Google Finds Way Into Mobile Apps

[Jacob Gliklich]

As mobile users increasingly flock to the fancy applications on their smartphones -- and potentially spend less time on the mobile web, where Google has staked its lead -- the search giant had to find a way into those apps. So it is using its contextual ad program to serve up text and display ads inside mobile applications.

Popularized by Apple's iPhone, mobile applications have become a big hit with users who tap the rich-media utilities for everything from restaurant recommendations to apartment hunting. The iPhone App Store has logged more than a billion downloads since it opened for business last summer.

While Google has been able to translate its lead in desktop search to the mobile environment, owning 47% of the mobile search traffic to Yahoo's 25%, according to ComScore, the web may turn out not to be the de facto entry point for search on the phone the way it had been for wired PCs. continue reading