Short Facebook, Long Apple

Apple is going to add paid ads to app store searches.

Currently, most of the money FB makes, especially on mobile, is on mobile ads. Most of that money is from game companies who desperately need installs, but cannot buy installs via Apple because Apple doesn't sell them.

FB is the only media company with enough reach on mobile, and enough people on its app looking to kill time, that you can buy the installs you need by marketing through them. The strategy is to buy enough installs to get into the top 10, and then hope the game is popular enough with sufficient retention that you can stay in that top 10 by scaling back your spending and using the organic installs chart position gets you (Apple's "most popular free games" category works exactly the same way as the "free online games" keyword works on Google.com).

This is all incredibly inefficient. Companies would rather just pay Apple instead of this crazy bank shot where FB gets paid, Apple's rankings get played, and no one believes in the editorial neutrality (which is real!) on the Apple app store home page.

Apple cut out the middle man. If they execute this right, they should just absorb all of FB's mobile ad revenue.

Short Facebook.