Facebook has just announced a new platform that will allow developers to advertise applications through the social network’s mobile platform. Facebook says it has already driven 146 million users to the iTunes App Store and Google Play in the past 30 days, but the main point here is that Facebook is finally monetizing its mobile application.

Since the company became public, Facebook has been highly criticized by the media for lacking a clear plan to get revenue from its mobile platform. Well, perhaps I was wrong. Now, if a user clicks an application that crosses his or her newsfeed, he or she will be offered a link to download the application. However, developers can also create specific ad campaigns and target them at a select audience.

A developer can choose to launch ads for a specific region, age range and gender and set a specific budget for the campaign. Facebook will also include an alert for the estimated reach of the campaign based on those aforementioned settings. It even provides a tool (Facebook SDK 3.0 for iOS) that allows iOS developers to see how many clicks an application has received and how much has been spent on the campaign.

The beta is currently only open to a select amount of developers, but it’s already receiving positive feedback. “I think they listened to our feedback,” developer Ricardo Hoar said in a comment on Facebook’s announcement. “Promoting apps to users sitting on Computers makes 0 sense. Targetting users on iOS is a great idea. I have my ad budget ready. I hope I get in on the beta. I’m sure they will eventually roll it into the ads dashboard once it works.”