Could this be the way to solve Facebook's mobile revenue woes? The company will soon offer a new kind of mobile advertising that will place ads for apps in users' mobile News Feeds, based on other apps that user has on his phone, reports the Wall Street Journal. Say, for example, you're a FarmVille nut; you could start seeing ads for the Words With Friends app.
The new ad product could launch as early as July 16 (the company's first public earnings report is due 10 days after that) and could earn Facebook a good deal more than the typical charge per thousand people who view an ad; in this case, it will charge the advertiser a greater amount every time a user downloads the advertised app. The approach is a sea change, notes the Journal, because targeted ads in the past were linked only to those brands users have already "liked." Now, using new technology and Facebook Connect, it can track the apps on your phone—which, of course, has some worried about another privacy brouhaha. (More Facebook stories.)