Apple and Google Vie for Mobile Ads

It’s been a huge week in the mobile space, with AT&T announcing Android-based smart phones, Google launching its own Nexus One smart phone, and Apple acquiring mobile ad company Quattro Wireless.

The last move is particularly interesting; the roughly $300 million deal marks Apple’s first foray into advertising, placing it directly in competition with former (rumored) partner Google in the mobile ad market. In November, Google agreed to purchase AdMob, another mobile advertising network, for $750 million. That deal has raised eyebrows in some circles, since Google already dominates Web advertising. Indeed, watchdog groups have already sparked an intensive review of the deal by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Google is quickly developing into an actual Internet hegemony; remember, we’re only four years from the predicted Google World Domination. This video was largely viewed as a joke when it was released in 2004, but it’s fascinating to look back and see how eerily prescient some of it seems–and how much of it is being actively argued about now, especially the future of journalism.