Social Studies

With the right apps, you can manage all sorts of social data, everything from business cards (the original social networking) to the visitor stats to your faithfully-maintained blog of puppy pictures. --Ray Aguilera

Duo+

Blackout Labs · $0.99

Duo only does two things, but it does them reliably and quickly. When you just want to dash off a status update, fire up Duo to ping Twitter or Facebook (or both) with your latest witticism. You can’t read posts on either service, but for sheer speed, Duo can’t be beat.

Update your status with lightning speed.

KickBall

Gorlock Interactive, LLC · Free

We’ve said we’re quitting Foursquare at least a dozen times. And yet the addictive social networking game always seems to drag us back into the fold (usually when someone steals one of our mayorships). KickBall offers a new interface to the Foursquare service we love to hate, and it simplifies check-ins, and offers new features like a map view for quickly finding nearby peeps.

Map view helps you find local peeps.

Ego

Garrett Murray · $1.99

Stats nerds and data hounds take note. Ego helps you track traffic to your various web properties in one simple app. Track your Feedburner subscribers, Google Analytics traffic, Twitter followers and other web traffic statistics at a glance. Ego is well-designed, and looks fantastic. It doesn’t deep-dive into your stats, but offers a quick peek at crucial numbers.

Track your Internet celebrity status in real-time.

Air Contacts

Christian Sigritz · $1.99

One of the things the Palm Pilot did well back in its heyday was share contacts. The iPhone lacks the Palm’s infared beaming, of course, but Air Contacts brings back some of that magic with the help of Wi-Fi. As a bonus, you can also access contacts from a desktop computer via a web browser for easy sharing or backup.

Pew! Pew! Pew! Zap contacts back and forth.

Business Card Reader

SHAPE services · $5.99

Despite all the technology in our pockets, the business card is still the primary way of trading contact information in many circumstances. Business Card Reader uses your iPhone’s camera and OCR technology to capture information from business cards and add it to your Contacts. The recognition isn’t perfect, but you can edit as you go if needed. If you collect lots of cards, Reader is well worth the money.

Perfect for the card-carrying masses.