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BoomTown

Monday, November 9, 2009

Google Acquires AdMob for $750 Million in Stock (Plus the Press Release and Video With CEO)

Google has acquired AdMob for $750 million, a huge price for an innovative start-up that hass pioneered online ads on mobile and now smart phones.

BoomTown visited AdMob last fall and posted about how it was likely to eventually be acquired by…Google!

The move is a major one for the search giant, which has been pushing hard into the mobile advertising space as it seeks to grow its already considerable Web business. AdMob is arguably the fastest out of the gate in the nascent arena.

Plus, here’s AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui in a video interview with me last November, as well as the official press release on the sale.

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Wednesday, April 8, 2009

My iKid iJacked My iPhone: A Geek Parenting Tragedy

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BoomTown is not proud of the problem.

Not at all.

But, after hearing the same situation described over and over again from many other parents like me, I am also not alone.

As it turns out, our almost-seven-year-old son, Louie, has morphed into an iJacker.

That would be of my iPhone and the many, many, many games apps to be played on it–from Crazy Penguin Catapult to Finger Sprint to Super Monkey Ball.

And, good lord, how did a “Race to Witch Mountain” app get on there?

So, I don’t need any stats to tell me that the iPhone, and the iPod touch too, have turned into gaming devices of great impact.

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Friday, November 14, 2008

Kara Visits AdMob (And Talks About How the iPhone Turbocharged the Mobile Advertising Business)

While there are very few bright spots to look at in the start-up space in Silicon Valley these days, especially those relying on online advertising, the San Mateo, Calif.-based AdMob is at least slightly shiny.

The company, backed by Sequoia Capital, just got a big slug of funding–almost $16 million–to keep pushing to get ads on mobile phones, which has gotten a huge boost from the popularity of the iPhone.

The number of ads AdMob is serving on the iPhone jumped to more than 100 million in September, compared to 35 million the month before, for example.

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Wednesday, June 11, 2008

My CrackBerry and My SighPhone

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With the drop in price of the iPhone in its new 3G mode to the low, low price of $199, Apple CEO Steve Jobs was signaling that he was pricing them to move.

Or, as the old retail cliche goes: Stack them high and watch them fly.

But, from reports, even though the 2.0 version is obviously better (although I have yet to see one), I will not be doing that again when the new iPhone 3G comes out in a few weeks.

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About Kara

Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference. Read more »

Ethics Statement

Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.

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