Facebook to show ads on mobile

Mobile ads could make Facebook money London - Arabstoday Social network giant Facebook is set to begin showing advertisements to users on mobile devices in March, before its $5billion (£3.2billion) initial public offering, according to a newspaper report. Facebook has already discussed proposals with advertising agencies for displaying ‘featured stories’ in users news feeds in an effort to tap a new source of revenue, the Financial Times said. The network has 845million users, with over half accessing it through their mobile phones – but industry experts say that Facebook will have its work cut out making the move work. For starters, there’s already plenty of clutter on mobile phone screens as it is. Christian Lindholm, a former Nokia designer, told the FT: ‘No one has cracked mobile advertising. The fundamental problem is the lack of screen real estate.’ Facebook got the ball rolling in November 2010 with location-based ‘check-in’ deals that can be activated once users register their location through the smartphone app. But effective mobile marketing would involve using even more personal information to provide targeted ads – a tricky road to navigate. As Alexandre Mars, chief executive of Publicis Groupe’s mobile agency Phonevalley tells the paper: ‘They know a lot of things about you – how and when they can start using them and whether you will be okay or be annoyed – that will be their challenge.’ When it’s floated, the social networking firm, cofounded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 in a Harvard University dorm room, is likely to be valued at between $80bn and $100bn, say Wall Street sources, turning the 27-year-old Zuckerberg into the world's 23rd richest person. He'd be worth about $24bn, trailing Microsoft's Bill Gates but ahead of Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Zuckerberg won't be the only one at Facebook to benefit – the IPO will mint a new generation of Silicon Valley millionaires. Some 3,000 people work at Facebook and more than a thousand employees – from engineers to software designers – with shares in the company will become instant millionaires because 30pc of the company is owned by employees. Raising $5bn won't surpass that of the record holder for a high-tech float, Infineon Technologies, which generated $5.23bn with its 1999 debut, but it places it in the top ranks and is remarkable testimony to Facebook's phenomenal growth. It took just eight years since it began as a project hatched in a college dorm to becoming the largest social networking site in the world, well on its way to hitting a goal of a billion users.