AdMob Acquisition: Deeper into Mobile Ads for Google (GOOG)

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is up with the broad market today by almost 2%, and shares are completely unphased at all on news that the company is spending $750 million in shares to acquire AdMob.  While Google has made many deals, this is aimed to go deeper into the technology for mobile display advertising and will give advertisers more choice in mobile advertising.

It is hard to know the full details of what this AdMob will bring to Google on a financial basis through time.  But the other side is that it will help address a potential long-term threat to the business of creating content.  Maybe all those iPhone users that access free content on the web won’t be able to dodge every bit of the advertising that PC users see now.  This may be at least some comfort for publishers and creators of online content.

Currently, there is very little perceived value to having mobile and smartphone web traffic because ads are often not supported or advertisers don’t even want to pay for them.  Admittedly, that comment is one which is very much up for debate.  We have seen many reports on this issue of the real value of a mobile web user from both sides, with some saying that iPhone and other mobile web users are worth more than their PC-based counterparts.  But the real evidence we have seen so far is that publishers and content creators are simply catering to the mobile web audience to keep them happy so they don’t boycott or drop them when that mobile user gets back in front of a PC.

Jon C. Ogg
November 9, 2009