AdSense is moving to a new medium: mobile phones. It seems that the beta version of AdSense for Mobile is in a very limited mode of testing – only one person has come forward (so far) to say he’s been invited – and yet this is, by all appearances, the real deal.
Don’t look for 600 words of explanation and interpretation; as Scott Jones of Self Made Minds writes, “it kind of does what it says on the tin” and “allows publishers to place adsense contextual advertising on website designed for mobile (cell) phones to monetise that traffic.” Jones is the fellow who received Google’s invite.
As for the ads themselves, The Utility Belt’s Jon Fortt states that they “contain two lines of text, with 12 or 18 characters per line, depending on the language.” That’s pretty plain, and yet simplicity isn’t a bad thing – the mobile web can be annoying enough (small screens, smaller buttons, etc.) without mucking it up with overcomplicated ads.
In his description of the service, Fortt then continues, “Advertisers have the option to let people call their business directly from the ad. Advertisers pay only when someone clicks on the ad, or initiates a call from the ad.”
It’ll be interesting to see how quickly this product makes it out of beta, and how well it catches on after that. If AdSense for Mobile is successful, Google may be on its way to cornering yet another market.
Hat tip to Stuart Dredge of Pocket Picks.
