Groupon, Facebook Moves Show Complexity of Advertising Ecosystems

Groupon is said to be testing its own mobile-assisted mobile payments service, using a dongle that provides cred card swiping capability for a smart phone. Separately, Facebook now is rumored to be exploring a purchase of mobile browser Opera.

Both moves show the complexity of the mobile ad business these days. PayPal, a traditional online payments supplier, now is getting into the offline retail point of sale business. But that is only part of the effort. PayPal sees targeted advertising and loyalty programs, as well as in-store promotion as parts of the changing mobile commerce business.

In that business, the actual payments process is only part of the overall range of operations that are potential parts of the mobile shopping business.

That's why Groupon might be beefing up its actual payments capability, while Facebook might get into the mobile browser or even mobile phone business. Platforms are better able to maximize the value of an advertising or loyalty business.