Facebook is mulling the idea of adding Sponsored Stories — the ads the company already runs on the upper right-hand side of its 800 million-member site — to the mobile News Feed, Bloomberg reported citing two people familiar with the matter.

Currently, Facebook’s mobile application users are treated to an untainted experience free of the ads members frequently see on the website. Under the proposed Sponsored Stories scenario, ads would appear either appear inline or above the mobile user’s stream of status updates, making them impossible to ignore.

And “like” it or not, Facebook mobile ads appear to be inevitable, even if they will create an uproar among the company’s more than 350 million mobile users.

Facebook declined to discuss its mobile advertising intentions with VentureBeat. But, the social network could certainly benefit by lining its pockets with additional cash. The company is on the brink of filing to go public, and any boost in revenues would certainly guarantee a big pop in share price when it debuts on the public market in 2012.

It’s also leaving money on the table by not offering advertisers mobile options. The social network is already expected to bring in $4.27 billion in revenue this year, with most of its revenues coming from its online display ad business. And sure, as a new entrant to mobile, the company could run up against obstacles, as Apple has experienced, but it has an enormous amount of leverage. The fact that Facebook is the maker of one of the most popular and most used apps of all time, especially on iPhone and Android, will not be lost on advertisers.

Money faucet image via Shutterstock

Founded by former Google and AdMob employees, MoPub launched late last year with the goal of letting mobile app publishers serve ads directly rather than go through an ad network. Now with MoPub Marketplace, the startup is attempting to demystify the process of choosing and managing ads.

The Marketplace brings together publishers and ad buyers in a real-time trading platform. Think of it as a “virtual trading floor for mobile ads,” as the company describes it. The Marketplace allows ad buyers to better target audiences, and it also opens up new sources of revenue to publishers.

“Until today, publishers have had to operate their mobile ads through a black box: blindly trusting ad networks, without knowing which ads are effective and with no control over the type of ads consumers receive,” MoPub CEO and co-founder Jim Payne said in a statement today. “This matters considerably to the top tier publishers we are working with who are concerned with brand protection as well as ad performance.”

MoPub calls itself an “ad server”, not an ad network. In addition to the Marketplace, MoPub also offers direct sold ads (something more suited for bigger publishers), and ad network mediation (letting publishers juggle multiple ad networks using its technology).

The company says that the Marketplace offers “unprecedented control” for mobile ads. You can view the performance of all of your ads (see the dashboard above), set price floors and frequency caps, and even hide the name of your app, which can help to preserve your brand. The service also lets you easily block ads with one click (meant to help you avoid ads that could hurt your brand), and create block lists, which can include competitors and specific advertisers.

MoPub currently has over 650 publishers on board with its existing service. The company is going head-to-head with mobile advertising heavyweights like InMobi, which  recently raised over $200 million, and Millennial Media.

San Francisco-based MoPub has raised over $6.5 million from Accell Partners and Harrison Metal Capital.

Additionally, the company announced a $2.5 billion mobile revenue run rate — Google’s expected mobile revenue over the next year based on its performance this quarter — up from $1 billion last year.

Google pointed to mobile search as its big mobile moneymaker. “Mobile is becoming a must-have,” Google sales head Nikesh Arora said during the call.

Even though Google doesn’t make any money when Android manufacturers use its software in their phones, the company is able to reap the advertising benefits of having hundreds of millions of users on its own platform.

Page said the company felt comfortable divulging a mobile revenue run rate because there is a confluence of many things growing in mobile. “We thought it was appropriate to round it [mobile revenue] up with a snapshot of where we stand,” he said.

The company said in July that it was activating 550,000 Android devices daily. At this point, I would imagine that number is closer to 600,000.

Page described Google’s third-quarter earnings as “gangbusters.” The company announced $9.7 billion in revenue and $2.7 billion in profit, well beyond Wall Street expectations.

The change will disrupt business for many app developers, especially for mobile ad networks and companies like Tapjoy that rely upon UDID access heavily, but it could mean the end of major privacy concerns for Apple.

It’s also a good thing for users, since they will now have to opt-in to be tracked by developers. Unlike cookies, which are used on web browsers to track user activity, Apple’s device IDs are permanent, and users can’t block their transmission to third parties.

The latest iOS 5 documentation states that Apple will be deprecating UDID access for developers, according to a report from TechCrunch last week, and it now recommends that developers create unique identifiers specific to their apps. By deprecating the feature, Apple won’t be removing it enirely in iOS 5, but it’s fair warning to developers that they won’t be able to rely on it for much longer. Apple has historically discouraged developers from relying too heavily on UDIDs, so the change could just be seen as Apple being firmer with its preexisting stance.

We’ve asked several major iOS developers about the change, but we’ve yet to receive a response from any of them. Either they’re still figuring out how they’ll approach a UDID-less world, or they’re staying mum to avoid Apple’s wrath. Apple also hasn’t yet responded to further details about the change.

At the moment, it’s unclear if Apple will still be able to access UDIDs for its own services like iAds and Game Center. That would certainly give Apple a major advantage over third-party developers, as it can track UDIDs without waiting for users to register within apps. But it’s also the sort of feature disparity that could spark an antitrust investigation by regulators.

Apple could avoid many privacy headaches by killing off UDID access entirely. The company was sued last year by a Los Angeles man specifically because UDIDs were so easily accessible by apps, and a long-running Wall Street Journal feature revealed that many apps are sharing UDIDs, along with other personal information, without users’ knowledge.

But losing access to the feature will be a major blow to developers, since it will mean they will have to start their user tracking records from scratch. And for companies like Tapjoy and Flurry, which rely heavily on UDIDs to track and promote apps, it could mean a significant change is in order. Tapjoy CEO Mihir Shah recently railed against Apple’s restrictions on pay-per-action advertising at our MobileBeat conference in July.

Glam CEO Samir Arora tells VentureBeat that he’s interested in mobile because it’s quickly growing in terms of consumer engagement and interest by brand advertisers. Now that Glam has hit $100 million in revenue and is gearing up for an IPO, it makes sense for the company to finally begin taking advantage of the explosive growth in mobile devices.

GlamMobile will allow brands to run ad campaigns across most major mobile operating systems, including iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and BlackBerry, and it will be powered by GlamAdapt, the company’s ad platform for choice content. Arora says that GlamMobile will focus mostly on delivering ads relevant to content and specific lifestyle verticals.

GlamMobile will also take advantage of typical mobile ad targeting like geo-location, device type, and OS. GlamMobile will also integrate directly with Glam’s desktop offerings, allowing brands to have a one-stop location for their ad campaigns.

The mobile ad platform is being positioned as a direct competitor to Apple’s iAds, Arora says, and it already has some major advantages since it’s cross-platform and integrated with its desktop ad platform. GlamMobile also supports both in-app and mobile web ads, while iAds only offers in-app ads. Launch sponsors on the platform include Lexus and Macy’s.

GlamEnable will be a major push to optimize the web for mobile devices, the company said in a statement. It’s a simple way for publishers to create mobile websites compatible with most mobile platforms, and it also allows them to create native apps for iOS and Android. Glam’s own sites –  including Glam.com, Bliss.com, and Brash.com — are all now sporting GlamEnable mobile optimization, as well as 75 of the company’s leading publishing partners like Bag Snob and SheFinds.

Brisbane, Calif.-based Glam was founded in 2003 and serves over 200 million monthly visitors. The company raised $50 million at a $750 million valuation in February of last year.

Sprout will remain independent, and CEO Carnet Williams will join InMobi’s executive team to keep Sprout running. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

“With InMobi’s global presence we are able to quickly deploy our HTML5 mobile ad creative platform into the hands of agencies and publishers worldwide,” Williams told VentureBeat over email.

“InMobi has also agreed to allow the Sprout team to run as an independent business unit and is committed to keeping our platform open for everyone in the mobile ecosystem — that means that we will continue to be integrated with other ad networks (competitors to InMobi), publishers, mediators and aggregators. Our vision is to raise the level of rich media in the mobile industry and we can only achieve that by remaining an open platform.”

Sprout’s AdVine online editor simplifies the process of creating HTML5 ads, which can run across both desktop and mobile platforms. Ads created by Sprout’s technology can easily be integrated into the existing mobile advertising ecosystem, which includes ad networks, publishers and the like. The company also offers engagement analytics for brands and ad agencies. Sprout aims for a “build once, run everywhere” approach to creating ads, which makes life easier for everyone in the ad industry.

While Sprout will continue operating independently, it will integrate InMobi’s technology in its reporting and analytics, as well as a third-party ad server. InMobi will bring Sprout’s tech into its ad network operations, but the company will also continue to integrate with direct competitors to Sprout as well. Sprout will also maintain its relationships with competing ad networks.

InMobi, which touts itself as “the world’s largest independent mobile ad network,” launched in the US just one year ago. The acquisition shows that InMobi is serious about staying up-to-date with cutting edge ad technology and that it’s progressive enough to let Sprout do its own thing.

Sprout is based in San Francisco and currently has 15 employees. The company raised $10 million in 2008 from Polaris Venture Partners.

Samir Soriano is the director of marketing at display ad retargeting platform maker ReTargeter.

Mobile ads aren’t effective. They could be, but they’re not yet, which makes me wonder why so many advertisers spend so much money advertising on this platform.

Mobile ads are annoying, ugly and often irrelevant to the end user. Over 40% of college students in the US said they found mobile ads to be annoying, while less than 2% of mobile consumers said they pay attention to targeted expandable mobile ads. A poll by YouGive found that only 14% of people ever click on mobile ads, and a report from Deloitte shows that about 88% of UK mobile phone owners ignore mobile ads.

Just a decade ago banner ads were seen in the same light: ugly, annoying, and ultimately ineffective. More recently, however, display ads have made improvements in their designs and the way they’re targeted. Recent case studies have proven this. Smartly targeted and well-designed campaigns can work to increase brand visibility and purchase intent. In 2010, display saw revenues totaling $9.9 billion, up 24% from $8.0 billion in 2009. Google’s Neal Mohan made a prediction at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB)’s MIXX conference that display advertising will become a $50 billion industry by 2015. Mobile may be receiving all the hype, but display is what’s actually driving the revenue and innovation.

IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated mobile ad revenues to be $550 – $650 million in 2010, and the number of companies advertising on mobile has more than doubled in the past two years. While mobile advertising has seen explosive growth over the past few years, its ability to add value to advertisers is nowhere near that of display advertising’s.

It will eventually reach display’s level — probably soon — but to get there, there is a lot it has to learn in terms of targeting and design.

Learning from Display: Targeting

Display advertising has seen a huge maturation since the inception of real-time bidding. It has allowed marketers and media buyers to advertise across a large amount of inventory at an affordable volume. Today, low budgeted online marketers can target their ads behaviorally and contextually across some of the most visited and relevant sites, and witness a growth in brand recognition and sales. Cookie-based retargeting methods, which allow advertisers to use cookies to target audiences based on their browsing behavior, have really driven improvements in the overall effectiveness of display advertising. When combined with additional contextual, geographical, and/or demographical targeting layers, retargeting gives advertisers access to some of the most effective online advertising capabilities available. While display targeting isn’t perfect, it has definitely made huge advances, and has been proven to add value.

While mobile advertising has a lot of similar targeting options, it is heavily lacking on behavioral data. Your impressions can be focused on apps that are more appropriate for your demographic and geographic audience. However, cookie-based retargeting methods in the mobile space are still very new and don’t work across all platforms due to mobile’s fragmentation. iOS Safari browsers, which consist of 23.5% of mobile browsing in the US, actually disable third-party cookies by default, making mobile retargeting a tough feat to accomplish.

However, some companies out there are working hard to help advance mobile’s targeting capabilities.

• New York-based TapAd is working hard toward creating an effective mobile retargeting solution. While its service works across Android OS, which controls the majority of mobile browsing, it still needs to tackle the iOS behemoth, which has a very strong mobile presence, as well as a massive majority share of tablet browsing. Mobile ad targeting needs to become more relevant to the end-user – its capabilities will get there, but there is still a bit of evolution required.
• Another New York-based company, AppNexus, offers a real-time advertising platform that allows companies to buy, sell, and build technologies around its display inventory exchange API. It has also recently added in-app mobile inventory to its arsenal. While this may not seem groundbreaking at the moment, taking this step allows companies to build targeting capabilities over AppNexus’ inventory or integrate their own mobile data and inventory into AppNexus. Additionally, it isn’t too far fetched to think that AppNexus is starting to build its own mobile-exclusive targeting capabilities.

Learning from Display: Creative

Do you remember what banner ads looked like in 1999? Here’s a reminder:

The progression of banner creative over the past 15 years is truly remarkable. New efficiencies in Javascript, Flash, and overall internet bandwidth have advanced banner ads from annoying low-res flashing .gif files to something more along the lines of mini-websites. These ads are easily accessible by being embedded alongside publisher content that viewers have actively navigated to. Combined with the effective targeting and end-user relevancy that display advertising offers, display ads are finding new ways to not only be clicked on, but to be engaged with by the right people.

By contrast, today’s in-app mobile ads aren’t helpful and remove a lot of value from the end-user’s app experience. These ads are obtrusive, and half of them are clicked by accident. Mobile bandwidth can’t handle high res images just yet, and mobile screens aren’t big enough to show ads that aren’t obtrusive.

Display ads similar to the ReTargeter ad pictured (disclosure: I work for ReTargeter) fit nicely within browser windows. They can contain multiple points of engagement and social sharing capabilities, which add a lot of value to the viewer’s overall brand experience. Conversely, in-app ads take up a huge chunk of real estate, which means they’re easily tapped accidentally. The ad-supported version of Angry Birds, for example, is notorious for this: Ads tend to pop up in the middle of gameplay, ruining the flow of the game for the user. On the advertiser’s side, these static and often irrelevant ads ultimately diminish the value of the brand.

Just as some companies are striving to improve mobile targeting, other companies are redefining mobile creative and how it is delivered.

• San Francisco-based Flite is one such company. Its platform allows advertisers to create interactive display ads and comprehensive mobile mini-sites. Where the platform really shines is in having its display ads push the mobile mini site onto a consumer’s phone. Innovations like this are a step in the right direction, but we have yet to see ad networks integrate any sort of native display-to-mobile functionality.
• Innovation isn’t exclusive to smaller companies like Tapad, Flite, and AppNexus. Google has been working to help move mobile advertising in the right direction as well. Google says that one in five search queries in retail are on mobile phones, and that most of these queries are in reference to local availability. Because of this, Google has created a free and simple mobile landing-page creation tool, targeting local small businesses. While mobile landing pages aren’t technically “creatives,” they do serve a similar advertising purpose. Mobile search users far too often end up on a local store or restaurant’s site via search, but many sites aren’t optimized for mobile browsers. Companies that use this tool will help keep their mobile visitors from bouncing too quickly, but I think that the full power of a mobile landing page has yet to be discovered.

What’s next for mobile?

For businesses today, mobile should take a back seat. It has another four years before it’s really effective. Right now, it seems that mobile advertising is still where display advertising was in 1999. Display ads have seen a lot of advances since then. With vast improvements in targeting capabilities and creative design (augmented partly by hardware improvements), display has slowly evolved into something that’s relevant and interesting to consumers. It will take some time, but I foresee increased mobile bandwidth, more unified mobile browsing standards, and a redefined definition of mobile “creative” will all help fuel the effectiveness of the already growing mobile advertising market. I can’t wait to look back to this article four years from now.

“The Q2 2011 results show another major inflection point for mobile advertising in Europe,” writes InMobi’s Rob Jonas, VP of Europe and Middle East operations. “Smart devices, driven by iPad, iPhone, and Android devices, are now defining the mobile experience for the majority of Europeans.”

Both Apple and Nokia saw over 2 billion ad impressions in the second quarter, but Apple managed a 90 million impression lead. Apple’s European ad share grew 3.3 points to 19.5 percent, while Nokia fell .9 points to 18.7 percent. The news means that one in five mobile ads served in Europe over the last quarter went to an Apple device.

Unfortunately for Nokia, it doesn’t appear as if its fortunes will turn around anytime soon when it comes to ad impressions. The company is hard at working developing flagship Windows Phone 7 devices for release later this year. Meanwhile, its longstanding dominance in Europe will continue to take a hit from the iPhone and Android.

While Apple is the lead manufacturer in Europe when it comes to mobile ads, Android still dominates the platform leader board for ad impressions with a 24.9 percent share. Apple’s rise in Europe over the last quarter caused a significant 5-point drop for Android’s overall share, while iOS rose 3.3 points to 19.5 percent.

Curiously, RIM’s platform share also grew quite a bit in the last quarter, up 6.1 points to a 15.7 percentage overall share.

Altogether, mobile ad impressions in Europe grew 21 percent in the last quarter, which was driven by a 31 percent rise in smartphone ad impressions. “Three out of every five mobile impressions in Europe are now on a smart device,” InMobi wrote in its report.

Globally, InMobi’s ad network grew by 19.9 billion ad impressions from Q1 to Q2 (a 23.4 percent rise), while smartphones grew by 12.3 billion impressions to make up 38 percent of overall ad impressions.

The company is making inroads in the US as well — InMobi announced this morning that it has reached 83 million monthly users on its US network. It has also tapped two execs from rival company Millennial Media: Peter Bassett, formerly SVP of sales at Millennial, will take over North American sales for InMobi, and Millennial’s David Smith will head up East Coast sales.

Phone calls are an obvious ways to track the success of a mobile ad — if the consumer sees an ad on their phone for a product or a service they like, it’s easy for them to just call that number right away. In fact, the company says its ads are already generating 250,000 paid leads in the form of phone calls each month.

Now, Moolah Media is working with call center partners to track data about those calls, including duration, duplicate calls vs. unique calls, and call answer rates.

Of course, this isn’t the only call tracking system out there, but chief executive Shawn Scheuer outlined some of the differences for me via email:

The difference is that this is fully integrated into a platform specifically designed for mobile advertising – not a stand alone phone call tracking system that is being used by mobile as an afterthought. There is a lot more than just tracking calls going on, and it includes optimization. For example, we show click-to-call offers to iPhone users but don’t show click-to-call offers when someone visits from an iPad or iPod Touch (because they can not make calls). Instead, they are given simple forms to complete.

In addition, many offers have multiple aspects to them. They may pay out something for completing a form on the first page, and then pay out more for proceeding to a click-to-call offer. By having the system in house and fully integrated, we can create and track these campaigns easily.

There’s a cost difference too. If an advertiser uses a separate call tracking service like RingRevenue, Scheuer said, it costs 4 to 5 cents per minute, which can end up eating 20 to 25 percent of the revenue from an advertising campaign.

Moolah Media is self-funded.

Specifically, Cooliris has created new “immersive 3D ads” for the iPad. You tap on the banner ad, which then opens into a 3D product demo that you can rotate using the iPad or iPhone, or into some other interactive ad. (Bhumkar emphasized the idea of immersiveness over 3D, since not all of the ads are 3D.) The idea is to take advantage of the iPad to deliver an ad that users are really engaged with.

Cooliris will run these 3D ads within its own LiveShare mobile app, but it also recently announced that it’s partnering with mobile ad network InMobi to make the technology available to InMobi advertisers. (The two companies will share the revenue.) Bhumkar said he’s open to working with other ad networks eventually, but he’s happy to launch with InMobi — the ad network was on board with Cooliris’ desire to make the technology available as soon as possible.

Cooliris’ Immersive 3D Ads will go live in April, but the company just sent me the demo video below to show them in action.

The startup was founded by former investment banker Guilherme Schvartsman, who says Best, Cool & Fun Games is “the #1 mobile gaming company in Latin America, by sales, product breadth, world reach and user satisfaction.” It has released 30 games that have been played by 10 million people. Even though the company based in Brazil, its biggest audience is in the United States, Schvartsman said.

Schvartsman has been developing iPhone games since 2009, and he said one of his key decisions was embracing the “freemium” business model last summer. Until that point, he said, Best, Cool & Fun Games had had some success with games that cost 99 cents. Then it released a free version of its game Ant Smasher, which took advantage of Google’s AdMob ad network in two ways — it ran AdMob ads, but also promoted itself on other apps in the AdMob network. Google encourages this strategy by offering developers a discount if they spend their AdMob ad revenue on AdMob ads.

That turned Ant Smasher into the company’s most popular game by far. It has been in the top 100 games on the iPhone for the past four months and in the top 100 games on Android for the past two months. And it made much more money than Schvartsman expected. The app is now on-track to bring in $2 million in annual revenue, he said, with 80 percent of that coming from ads.

Now Best, Cool & Fun Games has followed the example of Ant Smasher’s success, releasing its other games in free, ad-supported versions. It cross-promotes its games with house ads. One out of three users who saw the Ant Smasher ad downloaded the free version of the game, Schvartsman said.

Moving forward, Best, Cool & Fun Games plans to start offering virtual goods in its games (good thing the Android Market finally supports in-app purchases) and launch tools that make it easier for developers to create games of their own. The company is in the process of raising venture funding, he said.

As for AdMob, Google’s acquisition of the mobile ad company has hit some bumps recently, including the departure of CEO Omar Hamoui and engineering manager Kevin Scott. But Google says the network is still performing well, with more than 2 billion ad requests per day (up four times from a year ago) and more than 50,000 publishers.

The company said that the number of mobile display ads it served increased by almost 2,000 percent in 2010. A big increase was probably expected, since 4info didn’t start ramping up its display efforts until recently. The San Mateo, Calif. company launched its AdHaven display ad platform in the third quarter of last year. Before that, it only offered display advertising through an early, beta test version of that platform, and also placed display ads on other ad networks to meet advertisers’ demands.

Perhaps the more significant milestone is the fact that in-app and mobile Web advertising now account for 80 percent of 4info’s ad revenue, while SMS is only 20 percent. The company points to a recent Nielsen report saying that the ad network now reaches more than 69 million unique users, representing 75 percent of the mobile Web in the United States.

4info says that some of its display customers were originally SMS customers who have now signed expanded agreements. Other advertisers are brands with an interest in cross-channel campaigns. Not only does the company offer SMS, mobile Web display, in-app, and mobile video advertising, it also allows brands to build customized apps (presumably using technology from its acquisition of Butter).

For example, 4info’s campaigns included the Backbreaker apps for KFC and the My Holiday Planner app for Universal Pictures’ movie Little Fockers.

4info has raised more than $50 million in funding from US Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, NBC Universal, Mezzanine Capital Partners, Gannett Company, and others.

JiWire

The Compass ads can appear on iPad, smartphones or laptops and appear as normal display ads. Once the consumer clicks on an ad, it expands into a full-screen ad and, depending on the advertiser, may show where a physical store location is or where products are sold in proximity to the user.

The consumer has several choices after they experience an ad, including contacting the store, getting driving instructions or learning more information, which is a custom tab feature that can support video, promotions or product demos. The company gives several examples of these choices, including booking an appointment to try on a wedding dress and making a restaurant reservation.

JiWire claims to have more than 40 million mobile users in its network, aggregated in several ways, including partnerships with major internet service providers like AT&T, T-Mobile and British Telecom. By using JiWire’s advertising services, providers can deliver users to the company’s advertisers generating revenue.

The company has made some big moves recently, including the acquisition of NearbyNow, which gives the company the ability to show which stores a product is available in stores within an app or ad, as well as a partnership with Groupon, offering more targeted deals to consumers.

The San Francisco-based company, founded in 2003, last secured $2.1 million in funding from existing investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Panorama Capital and Comcast Interactive Capital. The company has raised close to $16 million in total funding.

The San Francisco startup is coming out of stealth mode today, but its services have been up-and-running for a month. Chief executive Shawn Scheuer said Moolah Media has already served more than 100 million impressions and generated more than 250,000 “quality” leads for its advertisers.

“We’re not going to beat iAds on filling the first 5 percent of your inventory at $25 or $50 CPMs (payment per thousand impressions),” Scheuer said. “But we will beat other people on filling the remaining 95 percent.”

Moolah came from the founders’ own experience trying to make money from their mobile app, Scheuer said. By using AdMob (now owned by Google) and various other ad networks, they were only able to earn 25 cent CPMs “on a good day.” Then they discovered they could increase those CPMs by more than 10 times if they created their own custom ads, and now they’re making the technology they developed available on their network.

The key, Scheuer said, is a focus on a pay-per-performance model, where you’re paying for actions and not just eyeballs, coupled with greater publisher transparency. For example, he said, most major ad networks only let you target ads by phone, carrier, and a few extremely broad categories. Moolah lets you see ad performance by individual publisher, and it kicked out an early publisher that wasn’t performing. Moolah also creates special phone numbers for ads so businesses can tell when customer calls were spurred by a specific ad.

“On the fixed Web side, these ideas are not new,” he said, but they haven’t been brought effectively into the mobile world.

Moolah is self-funded and is already profitable, he added.

Chief executive Jim Payne, who focused on metrics at AdMob (more recently, he worked on Google Maps Premier and various monetization initiatives), compared MoPub to online ad server DoubleClick and to AdWhirl, the mobile ad aggregator acquired by AdMob. Both services are now owned by Google, which purchased both DoubleClick and AdMob.

Payne said MoPub addresses a need that he and his cofounders saw at AdMob — specifically, a need for a service that allows mobile application developers to serve ads directly (rather than going through a network), as well as aggregate ads from multiple ad networks. AdMob would probably have built a service like this if it hadn’t been acquired, he said.

MoPub is currently in private beta testing and plans to launch to the public in late January, though Payne said the team is already working to “aggressively” move anyone who asks for an invitation off the wait list. One of its big customers is Booyah, which published MyTown and other social apps. There’s a lot of interest in a “next generation AdWhirl” that isn’t owned by a specific ad network, Payne said.

MoPub currently supports iPhone/iPad and Android applications. Payne said it offers the exact same features on both devices. It will add support for mobile websites soon, he added.

The size of the funding was not disclosed. Harrison Metal Capital and AngelPad (where MoPub was incubated) also invested in the round.

Wojcicki, who is in charge of the design and innovation around Google’s ad and measurement platforms, talked about ways to enhance advertising effectiveness through a combination of web search, location-based mobile phone technology, and photo imagery. The demos worked, for the most part, and provide a glimpse into how Google can make search advertising more useful, immediate, and lucrative.

Omar Hamoui, founder and chief executive of Google-acquired mobile ad startup AdMob, is leaving the search giant for what the company says are personal reasons.

Only five months have passed since the acquisition finally closed, which means Hamoui spent more time (about six months) waiting for the government to approve the deal than he did at Google. Following the acquisition, Hamoui was named Google’s vice president of mobile ads.

We’ve heard that Hamoui was having health problems, which would explain such an early departure (startup executives usually lose some of the acquisition money if they don’t stay for a couple of years). [Update: Hamoui posted on Twitter that he's fine.] When I asked Google for details, the company sent the following statement:

Omar has decided to leave AdMob and Google for personal reasons. He built a fantastic business in a short period of time, and we wish him all the best. Mobile advertising — across search and display — is now a billion dollar business for Google, with AdMob a key part of that. Google is fortunate to have a great team of leaders who are driving the next phase of rapid growth and innovation across all our mobile ads products.

The AdMob acquisition was seen as a key part of Google’s strategy to move into mobile ads, just as rival Apple acquired Quattro and launched its iAds initiative — a program that Hamoui praised. While Hamoui was very much the main face of AdMob, he isn’t the only AdMob executive who joined Google. Jason Spero, who led AdMob’s business development and marketing, is now Google’s director of mobile (though like many Google titles, it’s not clear exactly what that entails).

Hamoui’s departure was first reported in TechCrunch.

The Verve Publishing Platform allows publishers to easily bring their content and advertisers to mobile devices. Verve Wireless is also notable for local mobile advertising — Verve Connect is the largest premium local ad network around, the company says. It serves 750 customers with Verve Connect, including notable publishers like the Associated Press and Belo Interactive.

When we first covered Verve in 2008, the company was still coming to grips with the idea of location-based advertising. At the time it managed to land deals with media partners including The New York Times Company, Freedom Communications and Media General — and the company also formed agreements with all four major mobile carriers in the US.

Now the company reports that in July more than 14 million users have accessed mobile content via its publishing platform (a 151 percent increase over a year ago) and that it served 150 million mobile web pages (a 105 percent per-year increase). Thus far it has served over a billion mobile ad impressions.

Verve plans to use the funding to expand its publishing and advertising services, as well to hire more staff in advertising and operations.

With this funding, the San Diego, Calif.-based company has raised a total of $9.5 million to date. This latest round also saw participation from previous investors, including The AP.

Getting content noticed is a challenge for everyone making apps. We’ll cover the topic at DiscoveryBeat 2010. Startups and big companies alike are encouraged to submit their discovery tactics to our Needle in the Haystack competition. Early bird discounts are available until September 22. Sponsors can contact us at sponsors@venturebeat.com. To buy tickets, click here.

Yahoo Japan has acquired location-based mobile ad firm Cirius Technologies. Cirius is based in Tokyo and operates AdLocal, a service that targets consumers with ads. It takes into account the physical location of the users via global positioning system (GPS), cell phone identification, map coordinates and other data.

Cirius has about 38 employees. After the acquisition, AdLocal will close its U.S. office in San Francisco, Calif. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Gen Miyazawa, 28, founded Cirius in 2004. Saji Johnson was chief executive and president of AdLocal in the U.S. AdLocal allows brands and agencies to run location-based mobile ads and sponsorships. AdLocal had raised $9 million in three rounds of funding from SoftBank, Jafco Ventures and Edge Capital. The company has served more than seven billion ads for premium brands such as Subway, Denny’s Nissan and Nike. Rivals include 1020 Placecast, Navteq, and others.

[Photo: Mobile Planet TV]

Xtify picked up the funding from Acadia Woods Partners, SeventySix Capital and an undisclosed, significant New York-based angel investor. CEO Josh Rochlin says Xtify is looking to raise another sum of money in the fall, due to major announcements and partnerships that are rolling out soon, although he declined to disclose those just yet.

Xtify’s platform allows for brands, businesses and anyone building apps for iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices to create and manage push notification campaigns. When users who have downloaded an app – for instance, an app for a clothes brand – are within a certain distance from a retailer, they will get a notification of a sale or special offer, or a prompt for whatever action the app developer desires, on their cell phone, much like the ones users get now when there are software updates available. The trick is that the app doesn’t have to be running in the foreground: Users will be notified even if the app is not currently in active use.

“This only applies to the users who have downloaded the app that notifies them, nobody gets spammed,” Rochlin explained. Xtify also keeps things anonymous, as no phone numbers or email addresses are collected. Instead, users in Xtify’s database are identified with random user keys, which are then paired with information about the device, such as the make and model of it, and its location.

Xtify faces competition from other location-based ad companies, such as San Francisco, Calif.-based Placecast, which runs geo-targeted ad campaigns, for instance pinging users with text messages when they are near a shop. Xtify says that the very fact that they have a background-running notification system is what differentiates them from the competition. In addition, the service is not reliant on getting a phone’s location from a carrier, nor is it using SMS, which makes the service cost-efficient, Xtify says.

Founded in 2009, Xtify launched at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last February, and the team is currently keeping its head down, building out the product. The major announcements that the company has in the pipeline in the following weeks will make for a big increase in traction for the platform, Rochlin says.

PlacePop wants to replace the clumsy, physical loyalty program cards people carry around in their wallets or forget in their desk drawers. So it’s joining  a lot of companies doing the same thing — helping people go virtual with their loyalty cards. It’s not clear whether PlacePop really can differentiate itself in such a crowded market.

The San Francisco company, led by former Friendster CEO Kent Lindstrom, today began offering cards that can be accessed with smartphones — and you can do this from shop or a restaurant while “checking in” at that location. In an effort to differentiate itself, PlacePop says it is giving businesses a lot of control over their campaigns, allowing them to customize the branding and look of their virtual card as well as its functionality.

The funding, first reported by TechCrunch, comes from Affinity Labs founder Chris Michel, Bebo Founder Michael Birch, James Currier and Stan Chudnovsky.

I spoke with Lindstrom, and he said the funding could last for a year, depending on how things go. The company’s full platform will launch in beta within the next two weeks, he said, and the company is working on an Android app to follow the iPhone launch.

Lindstrom said the company is “really focused on making sure [they] have the tool right for small businesses”, and, building on that, PlacePop will be targeting big brands and retailers. Lindstrom said that the company has already been picking up interest from the big retailers and restaurant chains.

According to a recent study commissioned by digital advertising company Placecast (carried out by research firm Harris Interactive) users still consider texting more important than any other activity, aside from talking. Which is not surprising if you consider the fact that smartphones account for little over than 20% of all mobile phones in the U.S. So, while location-based services like Foursquare (having just scored $20 million in funding and putting pressure on the other companies in the space), Gowalla, Brightkite and others are hoping to cash in on advertising integrated into their products, it is worth noting that these services still have very few users in terms of the percentage of people using smartphones. The survey points out that 40 percent of users said texting is “extremely” or “very” important to them. When it comes to the so-called check-in services like Foursquare and Gowalla, only 7 percent of men and 3 percent of women have same level of interest.

The survey, says Placecast CEO Alistair Goodman (pictured), represents the American population at large (2,046 adults in the United States, age 18 and over), not just centers for the digerati like San Francisco or New York City.

“We see in this data that texting is super-easy to use for both advertisers and consumers. For instance, middle-aged women are very brand-loyal and want to receive alerts on offers, but don’t want to use an application for it: for them, alerts are a utility and not a game they would like to play,” Goodman explains.

For retailers, e-mail has been a great way of communicating with customers, says Goodman, and texting is the logical extension of it. As always with advertising on a highly personal device like a computer, let alone on a mobile phone, it is a question of providing extremely relevant information to the consumer so as not to be intrusive. One of the ways of making advertising relevant to a consumer is to use place and time, ie. location data – which is comforting news to a hip location-based service. In fact, only less than 10% of the people taking the survey said that using their location in advertising was intrusive or wasn’t obvious to them. One third of the respondents of the Harris survey considered ads based on their location very useful, and other studies have shown the same tendency.

Mobile advertising is on the rise – Gartner expects the entire mobile ad segment to become a $7.4 billion market by 2014 – and seem to have an effect, since one in three consumers claimed to have gone into a store after receiving an ad, and one in four have made purchases, according to the Harris study. Microsoft is channeling (text-based) ads on the screens of phones using its upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system, and Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs recently introduced the company’s iAd platform, providing guaranteed reach across a wide Apple device audience. And another study shows that the smartphone adoption rate will rise to 194 million users by 2015. Whether or not those nearly 200 million users will take app-based advertising over SMS alerts remains to be seen.

(Update: Separately, Nuance has agreed to buy VoiceSignal Technologies for $293 million, signaling further consolidation in the mobile voice search industry after Tellme’s acquisition by Microsoft.)

Time Warner’s AOL has gobbled up Boston-based mobile advertising startup Third Screen Media, signaling the beginning of consolidation in the industry.

Third Screen is just one of many start-ups founded in recent years, and intense competition between the players has caused some disturbing behavior, at Millennial Media for example. Other players include AdMob, Enpocket, Rhythm NewMedia and Ad Infuse. Microsoft bought ScreenTonic SA, a Paris-based mobile advertising firm, earlier this year.

The AOL deal was expected. A few months ago, the WSJ said Third Screen would likely be bought by AOL for $80 million. (Update: Dan Primack says the price was more like $110 million, but this isn’t confirmed)

The deal is a good one for Third Screen. It raised about $8 million in venture capital funding over the past four years, with the most recent $5 million coming last year from TD Capital Ventures, Blue Chip Venture Company and angels.

Wireless advertising in the U.S. will rocket to $4.7 billion in 2011 from $221 million last year, predicts eMarketer. Globally, the market will reach $11.3 billion in that time-frame, the group says. (Remember to take these figures with a grain of salt. You’ll recall how crazy the forecasts were during the last boom. The unassailable point, however, is that mobile phone use is growing quickly and that many more ads are going to be served).