Why Mobile Ads Are Seen as a Boon to Facebook, But a Plague to Google

Analysts gave Facebook a big thumbs-up this week for its transition to mobile

As the company reported on Wednesday, mobile ads now represent 59% of its overall ad revenues, up from 30% in Q1 2013. Brian Wieser, an analyst with Pivotal Research, called it a "monster quarter" for Facebook that was driven largely by growth in mobile

The situation at Google wasn't as sunny. Since Google blamed mobile for depressing costs-per-click by 9% in the quarter, mobile was an obvious impetus for missed earnings. Even though Google's ad business grew 16.5% in the quarter, that was less than expected. As Wieser noted, "erosion was consistent with our general expectations, if worse than we expected, and probably worse than many investors expected too." Read more...