Contact: Scott Denne
Google’s momentum in desktop advertising made it the dominant player in mobile. Now, facing encroachment from players like Yahoo and Facebook, the search giant is making acquisitions to add mobile capabilities. Google’s latest target is Jetpac, a three-year-old startup that built a recommendation app powered by contextual analysis of pictures across Instagram. The technology will be used to enhance the company’s mobile search and Google Now.
In the past year, Google has acquired about eight companies to bolster its mobile services. These include Emu, a mobile messaging platform that uses artificial intelligence to provide relevant information and recommendations based on the user’s location and interests, and Songza Media, a music streaming and playlist curation app.
Google’s competition hasn’t been idle in this time. Twitter has picked up companies like Namo Media and TapCommerce to improve its mobile ad products, while Yahoo bought Flurry to help scale its mobile ad efforts.
We’ll have a detailed report on Google’s Jetpac acquisition in tomorrow’s 451 Market Insight.
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