GigaOM

Photobucket is looking to extend its domination of photo-sharing on the web to the mobile domain. We have learnt that within weeks, Photobucket and mobile marketing company mFoundry will release an application (in beta form) that could help extend Photobucket-based content to mobile phones. Sausalito, CA-based mFoundry helps brands do marketing and advertising via mobile. Both companies refused to give details about their mobile plans.

Whatever is the nature of those plans, mobile is becoming a bigger and bigger part of Photobucket’s longterm strategy. Photobucket already offers its users a way to upload photos from a camera phone to the site, and by some estimates the company is seeing over 34,000 mobile uploads per day–Photobucket CEO Alex Welch says the mobile uploads come in slightly under that estimated figure.

The company, which has development offices in Denver and a business office in Palo Alto has nearly 19 million users who access the Photobucket site, for free. Going mobile could be a way for Photobucket to monetize its free service. MFoundry applications can insert ads and allow the same users to access photos on their mobile phones, and thus bring some dollars.

Photobucket recently launched a service in the U.K. where users can publish images to the mobile phone itself, called “Make Mobile,” but the service doesn’t seem to be available outside the U.K. for now. In a recent survey from M:Metrics, the research firm said U.K. users are inclined to use mobile social services, like uploading photos to Flickr from your cell phone, far above users in the U.S. and other countries in Europe. If Photobucket pushes the “Make Mobile” service beyond the U.K., it could use mFoundry to add advertisements.

The deal highlights the growing market for both mobile advertising and mobile photo sharing. Perhaps that explains why both companies received a good deal of funding in recent months - mFoundry got $7.3 million in March and Photobucket received another $10.5 million in May 2006!

Research firm Ovum says mobile advertising in the U.S. will rise from $45 million this year to $1.2 billion by 2010. Mobile photo sharing is growing in popularity. Flickr and other services like Shozu have seen increased usage, thanks in part to the growing trend of moblogging.