Northern Trust has thought very carefully about how to communicate with its wealthy clients. In the U.S., it says it has people within a 45 minute drive of 50 percent of all of the millionaire households.

It advertises on NPR, CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, and local newspapers.

Now it might start “friending” people on Facebook.

“We had a client earlier this year who asked if we could be a friend to their child on (her) Facebook page because the child is a beneficiary of a trust that we manage and they said what better way to get to know my child when they’re awfully remote than to do this through the Facebook page?” said Lee Woolley, President of Northern Trust Bank’s Personal Financial Services division in Boston.

The family said Facebook would be a great way to communicate with the next generation of heirs before they inherit the family fortune.

Of course the 20 year-old daughter would have to accept the invitation for it all to work out.

Woolley told the Reuters Global Wealth Management Summit his firm had said “no” in the near term, but was interested.

“We have clients spread out all over the United States of America, including Hawaii . . . and then a couple around the world as well, so yeah, the idea of using social networking sites beyond just e-mail communication is a really intriguing idea,” he said.

Of course it took the 120 year-old company more than 100 years to change its stationery.

“That was scandalous at the time,” Woolley said.

Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke to the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Tuesday and while he wouldn’t touch TechCrunch’s report about financing and valuation, he did opine about a few of Facebook’s Web peers:

On the difference between Facebook and MySpace:

I think MySpace defines themselves as more of a media company and a media portal. A way to see the different content that is going on, or a way for a News Corp parent company to spread content through the network. Facebook has always been more focused on helping people build out their identity, helping people maintain their relationships and communicate really efficiently. We have talked about ourselves as a technology company a lot as opposed to a media company.

On the difference between Facebook and Twitter:

We respect Twitter and we think they are a great company. I think Twitter’s focus different is markedly different from Facebook’s. They are not really at all about a user’s identity. They are more about real time communication. People are sharing more and more information…and on a more frequent basis. If you extend that out then there is a good amount of information that is being shared in real time. That’s where a service like Twitter comes in, and that’s why that’s also one piece of what we want to do. If your friend does something important…there is no reason why you don’t want that update immediately. Real time is clearly one of the growing trends but i don’t think it’s the whole picture.

Photo: Reuters

Will mobile advertising make you rich?

Virgin Mobile USA CEO Dan Schulman told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit today about a new advertising partnership with AOL’s Third Screen Media.

We asked him how big a deal it was. Schulman was enthusiastic, to say the least.

“We think it will drive a trillion dollars to us in the next four to six months.”

On the more serious side, Schulman explained that mobile advertising was still in its infancy as carriers have yet to really figure out the right way of offering people ads on their phones without becoming a nuisance.

“It’s small (in terms of revenue) and I wouldn’t even put it in the meaningful category yet. We’re experimenting with it. Mobile advertising is something you need to be quite careful with. A cell phone is a relatively intimate device.”

Virgin Mobile USA has had some success with its advertising forays. Schulman said more than 700,000 of its 5 million customers had signed up for its “Sugar Mama” promotion that let them earn free phone minutes in return for watching ads online.

Its subscribers can also put their friends to work for them with a “Sugar Mama” widget on social network Facebook. The more friends download the application and watch ads, the more free minutes their pal can accumulate.

(Photo: Reuters)