YouTube Mobile

Google is preparing an ad platform for YouTube Mobile, which went live in January.

YouTube Mobile has enjoyed a happy reception since its debut, expanding to Latin America in February. According to the GoogleBlog, it "continues to grow exponentially," with "hundreds of millions of YouTube videos" viewed from mobile devices each month.

Google is now running display test ads on select pages of YouTube Mobile across the United States and Japan. Users can interact with the content, enabling Google to better track mobile engagement, and beta advertisers were also given access to an "additional branding tool."

Google has struggled to monetize YouTube with little success, at least by its own standards. The site will generate $200 million in ad revenue in 2008, significantly below Google's expectations, leading some analysts to speculate how much YouTube costs in overhead expenses if $200 million doesn't turn a profit.

The popularity of YouTube Mobile may change the company's fortunes. Ad recall is high on mobile units, and users are tolerant of mobile advertising if they get something free in return, be it lower phone bills or good content.

And YouTube's content is coveted. Even before Google launched YouTube Mobile, handheld companies competed fiercely to get the site to render properly on their units, including Helio, LG and iPhone.