Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on today’s first quarter earnings call that mobile app install ads were “one of most important new ad products” the company offers.

COO Sheryl Sandberg pointed out that 3,800 developers used the product to drive a total of 25 million app downloads in the App Store and Google Play. Forty percent of the 100 top-grossing apps for Android and iPhone have advertised on Facebook, Sandberg said.

CFO David Ebersman said that mobile app install ads actually lead to a lot of incremental revenue, as many of these developers are newly spending on the Facebook platform, not just reallocating existing budget to a newer format.

In Q1 2013, revenue from advertising was $1.25 billion, and mobile advertising revenue represented nearly 30 percent of that. A large portion of mobile ads have been this app install format, which does not have a desktop equivalent. Zuckerberg said that this ad type are high quality additions to the feed because users are interested in learning about new apps but there aren’t great experiences for discovering them through the traditional app stores.

“A lot is just good content that people are interested in,” he said of mobile app install ads.

Zuckerberg noted that apps are important to more than just the traditional types of developers people might think of. Although many of the recent app install ads have been for games, travel apps and financial services — and Sandberg says its prices are competitive with other offerings for these industries — there are even more brands, retailers and other kinds of companies that are getting into app development and will start to want to drive users to an app experience, such as a storefront.

Facebook Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer AdParlor shared the following chart of average cost per 1,000 impressions and click through rate of mobile app install ads over the past few months.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on today’s investor call that building a phone “wouldn’t really make much sense for us to do,” addressing rumors that the company was working on its own mobile device.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Facebook was working with HTC to build a smartphone for release next year, citing “people with knowledge of the matter.” The article suggested Facebook is developing a modified operating system for the device.

The social network responded with the following statement:

“Our mobile strategy is simple: We think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social. We’re working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world.”

Zuckerberg echoed this on the earnings call today, saying the goal is to “be as deeply integrated as possible” in mobile experiences and noting how the company worked with Apple to become part of the upcoming iOS 6. He said Facebook is working to increase depth of experience on mobile devices and build an ecosystem that other apps can build on top of.

Many have speculated over the years whether Facebook is working on its own device, possibly offering its own mobile operating system as a modified version of Android. Based on Zuckerberg’s comments today, it’s unclear how things will turn out, but it’s worth noting that HTC and Facebook collaborated last year on the HTC “ChaCha,” an Android-based phone with a dedicated Facebook button to share music, photos and messages. The company could continue this strategy and partner with a number manufacturers and mobile providers rather than limiting Facebook to its own device and system.

Article courtesy of Inside Facebook

So the news on Google CEO Larry Page is that there’s no new news. That’s what Nikesh Arora said on today’s Google’s earnings call.

Just to recap: Last month, Google announced that Larry Page was skipping its I/O developer conference and the company’s annual shareholder meeting because he had lost his voice at some point over the previous weeks. But whatever ailment caused that loss of voice over the last few weeks continue to ails him, as Page left the call to lieutenants Patrick Pichette, Nikesh Arora, and Susan Wojcicki.

So here’s the official update:

“There’s no new news on Larry,” Arora said. “He’s lost his voice and he can’t do any speaking engagements, including this call.” But Arora said that Larry is still running the company on a day-to-day basis, despite his inability to speak.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch