USA TODAY
SAN
MATEO, Calif. (USA TODAY) -- Silicon Valley's latest parlor game this week is what
Facebook is up to on Tuesday, when it announces news at its headquarters
in nearby Menlo Park at 1 p.m. ET.
As the markets opened Tuesday,
Facebook shares were down slightly to $30.85 after investors scooped up
shares the day before to push the stock above $30.
The early
money is on search engine-related news, given its high financial stakes.
Google's share of the overall U.S. mobile ad market - 57%, compared
with Facebook's 9% - is largely because of its search business.
Facebook
might also make a more aggressive push into gaming or leverage its $1
billion acquisition of photo-sharing site Instagram.
Other possibilities include new ad formats, mobile ad advancements and an external ad network, says Kevin Lee, CEO of Didit.
Facebook
raked in about $4.2 billion from advertising last year - 84% of its
estimated $5 billion in total revenue, according to eMarketer. Leading
the charge were mobile display sales. Facebook took home about 18% of
the U.S. market last year - or $339 million - besting Google's 17%.
Google took home 15% of the nearly $15 billion U.S. display ad market, with Facebook close behind.
Payments accounted for Facebook's remaining $800 million in 2012 revenue, eMarketer estimates.
Long
odds are on a long-rumored smartphone announcement coming Tuesday
despite mild protestations from CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a September
public interview with Michael Arrington.
The mobile space is a
particularly bedeviling proposition for Facebook, which has been late to
the market even as Americans continue to eschew PCs for smartphones and
tablets.
EMarketer estimates 70 million people in the USA
regularly access Facebook from a phone - about half of Facebook's active
domestic audience.
"The marketplace has room for a Facebook
phone," telecommunications analyst Jeff Kagan said in a note last week.
"Today, only Apple and Google are heavy hitters."