InMobi's $2 Million Dollar Mobile Ad Fund; IBM Data Grab With Coremetrics Acquisition

» Inmobi says it's the world’s largest independent mobile ad network. It now serves 16.7 billion impression and reaches 179 million users in 108 countries. Inmobi is obviously up against some stiff competition - especially now that Google and Apple have decided to carve up the mobile ad space. In response Inmobi has launched a global $2 million dollar fund to attract developers onto its ad network platform. The fund basically subsidises Inmobi's split in any ad revenue earned by the publisher. It will give developers participating in the Inmobi World Developer Fund a 100% cut - and that split will remain until the $2 million dollar fund is spent. Inmobi is looking to target perspective iPad, iPhone and Android developers with the new initiative. [InMobi]

» Google Analytics rules the ecommerce market in the US with a 60% plus share. That's a lot of data flowing into Google. It might be free to use. But I'm sure in the small print you'll find that Google can use data "to improve the service". Rubbish. Data is the life blood of targeting, and there is no doubt in my mind that this data is being used to power Google’s ad infrastructure. IBM's recent purchase of Coremetrics is an interesting strategic move. Stéphane Hamel writes on his excellent blog that this deal is more about core business processes than media buying:

IBM isn't about ad placement, marketing or rich media, IBM is about running core business processes. It's about business analysis and business intelligence contributing to bottom line core business optimization. We are in a whole different ballgame.

I'm not so sure. Data is a fundamentahl part of the automatedi ad buy and analytics remains the principle source for publishers to garner insight on website visitors. With the Coremetrics acquisition, IBM will now be running analytics for some of the biggest ecommerce players in the market. It's only a matter of time before IBM realises it could make a lot of money by offering clients a re-targeting service. If that happens, IBM will have to start buying media. Realising it has the data to deliver improved campaign results, IBM will inevitably stray into the DR market. It will then probably pick up a DSP for a hundred million dollars or so to make it easier to trade across multiple inventory sources. It is indeed a slippery slope. [PRNewswire]