“Getting this group of talented people into our company is an unbelievable return. It will likely lead to products and innovations we haven’t even thought of yet.”
Google
Lots of interesting things going at the GooglePlex lately so I think a quick recap post is in order.
First and foremost was the announcement that Google has acquired AdMob, one of the largest mobile ad networks, in an all-stock deal valued at $750 million. AdMob currently serves up 10 billion monthly ad requests. Combined with the massive AdSense assets, this will make it the market leader in mobile in a big way.
“I’m excited because I believe this will be an important moment for everyone involved in producing, consuming, or monetizing engaging products on mobile,” adMob founder and CEO Omar Hamoui wrote on the company’s website. “The truth is that the mobile industry has had no shortage of creative energy, amazing products, and talented entrepreneurs. But until now, it has always felt like those of us involved in this space played second fiddle to our online brethren. I believe that time is over.”
This move also provides Google, whose Android software is being used more widely in smartphones such as the Motorola’s new Droid, a key set of technologies to expand its advertising footprint beyond its signature text search ads.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt said recently that the search giant planned to make about an acquisition a month, mostly small purchases, while making a large acquisition every year or two. AdMob is seen as one of the large acquisitions, though the money involved is small next to Google’s $178 billion market capitalization. Besides DoubleClick, Google has paid more only for video sharing site YouTube, which it bought for $1.7 billion in 2006.
Let’s segue to another announcement in the last few days, Google Commerce Search. Online retailers may find this helpful for improving the product search on their site, and potentially increasing sales and reducing bounce rates. Think Google Site Search, specifically tailored to e-commerce and product sites. Great timing as the holiday shopping season is looming.
So let’s look now at what Google owns:
- The largest display network online
- Largest mobile ad network
- A payment processor
- A conversion optimization engine
- Powerful analytics software
- An affiliate network
And while Google doesn’t expect any serious regulatory issues with the AdMob purchase, it did go the extra mile to try and point out how small of a deal this was in the big picture of overall advertising spending. It created a Web site devoted to the deal where it quoted competitors in support of the point that mobile ad budgets are tiny at the moment compared to the overall amount of money spent on online ads.
Bottom line here is that the 800 pound gorilla of the internet just got a bit bigger.
