Nearly five years ago, when Facebook had 8 million users, we launched Inside Facebook to provide developers, analysts, and marketers with in-depth information, research, and data on the Facebook ecosystem. Three years ago, when the social gaming movement began on top of the Facebook Platform, we launched Inside Social Games to do the same. Today, we are excited to announce Inside Network’s third site dedicated to developers and analysts: Inside Mobile Apps.

As social and mobile platforms have begun to converge over the past couple of years, it’s already become clear that we’re going to see a wave of amazing new products – and tremendous new opportunities – at their intersection. Like Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games, Inside Mobile Apps will be dedicated to serving developers and analysts interested in tracking the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms, and virtual goods.

We’re at the beginning of an exciting new phase in the growth of the social web. Important things have happened over the last couple of years that are enabling and will increasingly enable new classes of applications that were never before possible. This convergence of social and mobile platforms will fuel new markets for developers and advertisers, and we’ll be tracking everything closely on Inside Mobile Apps.

We’re excited to announce that Kim-Mai Cutler, who has been a contributor here at Inside Network in recent months after holding positions at Bloomberg and VentureBeat, will be heading up coverage at Inside Mobile Apps. Kim would love to receive updates on new applications, so please contact her at mail AT insidemobileapps DOT com to let her know what you’re up to. You can also follow her on Twitter: @kimmaicutler.

We’re looking forward to tracking not only the applications but also the people and companies behind them that are leading the charge into this new and exciting space. We believe some interesting new companies will be created as the worlds of mobile and social networks collide. It should be a fun ride. Please drop us a line any time!