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All About Windows Phone is reporting that the Marketplace for Windows Phone has hit the 50,000 app and game submitted milestone.  This is a significant achievement especially considering how fast this level was reached.  It took a full year for the Marketplace to hit 40,000 apps but only took 40 days to from that point to hit 50,000.  Even more interesting, it took Windows Phone significantly less time than the Android marketplace to reach the 50K mark.  Windows Phone did it in just under 14 months while Android took 19 months to hit the mark.  iOS is still the leader however, reaching 50,000 apps in 12 months.

Rafe and team over at AAWP have put together an impressive set of graphs and breakdowns of the marketplace apps and historical information.  I encourage all of you to read it.

Windows Phone Marketplace Apps By Category

The rate of apps being submitted is during the last 4 weeks has been 265 apps per day!  That is a stunning number when you think about it.  There is a lot of developer attention on the platform now which is great to see.

Clearly all of this points to a great start for 2012 for the platform.  Let’s see if 60,000 apps can be hit in early February!

Source:  All About Windows Phone

Klout, the influence measuring site and service, has quickly become a key social networking locale for people from virtually every walk of life.  Klout measures how much you impact a particular topic or group of people through various social networking channels such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr and many others.  If you haven’t check it out, you should at http://www.klout.com

Developer Julien Dollon has been working on a Klout app, aptly named Klout Score, for Windows Phone and it is expected to drop into the Marketplace next week.  If it holds up, it would be the first Klout app for Windows Phone and only the 2nd that I know of (there is one for Android but none for iOS).  According to Julien’s site, the app will give you all the information about your Klout score that you get from the site itself.  This includes your topics, those you influence and those who influence you and details on your Klout score.

Klout Score App from Julien Dollon

Look for the app to hit the Windows Phone Marketplace next week.

[Update] – Richard Hay commented that there are some Klout related apps in the Marketplace.  I missed those this morning in the original post.  Thanks Richard for setting me straight! 🙂

One of the most ‘in tune” people in my opinion with Microsoft, Windows and Windows Phone is Paul Thurrott.  If you aren’t familiar with who he is, check out his site, Super Site Windows or you can check him out with Mary-Jo Foley and Leo Laporte on Windows Weekly on TWiT.

Last year on his site Paul posted an article on what Microsoft needed to do to get Windows Phone right in 2011.  If you look at the list, Microsoft pretty much got it all done.  Now he has posted an article on what Microsoft needs to do in 2012 to fix Windows Phone and really establish it in the market.

He has a good list of things that need to be addressed by Microsoft in 2012 for the platform to be successful and I generally agree with most of them.  Give the article a read and see what you think.  Do you agree?  What do you see as Windows Phone’s biggest stumbling block to success in 2012?

For many of you, today is the first day since the Christmas holiday this weekend to get back online and do some post holiday shopping or searching for information on your latest gadget.  If you are the proud owner of a Windows Phone, congratulations and welcome to the community!

If you are moving from a feature phone or another smartphone (Android or iPhone), then this Windows Phone experience will be somewhat of a left turn for you.  It’s different.  A lot different.  You’ve probably already figured that out but just in case the whole Live Tile start screen thing didn’t tell you… this is a lot different! 🙂

Over the course of the past year I’ve put together a series of How To’s for Windows Phone.  Some of these are basic while others are more advanced but they are all designed to help you get a handle on the new experience that is Windows Phone.  The How To’s are generally Windows Phone focused and not device specific.  That said, there are some specific How To’s for HTC and Samsung phones but only one or two.

To get to all of the How To’s here on ClintonFitch.com, just navigate to the How To section in the left-hand side bar.  And of course you can always post a question on Twitter or here on the site.