Playing monopoly
The evolution of the mobile advertising market is dominating the tech press this morning. Several sites have reported that the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) in the US, which has been scrutinising what effect Google's acquisition of mobile advertising company AdMob, is still far from convinced that it will approve the move.
Meanwhile it has also been extensively reported that Apple will use its iPhone OS 4 event tomorrow to unveil its new ad platform, which will be based around the acquisition of Quattro, announced two months after the Google/AdMob news.
The intriguing matter is how interdependent the two acquisitions are. The FTC is quite rightly concerned that acquiring AdMob will give Google too much power over mobile advertising, with it already dominant in search advertising. However, if it does veto the deal, it risks transferring that domination to Apple.
So, perversely, Google may well applaud any mobile advertising announcements from Apple tomorrow, as it can then use them as evidence that the market will still be nice and competitive even after it acquires AdMob.
Also, let's not forget about Microsoft. It will be launching its Windows Phone 7 OS later this year and already has an entire division devoted to online advertising. Reluctant though we are to admit it, allowing the AdMob deal is probably the correct thing to do. At least Google mobile advertising won't be restricted to one handset.
