mob

The iPhone still enjoys a commanding lead of all ad requests on AdMob's network. But the growth of Android phones continues to boost the share of Google's OS, according to AdMob's "May 2010 Mobile Metrics Report."

Released Wednesday, the new stats (PDF) peg the iPhone's share of all AdMob ad requests in May at 40 percent, down from almost 50 percent in May 2009. Android's share hit 26 percent, up from 5 percent a year ago.

Google in late May finalized its acquisition of AdMob, which gives the ad network more visibility but … Read more

Dissatisfied with what he sees as tepid effort on behalf of oil giant BP to stop the flow of petroleum from an exploded well in the Gulf of Mexico, a New York-based video producer named Adam Quirk has started raising money for a stunt designed to irritate its executives to no end with vuvuzelas--those buzzing horns that have been everywhere at the World Cup soccer confab in South Africa (and, by proxy, the Internet) this summer.

"In order to put a bit of public pressure on them, we plan to buy 100 vuvuzelas and hire 100 vuvuzela players off … Read more

Updated 11:21 a.m. PDT with additional information.

After reviewing Apple's changes to its iPhone developer agreement, Google's AdMob reached the same conclusion that many others did: it could be screwed.

Apple this week changed the terms of the developer agreement that governs iPhone applications to prohibit developers from using advertising in their applications that shares analytic data with "an advertising service provider owned by or affiliated with a developer or distributor of mobile devices, mobile operating systems or development environments other than Apple." The most prominent mobile advertising service provider owned by or affiliated … Read more

Less than two weeks after Google completed its acquisition of iPhone ad network AdMob, Apple appears to have thrown Google quite the curveball.

Apple quietly changed the terms of service for the iPhone developer agreement Monday along with the release of developer version of iOS4 at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, according to MediaMemo and several other blogs. If preliminary interpretations of a key section are correct, Google's newly acquired AdMob subsidiary will be unable to share ad analytic information with its customers who have placed ads in applications on the iPhone, rendering those ads much less valuable.

Section … Read more

Google finally got its prize Thursday: AdMob is part of the family.

Truth be told, it would have really only been news if Google had failed to close the deal after the Federal Trade Commission said last week that it would not block the $750 million acquisition following a nearly six-month review. But, for the record, "Omar Hamoui has built a great team and great products at AdMob and we're thrilled to officially welcome them to Google," the company said in a blog post.

Google will repurchase shares of its company from public markets to offset the $… Read more

Google and its Android partners can thank customers in North America for the hot growth of smartphones sporting the mobile operating system.

Among all the Android devices owned around the world, 75 percent of them are in North America, according to AdMob's April Mobile Metrics Report, released Wednesday. That's followed by 11 percent owned in Western Europe and 12 percent in Asia. In contrast, 49 percent of devices running Apple's iPhone OS are in North America, with 28 percent owned in Western Europe and 14 percent in Asia.

Though consumer demand for Android has been climbing, the … Read more

Updated 10:06 a.m. PDT throughout with additional details and background.

The Federal Trade Commission has backed down from a fight that once seemed inevitable, giving Google the go-ahead to acquire mobile-advertising leader AdMob for $750 million.

"The Federal Trade Commission has closed its investigation of Google's proposed acquisition of mobile advertising network company AdMob after thoroughly reviewing the deal and concluding that it is unlikely to harm competition in the emerging market for mobile advertising networks," the FTC said in a statement Friday morning. Regulators appeared to be on the brink of holding up the deal … Read more

With more applications being built for the Web, performance testing is critical to determining the proper approach to scaling both applications and infrastructure. But for many years performance testing was largely a rich-man's game, primarily because of the expense of setting and maintaining a large server infrastructure that can simulate real-world traffic.

Hosted testing solutions make a lot of sense from both the user and provider perspective. Considering the vast computing power available at your fingertips there are few reasons why you would want to own the infrastructure, or not take advantage of the latest offerings from providers both … Read more

Google's bid to convince federal regulators that Apple's iAds plan represents healthy competition seems to be paying off.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Federal Trade Commission extended the amount of time it needed to review Google's proposed acquisition of AdMob in order to review Apple's plans for mobile advertising. The extension is supposed to last through the end of this week, after which point the agency could finally be ready to make a decision.

It's seemed pretty obvious for months that the FTC was looking for a showdown over Google's bid … Read more