Flipboard now has 56m users, adding 6m since the launch of Flipboard 2.0 in March, and this number looks set for another imminent boost with 2.0 coming to Android “very, very, very soon”. The numbers come from CEO Mike McCue, who was talking at Disrupt NY 2013 yesterday. He also revealed that he wants Flipboard to help publishers monetise their content by creating a place where advertisers can buy lavish full-page ads. “If you’re Burberry or Gucci, you’re not going to run a banner ad,” McCue said (via TechCrunch). “To get brand ad dollars to move to digital, you need to create a beautiful experience.”

iPhone users are more active on social networks and listen to more digital radio on their phones than Android users, according to comScore. Android users, however, spend more time playing games on their phones, consuming news and visiting sports-related apps and websites than their iPhone-wielding brethren. This, AdAge reports, is largely down to a difference in age: iPhone users are typically younger, with 21.4% between the ages of 18 to 24, compared to 17.5% of Android users.

App developers need to make retention their top focus according to analyst Flurry, which has studied apps by retention and user base to work out the “Shooting Stars”, “Black Holes” and “Red Dwarfs” of the app world. The company took this approach as a way of giving an overall idea of how apps are performing, in the same way as a Klout Score can measure social media influence. It found that 15% of apps – the “Superstar apps” – are in the top third for active users and rolling retention. These, it says, are best positioned to generate revenue regardless of their monetisation model. Another 17% of apps – the “Black Hole” apps – are in the bottom third for both categories. “Red Dwarfs” have a relatively small user base but are doing well on retention, while “Shooting Stars” have a lot of users but poor retention. Flurry explains that average time per user per month is positively correlated with the number of active users; therefore developers need to make retention their top focus.

Facebook has now passed 1bn monthly active users, little over two years after hitting the 500m mark, and has released a bunch of fairly mind-boggling stats to celebrate. Founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the milestone on the Facebook blog, thanking users and stressing his commitment to making the social network better. He also gave an interview with Bloomberg Business Week, in which he stressed the importance of new Facebook services over bare numbers. But how about those stats, eh? Well, Facebook has recorded more than 1.13 trillion likes since the feature launched in February 2009; there have been 140.3bn friend connections in the history of the social network and 265bn photos uploaded, of which around 219bn remain on the site. Meanwhile, 62.6m songs have been played 22bn times since the launch of music listening applications in September 2011.

MinoMonsters has passed 1.5m players, just three months after developers radically overhauled the title’s gameplay. In a particularly brave / foolish move, version 2.0 of MinoMonsters did away with the game’s previous focus on exploring worlds and performing quests to concentrate on its battles. Evidently, this has paid off, with TechCrunch reporting that the game now has 1.5m players, up from 600,000 raw downloads in June. It is also seeing increased play times. To celebrate the milestone, MinoMonsters has revealed it has also secured some new funding, although it is not saying how much because it apparently wasn’t very notable. Oh well.

Thumb, the mobile social network that allows users to solicit opinions from their friends on anything from shopping to shampoo at the click of a button, says it now has more than 1.2m registered users. This, it claims, is thanks to a growth rate has increased by 200% since it launched Version 3.0 in June. Despite the landmark figure, Thumb says it concentrated initially on engagement and building a devoted community rather than numbers. As a result, Thumb says it has created “one of the most addictive social networks on the planet”, with the average user spending more than five hours a month on its mobile apps. Users apparently give more than 1bn responses ever year to the 20m questions asked. Thumb is available for iOS and Android.

Instagram has added 50m users in the four and a half months since Facebook announced its plans to buy the photo sharing company. Facebook revealed in April that it was set to buy Instagram for $1bn in cash and stock, in what was its largest acquisition to date. At the time, Instagram said it had 30m total users, while AppData claimed the company had 6.5 million monthly active Facebook users (around 22% of total). The deal has taken some time to clear thanks to a Federal Trade Commission investigation, which finally announced last week it would allow the purchase to go ahead. To mark the occasion, Inside Mobile Apps has taken a look at Instagram user numbers. Instagram announced 80m users on July 26 – up 50m in just four and a half months – while AppData claims that the service has 24.3m monthly active Facebook users (around 30% of total).

Mobile discovery firm Shazam has announced some new stats today, with the big one being that users have tagged 5bn songs, TV shows and ads using its app. Other figures: …

TuneIn has become the most popular traditional radio app in the world, and the company behind it has stats to prove it. TuneIn now has 40m monthly active listeners, thanks …