LinkedIn Plans Mobile Ads This Year

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LinkedIn just became the second social media giant this month to signal plans for ads in mobile.

During its quarterly earnings call yesterday, CEO Jeff Weiner said mobile access represents an ever-growing share of time users spend with LinkedIn. He said the company is investigating ways to monetize those page views.

"We’re going to start to run some tests with regard to advertising some of our marketing solutions within the mobile environment," Weiner said.

When those ads will appear and what they'll look like is anybody's guess. LinkedIn did not immediately reply to a request for more information.

Weiner's remarks come one week after reports surfaced that Facebook will begin serving ads to its 420 million-strong mobile audience. The Financial Times cited unnamed sources who pinpointed a launch date of early March, ahead of the company's planned public offering in May. Those sources referred to the pending ads as "'featured stories' in the news feed."

In August, LinkedIn revamped its mobile presence with new apps for Android and iOS and a new mobile site. As a result, Weiner said mobile is the fastest growing service on LinkedIn, accounting for more than 15 percent of total unique number visits.

"Because members need LinkedIn to work wherever they work we've made great strides in our platform in mobile offerings in 2011," said Weiner.

LinkedIn is the no. 3 social networking platform in the U.S., with 33.5 million unique viewers here, according to comScore. Throughout much of 2011 the company vied with Twitter for no. 2, but Twitter pulled away by year's end with 37.5 million unique viewers.