Google Formally Introduces AdSense For Mobile

After a period of beta testing, Google is rolling out AdSense For Mobile in 13 countries: US, England, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Russia, Netherlands, Australia, India, China, and Japan. Much like AdSense on the desktop, it’s aimed at publishers and site owners and intended to extend Google ad penetration farther into the mobile Internet.

There was an interesting comment in Miguel Helft’s New York Times article on the program:

Dilip Venkatachari, product management director for AdSense, said the ads would provide a new source of revenue for publishers and could encourage more online sites to create mobile-focused Web sites.

The idea here is that available monetization will encourage mobile friendly site development. There are a number of other mobile ad networks (with more on the way), including Third Screen Media (owned by AOL), Medio’s MobileNow network, Yahoo Mobile Ad Network, Ad Mob, Enpocket (bought today by Nokia), among a few others.

Google recently made the decision to push most of its AdWords advertisers into mobile search (absent an opt-out).