Greystripe Inc To Go AdMob’s Way?

It seems Greystripe Inc., a San Francisco based mobile advertising company, might go the AdMob way. Its founder Michael Chang said in a recent interview that he has been talking to a lot of what he calls ‘potential suitors’.

Started in 2004, Greystripe has been going strong for the past six years and is one of the leading rich media mobile advertising networks in the world today. It specializes in delivering full screen ads on the iPhone, Java, and Android platforms. It also serves flash ads on the iPhone using a unique transcoding technology. The company has raised nearly $18 million in venture funding and is expecting its sales to triple this year. Michael expects the company to be profitable next year.

Ever since Google bought AdMob, a lot of eyes have turned towards Greystripe, which is a competitor to AdMob. Michael Chang says that in the last two months, he has met a lot of people who have expressed their interest in buying the company. He says that a lot of people were actually interested in Greystripe even before Google’s acquisition of AdMob.

Going by what Michael Chang says, it is safe to assume that Google’s acquisition of AdMob, albeit inadvertently, has made a lot of people focus their attention on companies like Greystripe. By acquiring AdMob, Google has become the top player on the market with 30 to 40 percent market share. So, companies like Yahoo and Microsoft might try to acquire small and medium sized mobile advertising companies to consolidate their market share. Microsoft, in particular, is in dire need of a revival and I will not be surprised if they make the first move. It should be interesting to see how things unfold in the coming months.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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DialPlus wins the 2008 Smaato Mobile Advertising Award

Mobile advertising solutions provider Smaato announced the winner of the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award for this year a couple of days back. The award went to DialPlus, a San Diego based mobile advertising firm, for its mobile application which fetches data relevant to the phone calls you make.

The application from DialPlus works this way – when you make a call, it will fetch whatever data available related to the phone call and show it to you. The information could be anything – restaurant menus, directions, and even profiles from social networking sites. The application won the appreciation of almost all the jury members.

The mobile publishers and developers who participated were allowed to upload a video sales pitch to a website and provide more information through a PDF file. The jury, on seeing the sales pitch and the PDF file, judged the quality and ease of use of various applications and made the final decision.

There were more than a hundred entrants and Smaato was very happy about the fact that its award has garnered so much attention. Also, it indicates an important fact – the healthy competition among mobile advertising companies and the rising number of innovative mobile applications. Both of which are very good for the mobile ecosystem.

Lisa LeVasseur, the CEO of DialPlus, was very happy about her company winning the award and stated that DialPlus has made huge progress in a very short period of time. As the winner of the Smaato Mobile Advertising Award, DialPlus will be able to participate at the 2009 Mobile World Congress free of cost and will get to meet four first class venture capitalists from Europe and the U.S. as well.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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