Facebook Inc. (FB) Mobilizes on ‘Massive Opportunity’

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is celebrating the milestone of reaching one billion monthly users this week, but the company is also realizing that its new opportunity is one that has yet to be mastered by any company as of yet, but it is a market that is rapidly growing – mobile. With now about 60 percent of the monthly users now accessing Facebook Inc. (FB) on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, the challenge for the company is to make itself a mobile moneybag.

That involves advertising. But other than Search from Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), mobile monetization has been a holy grail of sorts for those seeking revenue streams. A couple of the major hurdles that keep companies like Facebook inc. (NASDAQ:FB) from making progress in mobile advertising have been smaller display screens than on laptops and desktops, and also general user impatience with speeds while they are mobile. Advertising as it is placed now slows down the user experiences on mobile devices, and users dont’ have as much tolerance.

“The problem is no one other than Google is getting mobile advertising to work and with Google only through traditional search,” said Rob Enderle of Enderle Group. “It is an issue with the device. It doesn’t lend itself to traditional forms of advertising … The screen is simply too small and the potential for user aggravation too high.”

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged as much in his comments in a recent interview. “The big thing is obviously going to be mobile,” Zuckerberg said. “There are 5 billion people in the world who have phones, and a billion people using Facebook. There are actually already 600 million people using Facebook on phones, so that’s growing really quickly.”

Do investors like billionaire fund manager George Soros of Soros Fund Management have confidence that Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) will figure out mobile? What do you think about Facebook’s chances moving forward?