Mobilewalla found that mobile apps released on Sundays statistically performed the best.

Launch your mobile app on Sunday
According to new research from mobile analytics service Mobilewalla, Sunday is the best day to release a mobile app; however, Wednesday appears to be the most popular day among developers. Find out the worst day to release your app. (Hint: It’s different for Android and iOS.)

A tiny gaming company has Zynga in its crosshairs
Rumble Games wants you to “swing your sword or fire your gun, not decorate your castle and spam your friends with invitations.” It was a big enough idea to prompt investors from Google Ventures and Khosla Ventures to drop $15 million into the company in its first round of funding after it was founded less than a year ago.

This is what the company has to say about the current state of social gaming. Kixeye wasn’t amused by Rumble Games’ comments, calling it “smack talk.” Read Kixeye CEO Will Harbin’s response. (Disclosure: Kixeye is a Kontagent customer.)

On a related note, a recent move by the Justice Department could give Zynga a new billion-dollar opportunity.

There’s another mobile social gaming network to choose from
San Jose, Calif.-based PlayPhone hopes to challenge rivals such as Gree/OpenFeint and DeNA/Ngmoco in the battle to create a huge social network of gamers on smartphones and tablets. PlayPhone officially launched last month and already has three million users worldwide.

That grocery cart will track your every move
In author Martin Lindstrom’s series on the future of retail, he highlights real-life shopping carts that are computerized and programmed to understand the shopper’s buying patterns. This can reveal the speed of the shopper, how long it takes to make a selection, the preferred route, and the order in which items are placed in the cart.

While it’s slightly different from social/mobile analytics, the basic idea is the same: businesses’ need to track user behavior, gain insights, and create better experiences that encourage customers to spend. (Brian Smith says online businesses should also take note: The New ECommerce Metrics: What Etailers Can Learn from Gaming Companies.)

Gamification is mainstream
[Last year] it seemed that games were everywhere, and not just Foursquare badges and check-ins. Mainstream brands such as AOL and Dell adopted these techniques. Big Door put together this infographic that summarizes gamification funding and predictions.

Smartphone apps that need to be created in 2012
Not in the gaming space? TechRepublic has published a wish list of apps users need this year. “Some of these apps are pure fantasy, and some of them are ports of already existing applications.”

Data overload? Enter the new superhero: the data scientist
The coming deluge of data will create demand for a new kind of computer scientist–a gig that’s one part mathematician, one part product-development guru, and one part detective. (After all, big data is useless without science.)

Today there are some 400 million devices connected to the Internet, mostly phones and computers. By 2020 some 50 billion devices, from cars to appliances, will be talking to one another. And companies will need teams of data scientists to sort through everything from internal inventory metrics to customer tweets. Will you be ready?

The future is here… and you can take some college courses for it
Northwestern University is doing its bit to feed the need for analytics skills in this era of big data. The university’s McCormick School of Engineering recently launched a new Master of Science degree in analytics and is accepting applications for the inaugural class to kick off this September. Included in the curriculum will be coursework on big data analytics.

According to the Institute of the Future, these skills will be must-haves in the workforce. Here’s its list of broad skills that will help workers adapt to the changing career landscape.

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About the author: Catherine Mylinh is a member of Kontagent’s storytelling team, where she is head of content marketing. She credits her journalism and computer science roots—she was once a programmer!—for her love of learning and writing about all things high tech. You can contact Catherine at @cat_mylinh.