Mobile Money with Facebook Mobile Advertising

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, owned and operated by Facebook, Inc. As of May 2012, Facebook has over 900 million active users, more than half of them using Facebook on a mobile device.

Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as “People From Work” or “Close Friends”.

The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other. Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow students Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The website’s membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University.

It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and eventually to anyone aged 13 and over. However, according to a May 2011 Consumer Reports survey, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts and 5 million under 10, violating the site’s terms of service.

Mobile-targeted ads and marketing tactics are becoming both necessary and profitable in a wide range of industries, but in particular, web-based companies are reaping a great deal of mobile traffic and resulting ad revenue. The following infographic offers a specific example of one web-based company that’s bringing in big bucks with their mobile advertising strategy: Facebook.

As Facebook prepared for its recent IPO, many people expressed concern with whether or not Facebook’s mobile platform would be a profitable addition to the company. But in true Facebook style, their mobile traffic and resulting revenue has skyrocketed rapidly, bringing in a huge contribution to the company’s already impressive revenue. As the world of mobile browsing and consuming continues to expand, savvy businesses will know to capitalize on just how profitable little apps and ads can be.