In his article on Facebook and the growth of mobile ads, Farhad Manjoo of the Wall Street Journal talks about the somewhat unexpected success of mobile ads over the past year and the growing tolerance that consumers (including himself) have for them. From where I sit, now on my third ad tech startup, I agree with Farhad’s assessment given the profound lifestyle changes that mobile has introduced to society and the willingness of ad tech vendors and social networks to innovate based on that shift.
Mobile phones have quickly become our most trusted device and the remote controls to our daily lives. The average user engages about 200 times a day with their mobile device of choice, spending an average of two hours and 21 minutes a day on them. Seemingly overnight, surfing the Web and watching videos on a computer or TV is old school – replaced by smartphones and tablets. The fact that Facebook was able to anticipate the receptiveness of delivering ads to this growing demographic of mobile users is a testament to their vision and the intimate relationships they have with their network of users.
So, what’s next? While Facebook experiments with video, we’re seeing growing demand among the brands we work with at