Facebook Inc (FB) Invents the Holy Grail of Mobile Advertising

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A PayPal threat?
As stated earlier, if more data is needed to perfect and standardize Facebook’s methodology, it stands to reason that Facebook has a high interest in pursuing the mobile payments business. Such a move would allow Facebook to connect even more valuable data on its users, which would ultimately lead to improving its analytics, proving to marketers that its platform is unique. This could potentially hurt eBay Inc (NASDAQ:EBAY) and its PayPal business, which has seemingly become an established leader in the mobile payments space. Combined, eBay and PayPal conducted $27 billion in mobile transactions in 2012. Not to mention, PayPal has partnered with Discover Financial Services (NYSE:DFS) to bring the PayPal experience offline, opening up PayPal to over 7 million outlets by the middle of this year.

IDC predicts that worldwide purchase volume over mobile devices will exceed $1 trillion by 2017. Consider this with the fact that Facebook has nearly nine times the active user base of PayPal. It wouldn’t take much for Goliath to slay David and completely disrupt the mobile payments business.

Three priorities
During the conference call, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed the company’s top three priorities. The first is for Facebook to build products and tools that create value for every type of marketer. The second is for Facebook to prove that value to marketers. And finally, it’s key for Facebook to capitalize on the unique opportunity it has in mobile. The Facebook Card is the first step for Facebook to connect the online world with the offline world in a standardized way. It allows Facebook to collect even more personal data on its members, which will further improve its ad analytic technology. These efforts certainly align well with Facebook’s top priorities. Perhaps Facebook isn’t a one-trick pony, after all?

The article Facebook Invents the Holy Grail of Mobile Advertising originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Steve Heller.

Fool contributor Steve Heller owns shares of Google and eBay. The Motley Fool recommends eBay, Facebook, and Google. The Motley Fool owns shares of eBay, Facebook, and Google.

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