Have you ever wondered who actually developed your favorite mobile app? I bet you wouldn't guess that most apps are actually created by small businesses (mostly companies with under 10 employees) across the country. In this week's Fiksu Feed, we'll look at new research on the origin of the top 500 best-selling mobile apps, as well as industry predictions on Apple's iTunes store and the surging "freemium" business model for mobile marketers.

An interesting new report from the Association for Competitive Technology shows that the majority of top selling apps around the world are not produced by large corporate entities as many might expect, but instead, 88 percent are produced by small businesses here in the United States.

The Huffington Post reports that in order for the U.S. to continue its domination of the app marketplace, we must widely adopt Long Term Evolution (LTE), the "next communications platform that will provide the connection speed, bandwidth tools, and scalability that our wireless data infrastructure requires." Contributing author Morgan Reed argues that the forthcoming AT&T-T-Mobile merger will likely accelerate LTE deployment and help our nation generate the competitive edge necessary to keep up with the industry on a global scale.

In last week’s Fiksu Feed, we outlined Global Equities Research's predictions for the continued growth of Apple’s iTunes store. Further validating this upswing in consumers' appetites for cool apps – and their willingness to pay for it – was a CNN piece reporting on new research from analyst firm Piper Jaffray revealing that the average consumer is not only buying more apps, but also spending more for each one. The report estimates that iOS device users will download an average of 83 apps this year – a 61 percent increase from last year – and will now spend an average of $1.44 per app – a 14 percent increase. Interestingly, revenue from the App Store represents only about one percent of the company's total – and 82 percent of App Store apps are free – but as reporter Philip Elmer-DeWitt observes, without the App Store, Apple wouldn't be able to sell iPhones and iPads as fast as it can make them. Check out GigaOM's take on the research here.

Speaking of free apps, Fierce Mobile Content reported that of the top 10 grossing apps in the App Store last month, six were free. But many wonder, how are these free apps making money? This new 'freemium' business model describes the idea of incentivizing users to try out an app for free before paying for additional features. A new study from Flurry found an increasing number of freemium apps in the top 100 overall games list in Apple's App Store, and the number of these freemium gaming apps climbed from 35 percent in January to 65 percent in June.