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Ad funded mobile services were thought to be annoying and the pay-off uncertain. But a UK based mobile virtual network operator has come out with results that could give a major boost to ad-funded services.

An excerpt from BusinessWeek

Blyk—a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) which piggybacks on the Orange network and gives users 217 free texts and 43 free voice minutes per month in exchange for receiving no more than six targeted ad texts/picture messages per day—has reached its annual member target half a year ahead of schedule.

The key factor here is targeted advertising. Google has shown the potential of relevant content based advertising on the Internet. Now applying that same logic to mobiles but with more user specific information such as location, presence and etc makes for much more targeted advertising. The results from Blyk may well be a forerunner to what may be the next era of mobile services that are driven and supported by ads.

Considering that later this year we will be seeing the first handsets based on Google’s Android platform, ad-driven mobile services will be so much more interesting. Perhaps the catch here is that you don’t get a free phone supported by ads. Still, would you sign-up for a free mobile based service for receiving ads (annoying as they may be)?