Since the time that the Apple App Store has launched, over 1 billion applications have been downloaded.  Some of the applications are paid and some are free.  The free applications have found a way to make money thanks to Medialets.  Medialets has the ability to embed advertising banners and links on iPhone applications.

The advertising company that started last June in New York and has just announced their Series A funding of $4 million.  The investment was led by Foundry Group.  Other investors are DFJ Gotham and Bobby Yazdani.  Medialets also has the ability to place advertisements on applications built for the Google Android operating system.

Medialets CEO Eric Litman believes that the mobile advertising industry will top at around $300 million but will hit reach as high as $400 million in the next four years.

[via AllThingsD]

Lijit is a company that develops search applications for bloggers and other publisher networks.  Lijit recently raised $7.1 million in Series C from the Foundry Group, Boulder Ventures, and High Country Venture.  Lijit has raised over $10 million thus far.  With this new round of funding, Lijit plans on building an search-powered advertising network. 

Lijit provides bloggers and publishers a social search engine that looks at the content that is popular and provides analytics for it.  Lijit’s search engine states that they can increase page views by 5% or more.  Here is an example of Lijit being used.

Another example of how Lijit can be used is if you write a technology blog.  Suppose that one of your readers searches for Live.com on your Lijit search engine.  They will find results about blog posts that you wrote regarding Live.com and find some of the bookmarks you have put together.

Lijit is currently using Google AdSense, but their advertising network will allow publishers to choose their own advertising inventory. 

Related Link:
1. Mashable

Zynga is a social network game-making machine.  The company has just raised $29 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Institutional Venture Partners, Union Square Ventures, Avalon Ventures, and Foundry Group.  Union, Avalon, and Foundry were all previous investors.  Zynga is based out of San Francisco, Calif.

Zynga was started by Mark Pincus.  Through this round of funding, Kleiner Perkins partner and former chief creative officer of Electronic Arts Bing Gordon will join Zynga’s board of directors.  Zynga’s last round of funding was $10 million in January 2008.  Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel of the PayPal mafia were a couple of investors involved in the last round of funding.

Zynga currently has about 18 million uniques per month.  Zynga’s revenue model is advertising and selling game add-ons.  Zynga’s top games on Facebook are Poker, Blackjack, Scramble, Word Twist, PathWords, Sudoku, Sea Wars, Mafia Wars, Dragon Wars, Triumph, Attack!, My Heroes Ability, Ghost Racer, Dope Wars, and YoVille.  Zynga recently acquired YoVille.

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Zynga