Zuck Has His Eye on Mobile Advertising! But Why? Just How Big is it? You Sitting Down?

By: Hillel Fuld

While the whole internet community is buzzing over the Facebook $5 billion IPO, one of the interesting facts about this news is that Zuckerberg clearly views iOS and Android as competitors.

“But iOS and Android are mobile platforms and Facebook is a Web-based social networking site? How can he possibly view them as competitors?” Great question, thought you’d never ask.

Here is the thing. For starters, Facebook makes a whole lot of money from advertising on the site. You know where Facebook does NOT make money from advertising? On mobile!

No biggie, after all, it is, first and foremost a Web platform, right? Well, not exactly! 51% of Facebook’s 845M monthly active users are mobile users too, meaning they access the platform from a mobile phone. How many? A whopping 425 million users a month!

Not only is Facebook not monetizing these users given that Facebook does not have its own mobile offering (yet), it is dependent on the platforms including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and the rest of em when it does decide to monetize its mobile fans.

That is not something Zuckerberg is too happy about. He said:

“Developers may choose to build on other platforms, including mobile platforms controlled by third parties, rather than building on the Facebook Platform. We are continuously seeking to balance the distribution objectives of our Platform developers with our desire to provide an optimal user experience, and we may not be successful in achieving a balance that continues to attract and retain Platform developers.”

The bottom line is this. Mobile, in general, is exploding and mobile advertising is proving itself time and time again as the preferred method of monetizing all that astronomical traffic.

But let’s see it in numbers. How much did mobile advertising grow in 2011? Take a look at our awesome new infographic below!

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