Two recent news stories indicate that location based advertising is becoming more and more of a reality. Skyhook Wireless, Loopt and CBS Mobile have made announcements in the past months.

In the first, Skyhook Wireless has announced that they have introduced location based advertising to their software development kit. The development will allow mobile application creators to earn revenue from the ads that are delivered based on the user’s location.

The service is different to many others as it uses wifi signals to locate a mobile phone. This is a novel way of locating a phone and is possible as the company has mapped wifi signals across 70% of the United States and 40 million access points worldwide. The ads are to be provided by Quattro Wireless.

Ted Morgan, founder and CEO of Boston-based Skyhook, said “carriers make it difficult for them [developers] to charge money, and when they do allow them to, they take 50 percent. The new service is intended to help developers avoid that pitfall in favor of an ad-supported model.”

“Instead of having to charge someone $3 a month for a mapping application, or $2.99 for an instant message or Facebook application, they can just offer it for free and get paid from ads,” Morgan said.

This news comes from CBS Mobile, who announced that it has agreed a deal with Loopt to provide targeted location based ads.

This will add an extra level of targeting to ads on CBS properties, as ads will only appear when Loopt users visit one of CBS’ mobile sites. (see MobiAD interview with Jeff Sellinger for more info on CBS Mobile). CBS will be able to tell the location of the user and will have the option of serving an ad for services in the nearby area. A spokesperson said consumers must explicitly opt in to receive geo-targeted ads from CBS advertisers.

Loopt’s service runs differently to Skyhook Wireless in that it works using GPS and cell tower triangulation to locate a phone. At the moment is works only on Sprint and Boost, but Loopt claims it will announce additional mobile carriers soon.

This agreement with CBS is the first move by Loopt into advertising. The CBS/Loopt deal is not exclusive, and Loopt is free to provide location data to other publisher partners.