Google Improves Google News on More Mobile Devices

November 20, 2009

Google has announced a new Google News for iPhone, Android, and Palm Pre users. The company already offers one for other devices like Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and S60, although they say more improvements to those versions will be coming soon, as well.

Today's new version includes a new Google News homepage, which shows more stories, sources, and images, but keeps the same basic look and feel.

"Also, you can now reach your favorite sections, discover new ones, find articles and play videos in fewer clicks," says Google's Mobile News Team. "If you are an existing Google News reader on desktop, you will find that all of your personalizations are honored in this mobile version too."

Google News for mobile is currently available in 29 languages and 70 editions.

In other recent Google-related mobile news, AdMob, which Google recently acquired, has unveiled a new interactive video ad unit for the iPhone. Google also acquired Gizmo5, a VoIP firm, which will see VoIP integration with Google Voice, and Google Latitude introduced location history and smart alerts.

On the news search front, today Yahoo began incorporating tweets into its search results for select news stories.

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Google to Get More Interactive with Mobile Video Ads

November 17, 2009

AdMob, which is being purchased by Google, has unveiled a new interactive video ad unit for the iPhone today. Upon the announcement of Google's acquisition, the highlights of the purchase included SMS, search, web display, and app display ads. Now, video is part of the mix.

"For the first time, mobile video is truly interactive as we've included customizable in-player action buttons enabling consumers to engage with Web content and more video content without leaving the video player," says AdMob VP Product Ali Diab. The in-player action buttons enable users to browse web sites, view additional videos, etc. while the video is playing.

As AdWords Senior Product Specialist Frederick Vallaeys discussed in a recent interview with WebProNews, you can expect to see a lot of new interesting mobile advertising trends in the coming year or so, particularly as a result from Google's acquisition of AdMob.

"AdMob's new Interactive Video Ad Unit brings together consumers' love of watching videos on their mobile device with advertisers’ goal of providing an interactive, social experience for consumers," said AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui. "We are excited to create new ways for advertisers to engage with consumers on their mobile devices and for the developers behind the most popular and engaging iPhone applications to effectively monetize."

The first ads will begin running this week in select (but unnamed) applications across AdMob's iPhone ad network. This network has reached over 20 million iPhones and iPod Touch devices around the world this year so far. A video demonstrating the new video ad unit can be viewed here.

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