Glam’s Mobile Ad Play: Glam is expanding into mobile. Techcrunch spins this as an assault on Apple’s iAds. The truth of the matter is Apple isn’t a huge ad player with iAds. Its business pales in comparison to Google’s, but it makes for a good headline. Yet Glam is focusing on the top end of the market, running bigger units with video designed to attract brands.
Google’s View of Mobile: It’s interesting to listen to how Google talks about mobile advertising versus the grand pronouncement of Steve Jobs. It’s clear the latter wants to make it better, more aesthetically pleasing. With Google, it’s all about scale. Sure, quality matters, but that’s more than a pretty ad. That’s using data to pinpoint location. It’s also making sure sites are viewable on mobile devices. Techcrunch has an interview with Google mobile exec Jason Spero that shows clearly Google is thinking about how it can lay the groundwork for a very large business.
Now the Web 2.0 Horror Stories: The end of the dot-com bubble was marked by all sorts of terrible stories about companies gone bad. There were plenty of bad characters who rushed into the gold rush to make a quick buck, only to leave others holding the bag. This time is no different. Fortune has the story of Blue Noodle, a Canadian social gaming ad network that appears on its way to extinction. What’s particularly noteworthy in this instance is the executive leadership in the company seems to have pretty much abandoned the company rather than wind it down.
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