Facebook introduces Sponsored Stories for mobile apps

Facebook has launched their first mobile only advertising platform. The social network had launched a feature called Sponsored Stories in January of 2011, which essentially integrated your friends' activities into small ads. In December, Facebook moved the ads directly into users' Newsfeeds. Now, Facebook is launching a Sponsored Stories ad platform, specifically for their mobile apps. According to Mashable, marketers who advertise on Facebook now have the choice to place their advertisements in the Facebook apps, the desktop site or both. Since ads can also be placed on the right hand side on the desktop site, marketers can choose to combine the ad placed in the Newsfeed with an ad on the right hand side of the desktop site.

Facebook mobile to finally get ads

Essentially marketers have five options:

• All Placements: This includes ad placements in the desktop Newsfeed, desktop right hand side and mobile Newsfeed
• All Desktop Placements: This includes placing ads in the desktop Newsfeed and the desktop right hand side
• Newsfeed Desktop and Mobile: This includes placements in both, Newsfeeds of the desktop site and Newsfeeds of the mobile site
• Newsfeed Desktop: Ads will occur in Newsfeeds of the desktop site only
• Newsfeed Mobile: Ads will occur in Newsfeeds of the mobile apps only

Facebook had been doubted by potential shareholders before their IPO because their mobile platforms had no forms of revenue. This is because there were no advertisements placed in Facebook's mobile applications. An analyst, Eric Jackson also said that Facebook has five to eight years left before they will disappear, mostly because they are failing to dominate the mobile platform. It seems Facebook has responded to these doubts and statements by building a revenue system for their mobile platform. Nearly half of Facebook's total users access the site through mobile applications. The greater the number of people using Facebook's mobile app, essentially for free, the more pressure there is on the social network to deliver a revenue stream on their mobile apps. However, of course, ads in their Newsfeeds annoyed users enough on the desktop. Chances are, users on mobile will be annoyed by Sponsored Stories too. Will it affect their activity, however? We'll have to wait and see.