It’s not digital advertising in the sense of display ads and search results, but it looks like we are getting a bit more color on what it is that Facebook will do first in the world of mobile marketing, and it could be coming online “within weeks.”

Facebook has made a $3.1 billion business from a social advertising sector many, even it, concede is experimental and unproven. Now it must find that proof. But experimenting on Wall Street, as well as Madison Avenue, could prove challenging.

In a case that shines light on the world of professional cybersquatters, Verizon is suing a website and a domain name registrar that placed ads on hundreds of sites with Verizon-like names.

—ESPN: The sports network is seeing a reorg: John Kosner has been promoted to EVP, digital and print media, from SVP and GM of the divisions. Marie Donoghue has been promoted to SVP, global strategy, from SVP, business affairs and business development. Meanwhile, longtime leaders John Wildhack and Norby Williamson…

Mobile action codes—including 2D barcodes, QR codes, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Tags and watermarks—became much more prevalent in the top 100 U.S. magazines in 2011, increasing 439 percent from 352 codes in Q1 to 1,899 codes in Q4.

A big endorsement today for mobile advertising from eMarketer: their analysts today said they were revising up their forecasts for U.S. mobile ad spend to $2.61 billion, from their previous estimates of $1.8 billion. Why the rise? Google’s “exceptional” mobile advertising performance in mobile search advertising, and more reliable market…

In a surprise move, The Weather Channel Companies is swapping out CEOs. David Kenny is replacing Mike Kelly as CEO effective immediately; the Akamai-Digitas vet also will be chairman of the company owned by a consortium of Bain Capital, The Blackstone Group, and NBC (NSDQ: CMCSA) Universal.

This morning I spoke with McDonald’s social media director, Rick Wion, about how the company’s own Twitter ad became a viral delight for pot heads and social critics. Here’s a detailed account of how the #McFail debacle went down.

In a move that seems designed to shore up confidence in its communications skills following the Qwikster and price-hike debacle, longtime Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) marketing chief Leslie Kilgore is moving to the board. 

Internet advertising in the U.S. will once again post 20 percent-plus yearly growth this year, and, for the first time, surpass print ad spending, according to a new forecast.

More woe for beleagured mobile services company Motricity: the company today announced that it is restructuring operations, pulling back from investments in Asia and focusing on growth in North America in areas like mobile advertising and enterprise services.

In a climate where economic forecasts continue to remain cloudy, ad spend in the UK went up marginally in Q4 2011, with increased spend on internet advertising making up for declined spend in traditional media and other outlets, according to the latest figures from the IPA Bellwether Report.

—HookLogic: Jeff Griffin joins in the new position of president of retail. Most recently, he co-founded Interpublic Group’s Shopper Science. Prior to that, Griffin was SVP of Premier Retail Networks (PRN). —SwoopThat.com: Book publishing vet Dan Farley is joining the San Diego-based college textbook price comparison startup as EVP, business…

Another day, and another big digital investment from the world’s largest advertising firm. WPP subsidiary Ogilvy has taken a 33.3 percent stake in DTDigital, a digital marketing agency based in Melbourne, Australia. The move is not just another signal of the firm’s growing base of interactive holdings, but one more…

The consumer draw of free apps over paid apps has been well-documented, and so has the rise of in-app payments as a route to making money from those free apps. New research out today predicts that in-app purchases will, in fact, become the most dominant way that app developers will…

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has an image police - but an arrest they have made may be mistaken. A blogger using its SkyDrive cloud storage service says it froze his account when it confused a famous work of art with pornography.

The world’s biggest advertising firm is making yet another acquisition at the intersection of its two targeted growth areas - digital and emerging markets.

While many of the top Internet companies faced a volatile ad market in the fourth quarter of last year, Facebook saw its share of the overall online advertising market increase to 2.7 percent during the period. In fact, by the time 2012 is over, the social network could control up…

Today we know a bit more about how Groupon (NSDQ: GRPN) plans to extend its business opportunities in the years ahead: mobile services will be playing a key role, and so, it seems, will carriers.