, up 8% and 6% respectively, and Western Europe, up 8% and 10% in Q1.

App downloads were up in both the Apple App Store and Google Play during the first quarter of 2013, according to new data from App Annie. Google saw a bigger jump in downloads comparatively, but Apple still leads the market.

The App Annie blog explains: “From Q4 2012 to Q1 2013, iOS App Store quarterly revenue grew by roughly one-quarter. Meanwhile, Google Play app revenue grew by roughly 90%. While Google Play had the higher growth rate, the iOS App Store gained more in absolute revenue and earned about 2.6x that of Google Play in Q1.”

App Annie also looked at which countries these downloads were coming from. The United States leads the pack, followed by China, which is beginning to gain momentum in Apple’s App Store. China is followed by the United Kingdom, Japan and France on the top countries by downloads list.

Computer Scientists from the University of Vermont have concluded that, “Expressed happiness increases logarithmically with distance from an individual’s average location.” In other words, Twitter users are happier the farther they are from home.

The researchers analyzed 37 million tweets from 180,000 users in 2011with public location feature enabled. Most users gravitate between “home” and “work” which accounted for their average location. There was a notable lack of negative words like “hate” when users were further from home at restaurants or beaches. One surprising finding was about laughter (“hahaha”) – it was more inherent when users were closer to home.

Via MIT Technology Review

Apple’s iOS browser Safari accounted for 61.79 percent of mobile web browsing in March, according to new metrics from NewMarketShare.com.

This is up from 55.41 percent in February, showing a rebound for Safari. CNET has more: “After rising steadily in past years, Safari’s share has tread water over the past year or so. Its 61.79 percent share last month is just slightly higher than the 60.5 percent seen in March of 2012.”

Safari is followed by the Android browser which accounted for 21.86 percent of mobile web browsing traffic in March, according to the report. The report also revealed that Opera Mini was used for 8.4 percent of mobile web browsing traffic, Chrome took 2.43 percent, Microsoft Internet Explorer owned 1.99 percent, BlackBerry had.91 percent of mobile web browsing and Symbian accounted for .54 percent of all web browsing.

A recent survey by AT&T reveals that adults are the biggest violators of texting and driving. Nearly 49% of adults surveyed admitted to driving and texting compared to 43% of teenagers. Ironically, 98% of adults thinks that this behavior is unsafe.

John Ulczycki of the National Safety Council  states that, “Texting while driving is not just a teen problem. Teens text. But you’re looking at around 10 million teen drivers, but about 180 million other adult drivers.”

The bad news is, these numbers have been increasing. Of those that do text and drive, 60% said they never did it three years ago. Texting and using your smart devices can distract you for an average of 4.6 seconds – long enough to increase your crash risk by 23 times. Read more

In-app purchases account for 76 percent of all U.S. iPhone App Store revenue, Distimo revealed today in a new report. According to the report, in-app purchases accounted for at least 90 percent of all revenue in the Asian markets, which include Hong Kong, Japan, China and South Korea.

The report also revealed that the average revenue per download of the top 250 apps released since January 2012 is $0.99 in the U.S, and $3.12 in Japan. Another interesting metric is that freemium apps generate the least amount of revenue per download, averaging $.93 in returns among the top 250 apps in the Apple Apple Store.

Here is more from the report: “Paid apps without in-app purchases generate $2.25 in the Apple App Store for iPhone in the U.S. Paid apps with in-app purchases generate even more per download, indicating that users are not put off by the fact that they also have to pay for additional features within the app, in addition to the one-off fee they initially paid for their app.”

iPhone app downloads decreased by 13 percent to 5.2 million daily downloads in February, according to new metrics from Fiksu.

The Fiksu App Store Competitive Index, which measures the average aggregate daily download volume of the top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps, followed an increase in downloads during January. The decrease in February downloads came after huge spikes in downloads during the holiday season.

“On the heels of a record-shattering holiday season, February presented a more consistent ‘normalized’ and valuable landscape for mobile app marketers,” stated Micah Adler, CEO, Fiksu. “In the absence of major events or device launches during the month, the February Indexes provide early indication of what we can expect the ‘new normal’ to be for marketers this year.”