If you have been paying attention to the tech world over the past year, there have been two primary themes or buzz words that everyone who is anyone is talking about. The first is mobile applications. It is everywhere and it is taking over the mobile world. Forget cool looking phones, the name of the game for all mobile platforms is its app store/world/market etc.

In the world of mobile apps or app stores, the undeniable champion is of course Apple with their 60,000 apps and 1.5 billion downloads. The industry surrounding iPhone apps is nothing short of astounding. There are endless stories of people who were broke and spent minimal funding developing a simple and fun iPhone app, only to become number one in the app store, which lead to an income of hundreds of thousands of dollars within days.

The second underlying theme in today’s world of tech/web is of course the social space. Who has not heard the word Twitter? Name one talk show that has not spent significant time talking about the Twitter phenomenon. Leno, Ellen, Letterman, Fallon, and of course Oprah, they are all obsessed! Social media is dominating the traditional media and the global web. Everyone is talking about it.

Now that we have established that mobile apps and social media are taking over, the obvious question is, how can one integrate these two? How can we take the iPhone with all its revolutionary apps and make them more social? How can you easily share them with your friends/followers/fans? Well you can blog about your favorite apps, but everyone knows that these top 10 lists are getting a little old. You can copy the long and annoying links to iTunes apps (click that link, great app for you) and email them to your friends, but is that really the best and most effective way of doing things? The answer is obviously no, there has to be a better way.

AppsFire Virtual iPhone

A well known entrepreneur and the founder of TechCrunch France, Ouriel Ohayon thought so too, so he did something about it. He came up with an idea that I think offers the perfect merge between these two dominating worlds of iPhone apps and social media. His product, AppsFire, which is now only available for Mac in private alpha, places a virtual iPhone on your private AppsFire webpage, automatically aggregates your iPhone apps from your iTunes, and displays them on the picture of the iPhone. You can then select which app  you want to share by email, Facebook, widget, or tweet.

AppsFire also allows you to take those annoying long iTunes links and shorten them right from inside the application’s interface. They also created an external iTunes link shortener. Ouriel is now working on a Windows version as well as an iPhone version, which you can see in the video below. As for the Mac version, you need to launch the application on your Mac, close iTunes, scan for your iTunes apps that you have already installed on your iPhone/iPod (not just downloaded, but you need to install them too), , and walla, you should see all your apps and be able to easily share them.

I have two reasons to believe this product will be a huge success. One because of the concept, it is a pretty simple idea that is very much needed, and the interface is just as simple and user-friendly. The second is because of the man behind it. Ouriel was also behind Topify, which is hands down the most useful Twitter service I use. If AppsFire is even half as convenient as Topify, which it is based on my tests, this product will be a huge hit.

Ouriel provided me 50 download links for the first 50 readers who want to try it out, but don’t forget, it is Mac only for now! You can download your copy here. If you are a PC user and want to be notified when the Windows version is available or when AppsFire is out of private beta, you can sign up here.

-Hillel