Thought Provoker: Facebook mentioned that mobile ads are coming. Once it hits Facebook will it become more acceptable and less intrusive for other applications? As a developer we get asked about advertising and I say why not. We have advertising on blogs and websites etc… However, it is not very accepted yet for mobile. It has been seen as too intrusive and it seems to make people uncomfortable. 

Will Facebook mobile ads lead to significant increase in mobile advertising at large? 

We at Crowd Smart Media do believe that increasingly you will see mobile advertising with the first big boom with Facebook mobile advertising. Just like any other form of advertising there is a right way and a spam way.
 When viewing a mobile site such as Facebook is acceptable. In order for you to be a part of the Facebook community you accept being advertised to. On the other side you have ads that are opt-in only for example you out at a restaurant and there is a poster that says text this word to this number and we will give you 10% off your bill. Great you saved a few bucks but now every day they text your mobile phone their daily specials, most of the time it is extremely difficult to get the messages to stop.
Now we have access to the worst kind of mobile advertising. Every day you drive to work and pass a bakery and everyday as your passing you get a text message about their daily muffin flavor. This is not opt-in or out, you were advertised to just for being near the business. Can you imagine walking in a downtown area and 30 some odd businesses spam text you with out signing up in any way?
We feel strongly that online mobile marking is acceptable but mobile marketing with out my consent or knowledge as a user is unacceptable! 

As long as they are not intrusive I think it’s ok. Do you know when will this mobile ads be available?

We only offer Opt-In text campaigns for clients. The client has to either text in or sign a signup for in order to get entered. We have some doctors so it all has to be handled very carefully but most of our clients just do text opt-ins. We also suggest that they text a maximum of once a week but encourage every other week at maximum. We have been fortunate to only have one case of a client severely abusing their TXTWave account. Other than that, our clients have loved the SMS service. 

I think mobile advertising is going to fun to watch how it grows. It is going to need to be very tactful to ensure people are not turned off by it.