I was on the road again this week attending RE Barcamp and NAR’s annual conference in San Diego. Needless to say, I’m a little behind in my reader but had a chance to catch on the major mobile news from the week.
The top story this week was around Google’s additional surge into the mobile market. They announced two acquisitions this week – AdMob for $750 million and Gizmo5 for $30 million (rumored). Both were strategic acquisitions that show Google is serious about mobile. With the purchase of AdMob, Google is showing the world the importance of mobile as a marketing/service channel and that their big revenue growth will come from mobile advertising. Gizmo5 is a VoIP provider that is a natural fit and extension to Google Voice (hmm… if I were Skype, I would be very nervous). Watch out world, Google is on a mission to dominate mobile services and advertising, and I have a feeling, they won’t take any prisoners. Here are some of the articles on these acquisitions this week:
- Google to acquire AdMob mobile advertising network for $750 million in stock
- What does Google’s $750M purchase of AdMob mean for mobile advertising?
- Google reportedly acquiring Gizmo5 VoIP startup
- Google makes Gizmo5 acquisition official, offers few details
The other big buzz this week was around Verizon’s DROID. With the first device launched last week, the mobile industry has been observing its impact very closely. So far analysts estimate 100,000 units were sold over the opening weekend and approximately 250,000 units in the first week. Not bad at all. Looks like Verizon has a good strategy and finally found something to crave the web-surfing, app downloading, clear voice calling hunger of their subscribers. In just one week, the Droid has caused a significant disturbance in the mobile web traffic market, by taking about 1.5% of the overall US mobile web traffic. Now that’s impressive for just one week!
Continuing our weekly series on handsets, here are this week’s announcements, rumors and analyses:
- Apple said to be working on ‘world-mode’ iPhone
- NTT Docomo announces 19 new cell phones (photo gallery)
- The Nokia N900 shipments have started
- T-Mobile Tap touchscreen phone now available
- Palm Pixi Review: Not for everyone, but it fits a niche
- Samsung Behold II – unboxing and first look
- HTC DROID ERIS for Verizon – first look
To end this week’s update like I always do, here are the other stories or articles I found interesting during the week I though you would enjoy:
- Video: Chinese iPhone clone looks like Apple, smells like Android
- iPhone Costs Average Yearly Chinese Salary
- iPhone malware kinda-sorta dangerous
- Samsung Launches Open Mobile Platform
- Adobe debuts Photoshop.com Mobile for Android
- Android 2.0 source released, already ported to the G1
- AT&T: Verizon ads are ‘blatantly false’
See or hear anything else interesting in mobile. Let us know by leaving a comment below.