Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Google, iPad, Geo-targeting, AdMob



AdMob has been acquired by Google, and are now testing new geo-targetedads, releasing a new They will also release a new SDK to support theiPad, and updating their AdWhirloptimizer.

This is the latest activities and give some ideas of where this mobile advertising pioneer company is heading.

Google Acquisition
The biggest news of course is that Google’s acquisition of AdMob was finally approved by the US FTC (Federal Trade Commission) after the FTC concluded that the deal was unlikely to harm competition in the emerging market for mobile advertising networks. In particular the FTC cited Apple’s acquisition of ad network Quattro and the launch of the iAd as part of the iPhone OS as indicators that the market would remain open and competitive.

see MobiAD article: The Future of iPhone & iAd

Ad format for iPad
In June AdMob released an SDK that supports special iPad ad formats. Both iPad Text & Tile Ads and iPad Image Ads are supported within the SDK. The AdMob SDK is now unified across all devices running the iPhone OS, which means that developers can download one binary for development across all Apple iPhone OS devices – iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

In May 2010 according to recent numbers from the AdMob, they served ads on approximately 850,000 unique iPad devices. 38% of the unique iPad devices in AdMob’s network came from outside of the US.

Geo-targeting
AdMob has recently begun testing their new, real-time, geo-targeting targeted advertising in the UK, partnering with location-enabled dating site Lovestruck.com.

AdWhirl
An AdMob’s product that has not received too much attention to date is AdWhirl, which they acquired in late 2009. AdWhirl is an ad mediation product for mobile applications. It enables the app developer to easily source ads from several mobile ad networks to be served in their application. This is accomplished with a single set of ad codes, and the ads are selected according to rules setup by the developer.


AdMob has made the following changes to AdWhirl:

• It now supports both the iPhone platform as well as the Android platform
• Developers can now use an unlimited number of ad networks in their apps
• AdWhirl now fully supports Apple’s iAd
• House Ad functionality has been expanded so developers can centrally manage their own house ads

AdMob currently sees more than 100 million ad requests coming through their AdWhirl platform, from some 1,700 mobile applications. AdMob says they are commited to AdWhirl, saying “We believe that open source mediation plays an important role in the mobile ecosystem by giving developers the control they need to manage their business.”