Facebook is planning to release a new type of mobile advertising system that will be targeted to the types of apps that customers use on their handheld devices, according to a news report.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the new system, due later on this month, is an attempt to increase their mobile revenue and make money from the vast plethora of websites connecting to Facebook.
The paper reports that the service will allow developers and advertisers to place ads for various apps directly into the smartphone or tablet user’s Facebook News Feed, regardless of whether or not the customer had previously expressed interest in that product or service.
According to WSJ sources: “Facebook engineers have built technology that lets the company track what apps people have on their phones and target ads based on that information… Facebook would charge companies every time an app is installed on users’ smartphones, one of the people said. Facebook can charge significantly more for an app installation than it can for the traditional cost of every one thousand people who have viewed an ad.”
The news comes as Facebook ended its recent patent dispute with Yahoo.
There were no monetary payments involved in the settlements, attributing their information to an individual who spoke on condition of anonymity as the deal had not yet been publicly announced.
The truce ends a conflict provoked by Yahoo’s short-lived CEO, Scott Thompson. Under Thompson, Yahoo filed the patent lawsuit in March, wielding it as a weapon against a company that Thompson believed had been prospering from the ideas of its older rival.”
The complaint alleged that Facebook infringed on 10 Yahoo patents covering Internet advertising, privacy controls and social networks.