Facebook Risks Annoying Users With Push Into Mobile Ads

Aline Drucker Fornaris, a lawyer in Miami, is on the front lines of Facebook’s new effort to put advertising on mobile devices. When she logs on to the social-networking site from her BlackBerry or iPad, she sees ads for Caribbean travel deals and a local clothing boutique. Facebook used to only have ads in the personal-computer version -- not the mobile apps -- and Drucker Fornaris isn’t happy about the change. The ads are “incredibly annoying,” she said. As Facebook looks to mobile advertising for its next wave of growth, that reaction is something it wants to avoid. The social-networking service has about 425 million mobile users -- more than half its total membership -- and advertisers are eager to target them. The challenge is to do it without overwhelming people, who can be more sensitive to ads appearing on their mobile devices.