Connect with execs from Axios, The New York Times, Paramount and more.
Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage yesterday at TechCrunch’s annual gabfest and confidently struck a pose in mobile. Admitting that the social network gorilla made several missteps, such as relying on HTML5 technology, he declared Facebook a mobile company. On the whole making money front, Zuckerberg pointed to its native format, sponsored stories.
It is still early in mobile, particularly with sponsored stories, which just came to phones back in June. Facebook, like every other publisher, is waking up to a world where what works on the desktop doesn’t work on mobile. Publishers can’t serve as many ads, so they need to figure out new ways of being able to make money. Zuckerberg’s bet is that by placing sponsored stories within a user’s stream, branded content can be the king of mobile advertising, not the banner.
Time will tell, as they say. What Facebook has going for it is sponsored stories, which are now almost two-years-old, are fairly well understood now by its advertisers. Mobile is simply another way to distribute them. This is a smart short-term strategy. Whether Facebook admits it or not, this is more likely to please Wall Street than a risky bet on a brand-new mobile ad format. There’s probably not going to be a home run in mobile, just lots of singles. Sponsored stories will need to be complemented with other revenue generators, such as sponsored results via search, which Zuckerberg also talked up quite a bit.
Zuckerberg says that a growing portion of its 955 million users are using mobile devices to access Facebook. He sees a “huge opportunity” there, but knowing and doing are worlds apart.
Image via Shutterstock
More in Media
WTF is SPUR’s publisher-run Content Telemetry Framework?
SPUR is publisher‑run and fixated on one thing: turning AI’s use of their content from opaque scraping into a transparent, usage‑based licensing system they control.
How streaming creators built a new broadcast blueprint at the World Cup
Livestreaming creators offer new ways to broadcast sports to diverse audiences; this 2026 FIFA World Cup may be the new blueprint for leagues
Media Briefing: Declared ‘good bots,’ mixed-use crawlers, gray scrapers – how AI accesses publisher content
The Cloudflare’s latest AI settings reshape how compliant crawlers behave, yet the biggest leakage for publisher content remains a gray scraping economy that doesn’t bother to play by those rules.