Facebook isn’t the only social network getting ready to monetize its mobile app with advertising. During today’s analyst call to discuss its fourth quarter earnings, LinkedIn executives said they will also be introducing advertising to their mobile apps.
There weren’t many details offered — LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said only that the company has been putting the infrastructure in place, and now it’s ready to “start to introduce advertising in our mobile solutions.”
Even though ads were only mentioned briefly, mobile was definitely a big theme on the call. Weiner noted that the company launched redesigned smartphone apps last August, and he said that mobile is now LinkedIn’s fastest-growing category. Mobile accounts for more than 15 percent of LinkedIn’s unique member visits, he said, and it will definitely be one of the areas of investment in the coming year.
One of the analysts on the call asked about the performance of CardMunch, the business card-scanning smartphone app that LinkedIn recently acquired, and about whether LinkedIn is performing differently on the various mobile platforms. On CardMunch, Weiner repeated the already-released number that CardMunch has now scanned its 2 millionth business card.
Regarding the different smartphone platforms, he said, “We’re seeing a sharp rise in activations across both the iOS platform and Android. We’re seeing more activations in iOS but both are growing very healthy rates.”