Yahoo! has acquired Actionality, a German mobile advertising company that distributes ads through mobile games. The acquisition complements Yahoo!’s launching of Go For Mobile 2.0.
This acquisition also complements Yahoo’s acquisition of Right Media, a digital advertising agency. The acquisition of Right Media was seen in the blogosphere as a move that was triggered by Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick (pending) and Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive (complete).
“Yahoo! is being very ambitious and will face strong competition in the mobile advertising market, which is still very much up for grabs,” stated Eden Zoller, a research analyst at Ovum which is a market research company. “Google tends to be viewed as the lead contender in terms of online brands moving into mobile advertising, mainly because of the huge clout carried by its brand among both consumers and the advertising community. However, we think it unwise to underestimate Yahoo. The mobile publisher advertising network should be viewed alongside Yahoo’s other activities in this space, which are ramping up quickly.”
Actionality’s AdFlex Platform enables users to customize mobile content without the use of APIs or programming experience. This content can be placed across mobile operators throughout Asia and Europe. Actionality is based in Munich, Germany and has sales offices in Hong Kong and Berlin. Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures provided Actionality seed funding in February 2006.
