Google announced today it would acquire mobile display ad serving platform AdMob for $750M in stock. AdMob is a 3-year-old San Mateo-based startup founded by Omar Hamoui. AdMob is a mobile advertising firm serveing ads on mobile websites and applications. It’s current clients include Ford Motors, Coca-Cola, Electronic Art, Procter & Gamble, MTV Europe, Adidas AG and Paramount Pictures.
This might turn out to be a risky gamble by Google as it tries to prevent competitor from entering the mobile advertising domain by overpaying for AdMob. It’s estimated that AdMob’s current revenue is $45 to $68 millions per year. However, Google currently already owns a major stake in mobile advertising with DoubleClick Mobile unit.
Posted in Advertising, Google |
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Droid Google
First there was the Palm Pre, now Droid Google attempts to do the unthinkable, de-throne Apple’s iPhone.
Here are the features of the highly anticipated Droid Google by Motorola:
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Popular Firefox add-on, AdBlock Plus, is ticking off a lot of website owners by blocking ads on their websites. To many website owners, revenue generated from advertisement helps to pay for expensive hosting costs. In retaliation, some websites are calling to block Firefox users all together. Let’s look at the argument from both sides:
AdBlock is the greatest invention mankind has ever known!
Personally as a user who spent hours visiting different websites daily, I think AdBlock works extremely well in blocking all ads on every website I visit. It cuts down loading time tremendously. It’s even more useful in sites where the advertisements are extremely intrusive. Take a look at the following images of ESPN homepage with AdBlock on and off.
Posted in Blogging, Google |
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Today’s the day which Microsoft officially replaces its unsuccessful Live Search with a new technology invention: Bing. How is Bing different from Google? For starters, Bing is also set up to organize search results in relevant groups rather than as a series of links. It uses technology from Powerset (a search technology company Microsoft acquired) for its search presentation.
Posted in Google, Microsoft, new technology inventions |
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It’s not April Fools Day, but if you’re online at odd hours and perhaps a bit inebriated, Google’s got a plan to keep you from making a fool of yourself.
Straight from the Gmail Labs (and, one might imagine, at least one in-house episode of tipsy oversharing), Google on Tuesday unveiled Mail Goggles, an e-mail option designed to keep you from doing online what a good wingman keeps you from doing if you’re wearing beer goggles after too much fun at the club. (Technically, in that case, the function should be called Mail Wingman. Not that we’d know anything about that.)
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Google is no longer suggesting that you should be listed in relevant directories. In fact, they’ve even removed the suggestion from their webmaster guidelines, as Brian Ussery noticed. The page used to have bullet points for:
- Have other relevant sites link to yours.
- Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.
Those points are now gone in what would appear to be a slap in the face of directories, but SEO folks are the ones really irritated. Google doesn’t appear to see it as a slap in the face so much, but more of simply a non-needed guideline.
Posted in Advertising, Google, Yahoo |
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The search advertising company sent one of its public policy mavens to Washington DC to talk about energy technology, and call for better federal support for new initiatives in that field.
Google holds a vested interest in efficient, cost effective energy sources. Electricity fuels the company’s numerous banks of servers and data centers. Higher energy costs mean less profit.
It’s an issue that pushed the company into places like The Dalles, Oregon, east of Portland. Hydroelectricity served as the draw for Google, as well as other big names in tech like Microsoft.
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One might suppose it’s due diligence to listen to the arguments of companies enormously invested in the outcome of regulatory decisions, so the onus of coming to a reasonable conclusion rests solely on Congress whether to believe Microsoft or Google in two hearings today in the Senate and the House.
And to be sure, legislative judgment will be closely scrutinized. At issue is whether Google’s search advertising deal with Yahoo violates antitrust laws and/or poses significant privacy concerns. It seems only fitting the government—with books on tube systems, dump trucks, and pervasive economic indicator denial—would be dragged out to referee the urination streams of three tech giants, all of them praying the wind doesn’t shift.
Posted in Google, Microsoft |
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Google’s impressive market share makes for convincing evidence of its skill at search. Few things are perfect, though, and the search giant is now allowing select users to alter their own results.
An experimental feature “may” or “will” be available “for only a few weeks” depending on which part of a FAQ you believe. The key points in the meantime: “This feature allows you [to] influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again while you are logged in to your Google account, you’ll continue to see those changes.”
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Selling a massive piece of machinery should be as much a part of search marketing as selling a consumer good like the iPhone.
A few years back when we talked affiliate marketing with eBay, we ended on a note about industrial and similar businesses that could make more of their online marketing efforts, but for myriad reason did not. Search marketing offers potential returns a B2B firm should consider.
The KoMarketing Associates blog showed seven ways search marketing, with Google as the central theme, promise so much for the business to business market. For starters, they recommend a B2B company enter its products into Google Base.
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