Facebook plans to start mobile ads by March 2012

Los Angeles Herald (ANI) Tuesday 7th February, 2012

Facebook will now start showing advertisements to users on their mobile phones, according to a new report.

According to an article in the Financial Times, people using Facebook on their phones, could be served adverts as early as March.

It is unclear as to how the adverts will be displayed and whether they will be on just the mobile phone app, or on the mobile version of the site too, The Telegraph reports.

According to the paper, mobile advertising will be a key area of growth for the social networking giant, which has over 800 million members.

It is, however, a tough strategy to implement without annoying users.

According to the report, despite money generated from advertising accounting for 85 per cent of Facebook's revenues last year, and its net income in 2011 reaching one billion dollars, the company will have to radically change the way it cashes in on its users' data to make good on its valuation, says digital agency heads.

Charlie McGee, head of digital at Carat, a major UK advertising agency, thinks Facebook will follow Google's AdSense model, and start selling adverts to its members through the 40 million plus sites which have already plugged in Facebook Connect.

"More than 40 million websites have installed the 'Like' button across the internet, so the infrastructure and technology is already there for Facebook to start capitalising on its users' data away from the social networking site," the paper quoted him, as saying.

McGee believes that 'Featured Stories', which controversially allow brands to advertise using the names of people who actively 'like them' on the site in real-time, will be fully rolled out imminently. (ANI)