Google Seeks Mobile Web Advertising Domination, Buys AdMob for $750 Million

From DailyTech: Search and advertising giant Google has purchased mobile web advertising technology firm AdMob for $750 million in stock.

The mobile internet experience on mobile phones and PDAs has been improving rapidly, but mobile web access still suffers from interoperability and usability problems. Part of this is due to the small size of the screens of used, as well as hardware limitations. Despite these problems, there are now hundreds of millions of mobile internet users, resulting in a fury of investment as companies seek to exploit this new market.

Apple iPhone and Google Android users browse the internet more often than anyone else, contributing to Google's 5x mobile search advertising growth over the past two years. A quarter of those iPhone and Android users spend nearly 90 minutes per day using applications on their devices, according to Google.

AdMob was formed in 2006 to provide specialized advertising to the mobile web. Although mobile ad spending is only estimated to reach $416 million in 2009, mobile ad spending has been growing in excess of 30% annually. AdMob has already partnered with hundreds of companies, including Ford, Coca-Cola, Electronic Arts, Proctor & Gamble, and Paramount Pictures. Their advertising platform has already served up over 125 billion impressions on the 15,000 mobile Web sites and applications that make up their publisher network.

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