
While at the Consumer Electronics Show, I moderated a panel at Digital Hollywood on “Mobile Commerce and Content: The Mobile Web, Texting, Search, and Advertising Options.” As you can see, the panel covered a lot of ground, and I can’t begin to capture it all. But I did take some notes and I’ll share those here.
I need to thank my panelists here for all their insight, and I wish I could have done the session more justice, but look out for any of them at other events as you’re guaranteed to learn a few things.

Google announced Monday its plans to acquire mobile display advertising company AdMob for a cool $750 million in company stock. The search giant asserts that “great mobile advertising products can encourage even more growth in the mobile ecosystem” and that together Google and AdMob will work on the future of mobile advertising.
The future looks bright. Mobile phones have rapidly become a main communication channel thanks to enhancements to mobile Internet browsers and the staggering app market boom. Another sign demonstrative of mobile’s emergence is the growth of AdMob itself – in just three years the company has surged to the top of the mobile ad market, serving more than 10 billion monthly impressions across 15,000 sites worldwide.
Here’s what Google says the acquisition will do for the mobile market’s three prime stakeholders:
This deal will help propel the mobile industry by encouraging mobile ad spend, which currently pales in comparison to other digital mediums, such as display. Yet given the discrepancies in spend, mobile usage continues to rise to dramatic levels, and advertising must keep pace.
Though the integration between Google and AdMob will not be finalized for a couple of months, the prospective implications of the deal loom large for marketers in the digital space. One thing we know for sure: Google’s status as an industry leader makes the acquisition an effectual vote of confidence for the future of mobile.