The final installment in our look at Distribution Channels focuses on that most ubiquitous of modern technologies, the smartphone.

With each new model, app launch, and additional G, smartphones keep getting smarter, faster, and even more indispensible. No surprise, then, that their value to advertisers has increased exponentially.

Are you working with adMarketplace to ensure your ads are shown to the more than 100 million smartphone users in the US?

Quantity alone is not the only benefit. Mobile advertising comes with some other advantages:

Facebook’s fast-approaching IPO has given tech and business journalists plenty of data to analyze and leads to investigate. They are using the opportunity to poke at all the flaws, blemishes, and red flags lurking under the company’s hood, and have exposed the biggest issue facing the ‘Book: its reliance on CPM. 

CPM is dying. As chief digital strategist at Marketing Science Consulting Group Augustine Fou noted, “CPC based search ads have taken over two-thirds of the online advertising market, leaving the once dominant CPM-based display ad players like Yahoo and AOL crippled for life.”

Yahoo sued Facebook for patent infringement on Monday, claiming Facebook infringed ten patents related to online advertising, instant messaging and other technologies.

This is a defining moment for both companies. Yahoo is the old lion desperately trying to remain relevant by challenging the younger and stronger Facebook. Facebook is about to step into the public company spotlight, unless its upcoming IPO gets derailed.

The reaction to the lawsuit shows yet another sign that Yahoo's grasp on the tech and advertising industries is weak. Did the Lion in Winter realize how severely it would be crushed in the court of public opinion?