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Google caused an uproar last week when it announced that it might pull out of China if it couldn’t start operating an unrestricted and uncensored search engine in the country. There has been a lot of speculation as to why Google would make such a move ranging from sanctifying Google to much more cynical views suggesting the bottom line is the mai… (read more)

Measuring 6cm x 6cm, VIA’s EPIA-T700 is the first chip launched in the new Mobile-ITX series which is actually the smallest computer-on-module available, even 50 per cent smaller than VIA’s small-sounding Pico-ITX. That sounds, err, small.

VP of VIA Embedded Platform Division, Daniel Wu, claims:

“The VIA EPIA-T700 takes advantage of the modular design principles inherent in our Mobile-ITX form factor specification, making it easier than ever before to create astonishingly compact x86 devices that don’t compromise on features”

The EPIA-T700 will primarily be used in medical, miltary and in-vehicle devices. Carrier boards are joined up with 3mm connectors, and is powwered by a 1GHz VIA Eden ULV processor and VIA VX820 MSP. There’s 512MB of DDR2 RAM, a Chrome9 DX9 graphics core, Chromotion video engine that supports MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV9 and VC1video format. It also supports eight HD audio channels with the VIA Vinyl HD Audio technology. It can be connected to TTL LCD and CRT monitors thanks to the multi-configuration transmitter, and also compatible with PCI Express and Ultra DMA.

The bizarre but catchy “Pants on the Ground” rap performance by Atlanta’s Larry Platt, during an audition for “American Idol,” now has two million views on YouTube and has spurred a plethora of comic knock-offs.

You can see the original below, as well as Jimmy Fallon’s version, in which he channels Neil Young. Surprisingly, it’s pretty decent.

Here are the videos:

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Socialite Kim Kardashian may be rooting for the New Orleans Saints to strike Super Bowl gold harder than anyone. The reality star, 29, and NFL-starring beau Reggie Bush have struck a deal: If the Saints win the Super Bowl, Bush and Kardashian will get engaged, The New York Post reports.

Stanford played a nearly perfect second half Saturday afternoon at Washington State, but it wasn’t enough to make up for its slow start in the first in a 77-73 loss to the Cougars.

Vivian Wong/The Stanford Daily

Washington State (13-5, 3-3 Pac-10), led by Klay Thompson’s 27 points, jumped out to a 46-26 lead going into the locker room and held on with 7-of-8 free-throw shooting from Reggie Moore in the game’s final minute. The Cardinal (8-9, 2-3 Pac-10) got within two points twice in the last minute, but Moore responded with two made free throws each time, never giving Stanford a shot to tie the game.

The loss moved Stanford to 0-6 on the road this season.

“On the road, you have to play defense and you’ve got to take care of the ball,” said senior Landry Fields to the San Jose Mercury News. “Each game that we’ve lost, we showed a lack of defense and a lack of taking care of the ball.”

“I think it’s [a lack of] togetherness as well as communication,” said sophomore Jeremy Green. “We show it at home. We show sparks of it on the road.”

Fields and Green carried the offensive load once again for the Cardinal, with Green scoring 24 points on 9-of-22 shooting. Fields had 18 points and 10 rebounds but on only 6-of-17 shooting, while sophomore center Jack Trotter and senior point guard Drew Shiller had 12 and 10 points, respectively. Trotter also finished with eight rebounds.

The box score essentially tells the story. The two teams were very close in most of the significant categories, except for one: field-goal percentage. The Cardinal’s atrocious first half shooting the ball (26 percent) proved to be the difference, while the Cougars were steady throughout the game with 51 percent shooting.

Still, Stanford’s second half comeback was backed by 6-of-12 shooting from three-point range, while the Cougars were 0-for-7 in the same category for the second half.

The Cardinal systematically lowered the deficit throughout the half, cutting down Washington State’s lead to single digits with less than ten minutes to go. The Cougars also played complacently with their lead<\p>–<\p>trying to hold on to it instead of increasing it<\p>–<\p>which may have helped the Cardinal back into the game. Stanford was pretty much on pace for a road comeback of epic proportions, but it simply was not meant to be in the end.

“I give my kids credit,” said Head Coach Johnny Dawkins. “They fought. They tried to make a great comeback<\p>.<\p>.<\p>.<\p>We didn’t have enough time and [Washington State] executed at the end.”

Stanford will now return to the friendly confines of Maples Pavilion, where it is 7-2 this season. This week’s games will be very important for the Cardinal, which is only a game and a half back from first place in the Pac-10 standings, but happens to be tied for last place in the conference. There is currently a complete logjam in the conference, which is experiencing one of its worst years in decades<\p>–<\p>the top record is 4-2 (held by Arizona State) while the worst is 2-3 (held by each Oregon State, Oregon, UCLA and Stanford).

In any case, this week’s games will be huge for a Cardinal team that always seems to save its best for home. The matchups against the Beavers and Ducks are both very winnable games and a weekend sweep would put Stanford above .500 in both overall and league play.

Let me apologize up front. I’m admitting the inspiration for this forthcoming column came to me approximately 37 seconds ago after a 45-minute run around Campus Drive Loop while listening to “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga on repeat.

I’m apologizing, secondly, because while writing this forthcoming column I’m still listening to “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga on repeat, lest I forget what I wanted to say (my condolences, Faisan third floor).

But that’s exactly where the idea for this piece originated, the same third floor of Faisan that will continue to suffer through the next 25 minutes of the Lady herself as I pump the adrenaline out of my veins and onto my pink keyboard-covered MacBook.

I’m a junior coming back from a fabulous quarter abroad in Madrid, and like most of my fellow returners, I was dropped into third-tier upperclass housing like it’s hot, in a complex I lovingly refer to as the “Flo.” Although I was a little nervous about doing a second year in Florence Moore Hall (I partied with Mirlo sophomore year), I vowed to go into my Faisan homecoming disregarding the less-than-encouraging insights of my fellow jaded juniors.

But what a homecoming it was. Third day back on campus and I had what seemed like every freshman in EastFlo smiling, waving and shouting, “Hey, Molly!” at me in the hallways. Now I’m notoriously bad with names, but their enthusiasm and genuine interest in getting to know me and welcoming me into their freshman community instilled in me an equally genuine interest in wanting to learn more about them.

I remember something my freshman year RA in J-Ro, Laura Holmes ’08, told me: “I love living with freshman,” she said. “My friends are all so jaded and wrapped up in their own personal concerns, but you guys have so much enthusiasm. It’s so refreshing.”

I hate to sound like a naïve idealist, but this was not the only thing Laura ended up being right about (but isn’t that the point of freshman dorm RAs? They’re right about EVERYTHING). What happened to that freshman enthusiasm we seemed to imbibe at nearly every new prospect of Stanford discovery? Participation at class events has been shown to steadily decrease every year and it is a constant struggle for the class cabinet to keep up interest at these events. As a result, you have events leaning steadily toward those that can reel the most people in (like free In-n-Out during finals week) and less toward those with actual substance, like class-wide community service events or academic workshops. And I understand it. If you have similar events you attend with groups you’re more dedicated to, why would you choose to participate in something with random people you don’t know in the Class of Oh-Leven?

Is it, as my beloved editor Zachary Warma put in his Jan. 11 column, that we have just realized that all of those Stanford traditions that were so unique to our class and our class only have been repeated in almost the exact same fashion every year since? Was the inception of our cynicism marked at the first moment we heard Dean Julie tell the Class of Oh-Twelve that THEY were the best class ever, after having heard nothing but the same about the Class of Oh-Leven for the entirety of the year before? Did we get so preoccupied with finishing cover letters for McKinsey’s Summer Business Analyst internship that we’ve lost a genuine interest in each other?

It’s not that we need to be coddled, and I don’t need someone to hold my hand and tell me how special I am every day; I have a mom who does that practically every hour. But something has got to be said for these SLE freshmen, with arguably the worst stereotypical reputation on campus, who go out of their way to welcome an old, jaded, Lady Gaga-loving stranger into their perfect, solidified, third-floor community (and as a former energetic, bright-eyed freshman, you KNOW how strong freshman communities are).

It’s time to go back to the basics. I’m not asking you to de-pledge Pi Phi or boycott your Stanford in Government meetings, but merely to step back and realize that there are about 15,894 other groups on campus that still might be able to enrich your life outside of your entrenched comfort zone, even if you think you don’t need them. You may not need them, but I sure as hell know that a little nudge out of my comfort zone garnered me about 45 new friends and that same freshman-inspired, revitalized enthusiasm I thought I had lost. But in all honesty, the latter just might be the adrenaline talking.

I’ll see you at Junior Formal, Oh-Leven.

Aside from tragic loss of life and incomprehensible destruction, events like last week’s devastating earthquake in Haiti create a myriad of problems in their wake, not least of which is homelessness. With over 30 million shipping containers the world over currently lying dormant, a team of researchers at Clemson University in South Carolina are working to help solve the issue of accommodation in disaster affected areas by developing a method to convert the unused containers into sustainable emergency housing.

..

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Logitech’s in-ear monitor maker, Ultimate Ears, has announced the forthcoming release of a new member of its professional audio family – the UE 18 Pro six high fidelity speakers per bud, noise canceling monitors. Aimed at professional musicians or dedicated quality-at-any-cost music lovers, the earphones on steroids are claimed to give the user crystal clear sounds across the whole frequency range…

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Over in Europe, the most downloaded iPhone app is the music-detecting Shazam. In the US, it’s the Facebook app. And those soggy Brits…?

In the UK, the Carling branded iPint has snagged the crown of most downloaded app, according to ComScore’s Alistair Hill’s presentation at the Mobile Games Forum in London. Hic! [Mobile-Ent]

Image Credit: Robinbyles

I cried a little when I read this story.

The New York Times ran an article last week titled, “As School Exit Tests Prove Tough, States Ease Standards,” in which the reporter notes the typical cycles in exit exam difficulty. When exit exams are first released, they legitimately cover the knowledge expected of a high school graduate. As poor test scores roll in, legislatures quickly work to ease the difficulty of the test to ensure high graduation rates.

This trend is certainly nothing new. What particularly struck me was this paragraph: “Critics of Arkansas’s [exit exam] system say it fails to show true math proficiency because students have only to score 24 out of 100 to pass the test and those who fail will be granted two additional chances to take the test. After that, they can take a computerized tutorial that is followed by a test.” Our standard for graduating seniors is less than one in four correct on content from Algebra I.

Where are the politicians and education leaders when the discussion of a knowledge-based economy comes up? Economists, labor leaders and corporate heads have all identified the most significant paradigm shift in centuries. Education is not just a hobby for the bourgeoisie; it is a prerequisite for every single citizen of this country to find a basic job to put food on the table.

We need to radically reconsider our notions of what an education is if we are to thrive–nay, survive–in the 21st century. We have lowered our expectations, lowered our bars and lowered our standards to the point where the goal of high schools in America is getting students to count and read a sentence, and yet, we still can only push three out of four to a diploma. That is a humiliating disgrace for a nation that prides itself on the advanced state of its science and technology.

If you believe the leaders of our states, the solution to this situation is to cut funding to education. To a certain degree, I do not blame them.  It is hard to imagine a system that could so clearly fail as much as education and yet continue to be handed funding. Nonetheless, it is a painfully short-term decision, made by politicians who will be out of office before their damage is realized.

To reform education, politicians must reduce the power of three groups: teachers unions, supporters of teachers colleges and hovercraft parents. Teachers unions, more than any other force, are killing American education. New York Public Schools are forced to retain teachers who abuse children and fail to teach their subject in a special Rubber Room because of their union contracts. Education is not about the teachers; it is about the students. Bad teachers should be fired. Period.

We need to vastly reform teacher colleges and the licensing system. Teachers need to learn their future subjects, not learn the psychology of teaching. Instead, schools should offer mentoring opportunities and better on-the-job training for new teachers while also encouraging further study in their academic discipline. This system will also open the door to students who never considered teaching, but may be open to pursuing it as a career.

The final group that needs to be targeted are hovercraft parents. When a son or daughter comes home with a bad grade, parents swoop in and demand gold stars to make them feel good. They then go to the polls and ensure that politicians who are elected share their mindset. These are the same parents attempting to eliminate homework because it takes away from sports practice. We need to demand more, not less, of our students.

Reducing the power of these three groups will not be easy, but to create these higher standards, every one of them will need to be involved. They need to agree to a set of common standards that every high school senior should know. And then they need to test to those standards and hold the line.

What can we do? Talk about your experience and passion for learning to every young person in your family and encourage them to seek out the very best education they can find. Fight against apathy, anti-intellectualism and the rugged individual notion that education does not matter. When someone tells you, “Oh, math is not really my thing,” respond back, “And working at McDonald’s isn’t mine.”

I am not willing to hear that students in America are incapable of handling a harder workload and more advanced coursework. These critics are wrong and I do not believe them. I believe in programs like KIPP, in which even the most unprepared students have been developed and sent to college. We need to raise standards throughout our country and hold them there. Our future depends on it.

There’s no question that picking up a new car makes for a very special day, if for no other reason that the value that disappears when you drive your pride and joy off the showroom floor makes it one of the most expensive days of your life. The latest edition of Parker’s annual depreciation report surveys 300 model ranges in the UK market, and lists their value in good condition with 10,000 miles on the clock one year later. Accordingly, the depreciation cost of one year for every model can be calculated, and the most and least expensive cars are hereby presented:..

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Honda

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A week after a catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the island country of Haiti, several on-campus groups have their fundraising machines up and running. Coordinating these efforts, the ASSU Executives, in conjunction with Partners in Health (PIH), unveiled a nationwide college fundraising challenge on Sunday night in an e-mail to the student body.

With the announcement, the ASSU is joining the ranks of the nonprofit FACE AIDS, Stanford’s School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital and Clinics and Dance Marathon in raising funds for relief efforts.

“We thought the best way to get the most people involved is through a competition across the country,” said ASSU President David Gobaud. “We thought if we set up a dashboard to track donations between universities, it would motivate more people.”

So far, seven schools, including UC-Berkeley and Caltech, have signed onto the ASSU-led challenge, which will run through Wednesday. The ASSU is also running another challenge between dorms and residences on Stanford’s campus.

In total, participating universities have raised over $40,000, including around $10,000 from Stanford and $27,000 from Dartmouth, who began their challenge a day earlier, on Saturday.

Temporarily, the money donated to Stanford’s campaign is being redirected to FACE AIDS, who announced Saturday that they will match dollar-for-dollar any funds raised by chapters nationwide, up to $50,000. The FACE AIDS amount is being matched through a donation from Sterling Stamos, a private investment firm.

As of press time, FACE AIDS has raised $22,220, much of the funds coming from Stanford University, according to FACE AIDS Executive Director Julie Veroff ‘07.

Founded by Stanford students in 2005 and based in Palo Alto, FACE AIDS has chapters in more than 200 universities and high schools across the nation. Though their primary focus is to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Rwanda, Veroff said the magnitude of the crisis in Haiti demanded action.

“We felt that as a group of young people passionate about global health and social issues, [the Haiti earthquake] was something we could not ignore,” she said.

Veroff hoped that this challenge would also be a way for more young people to become involved in global issues. High school chapter leaders will be holding awareness events, such as movie screenings, in the coming weeks.

Both the money donated to FACE AIDS and the ASSU will go toward PIH’s Haiti earthquake relief and reconstruction efforts.

Founded in 1987, PIH is a health care nonprofit that operates in ten countries and provides medical care to poor communities. With over 20 years of experience in Haiti, PIH operates nine hospitals in the country, along with a triage center recently set up for earthquake victims.

Also working with the ASSU is Dance Marathon, the annual Stanford fundraiser that donates the majority of its proceeds to PIH’s efforts in Rwanda. In light of the earthquake, the Dance Marathon coordinators have removed earmarks from the event this year, allowing PIH to utilize funds wherever needs are most pressing.

“We spoke with Partners In Health and our first reaction was, ‘Let’s change beneficiaries completely’ and give 100 percent of what we get to Haiti, but PIH asked us specifically not to do that,” said Dance Marathon Campus Director Bill Loundy ‘10. Dance Marathon gives a reliable sum of money every year to Rwanda, and PIH wanted to maintain that, according to Loundy.

In an e-mail to Dance Marathon participants, however, he said PIH will most likely still use the Dance Marathon donations in Rwanda.

“We’ve encouraged those who want to give directly to Haiti in a time sensitive way to go through the ASSU,” he said.

Other groups helping the ASSU with outreach efforts include the Caribbean Students Association (CSA) and the Student Red Cross.

Stanford School of Medicine, Department of Medicine and Stanford Hospital and Clinics is running a separate fundraising effort, announced Thursday, Jan. 14. The Hospital will match up to $25,000, with funds going to the Hopital Albert Schweitzer (HAS) in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

Individuals have also been motivated to raise funds on their own.

Timothy Tam ’12, a member of the Stanford cycling team, is also offering to fix students’ bikes for $5 to $10, with proceeds going to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

Donating money remains the best way for people to provide assistance to Haiti earthquake victims, said Patricia Arty ’10, who has family in Haiti. Arty is the development director for FACE AIDS and the public relations executive for Dance Marathon.

“What I’ve heard from my relatives is if people could just donate one to two dollars –anything you have–it is a huge help, especially in Haiti,” she said. “A hot meal in Haiti costs 25 cents U.S.

It’s still a stressful situation. Our country has to think about rebuilding all over again,” she added.

Donations through the ASSU Web site can be made at assu.stanford.edu/haiti. Funds for HAS should be donated through hashaiti.org/C1a_w1.html, marking ‘Stanford University School of Medicine’ as the matching organization. Contact Tam for bike repairs at [email protected].

On The Tonight Show Monday, NBC’s Conan O’Brien invited viewers to vote on his next career move, amid reports that he will resign as host of late night show later this month.

“This is real. I have been invited to compete on ‘Dancing with the Stars,” he said. “There are so many jobs to choose from. I don’t know which one to do. I thought, why not let the viewers decide. Go to TonightShow.com and register your vote. My future is literally in your hands.”

Conan also thanked fans for the “I’m With Coco” Rallies that were held around the country on Monday to support him.

Kyle Busch might have failed to take his Joe Gibbs Racing-prepared car to the play-offs last season, but that seems to have had no negative consequences on his future deal with the team whatsoever. As announced by the team earlier today, the two parties have signed a long-term extension to Busch’s current deal with the organization.

According to the very owner of the team, Joe Gibbs, the duration of the new contract is for less than seven and more than three years, as reported by the NASCAR o… (read more)

Mobile advertising isn’t brand new — perhaps the most recognizable name in the US, Admob (since acquired by Google), was founded back in 2006 — but not until recently it has really kicked into high gear. In fact, the mobile ad market started heating up even as ad revenues were falling last winter. At that time, two drivers had emerged that were going to change the game.

Already in November 2008 Admob’s Jason Spero told us: “The iPhone market is exploding, Inventory is growing and advertisers are hungry for it. It’s mainly (1) apps using CPC ads to drive downloads and (2) brand advertisers eager to reach iPhone users.” According to our sources, by April 2009 these two drivers were strong enough to push revenues up again at some ad networks that were tuned into the changes — particularly Admob and Quattro Wireless, which was recently acquired by Apple. (I’ll get back to the topic of these acquisitions below).

And those drivers have only become stronger. For one, the promotion of apps has grown into a full-fledged business. Many of these campaigns center around getting a particular application in a “Top” list on the Apple App Store. For an example of how such a campaign works, check out this Admob case study on Flixster. The aim of these campaigns is to get an application into a “top app list”. After a larger one-time push, an application is expected to stay on it with less ongoing spending. Large games companies like Zynga, EA, Gameloft, Digital Chocolate, Glu, SGN, and some of the well-known consumer ones like Phillips and Flixster use display advertising to acquire customers through such tactics.

An even bigger testament to the demand for these types of campaigns is that the price of running them has been going up. In March 2009, analytics company Pinch Media (which recently merged with Flurry) published some impressive numbers on how the prices of such campaigns were on the rise. In October 2008, it took a free application $10k to get on a Top 25 list. In December 2008, it took $11k. And by March 2009, it took $20k. To get to the coveted No 1 spot in the App Store, it cost a company about $150,000. And when I asked my sources for recent prices, I found they’d gone up again: As recently as a couple of weeks ago, it took $250,000 to get a particular application to the No. 1 spot.

Secondly, “brand advertisers” have increased their spending on iPhone users. Back in the autumn of 2008, we identified that an increasingly larger chunk of spending is coming from four industries — TV and Hollywood, car manufacturers and dealerships, retailers, and financial services companies. These advertisers increasingly were buying ads based on experience they gained testing the medium in the summer of 2008. While the brand advertisers were mostly running so-called “multi-channel mixed campaigns” (campaigns that spread the message in various media channels like TV, events or mobile for that matter), the main driver for mobile were successes brand companies had particularly with iPhone users. It’s hard to estimate some numbers to quantify the trend. From conversations with mobile ad network executives, I’d say it has grown considerably. Examples of “brand advertisers” — non-mobile brand-name advertisers — who drive this trend are companies like CBS, Disney, Ford, Sears, Procter & Gamble and Bank of America.

Millenial Media’s monthly reports sometimes disclose figures of mobile ad spending on its own ad network. The company’s October report indicated that spending from gaming, music and movie sectors made entertainment the top vertical for mobile advertising. Retail and consumer packaged goods were also rising.

The trend is also supported by more and more so-called “premium” publishers developing applications for the iPhone. Premium publishers are non-mobile brand-name publishers like CBC, NBC or Elle. Brand advertisers are more willing to advertise with “brand” publishers and are also willing to pay higher prices. Smartphone-orientated mobile development platforms (like Appcelerator or Phonegap in the US or Golden Gekko’s Tino platform in Europe) have been getting sizeable traction with brands and marketing agencies in recent months, further confirming the trend.

As I said, Admob and Quattro Wireless were the most aggressive mobile ad networks to take early advantage of these trends. Admob, for example, focused early on smartphone-related product development like the iPhone download exchange or iPhone specific ad formats. Quattro is the no. 2 in in-app advertising after Admob, according to a source. In a research call for our MobileBeat conference in June 2009, Quattro Wireless VP Lars Albright disclosed to us that Quattro revenue had doubled in the 12 months up to that point, to a large extent due to its iPhone developer activities. Quattro had a particular program tailored to get brand advertisers to create campaigns around the iPhone. Essentially, mobile display advertising’s main growth driver in 2009 has been the growing number of smartphones and respective apps — specifically of apps designed to be free to the user by virtue of ad support. As more people were using apps, more people were seeing in-app display ads on their smartphones.

We also know that free applications supported by display advertising are the main driver of downloads from Google and Apple’s mobile app stores. Free applications outnumber paid applications in both app stores, with both companies putting a lot of effort into supporting the free app model. To support its search engine, Google prefers iPhone (and Android, Palm WebOS) users surfing the mobile web and using mobile search much more. In a phone call last September, a Google spokesman told us: “People are 50 times more likely to use Google search on the iPhone than on a WAP device.”

The contenders

While Admob and Quattro may have taken the early lead, they’re by no means the sole players in this market. There are more than a twenty other contenders vying for market share here.

Below is an estimate of U.S. mobile advertising spending for 2009, valuing the market at a total of $287 million, which names some of them. It was published by research company IDC a couple of weeks ago. Bear in mind that, as the market is still very early, mobile advertising revenue estimates/rankings are fraught with uncertainty. The bases of these calculations have been, and continue to be, challenged by the companies represented in them (for a discussion of the fairly reasonable IDC estimates see here, and for a discussion of a Nielsen estimate see here). According to Mobile Marketer, the IDC ranking calculated the revenue sizes of the mobile ad networks as follows:

• Millennial Media: $51 million, 18 percent
• AdMob: $40 million, 14 percent
• Yahoo: $32 million, 11 percent
• Google: $28 million, 10 percent
• Microsoft: $23 million, 8 percent
• Quattro Wireless: $21 million, 7 percent
• Jumptap: $11 million, 4 percent
• AOL/Third Screen Media: $7 million, 2 percent

The remaining 26 percent of market share is made up of other players such as Mojiva, InMobi and Greystripe, according to IDC.

As rankings such as these are often disputed, we also asked the mobile ad networks to comment. Mojiva decided not to answer. According to an Inmobi spokesperson, Inmobi is on track for a $15m revenue run rate based on its current business. Greystripe, which started as a mobile game ad network and switched to iPhone ads last November, told us it has tripled its business since then. Buzzcity — an ad network that’s missing in this overview — told us that it would have to report more than 80 billion ad requests annually for a potential revenue of $40m/year if it had reported its revenue on the basis of the IDC calculations. We already had estimated Admob’s revenue for 2008 at $42M, so the 2009 one is likely higher. Jumptap’s CMO Paran Johar told us that in Q4 2009, the company earned more revenue than all of 2008, suggesting momentum.

Mobile marketing and advertising company Velti (which bought AdInfuse in 2009) reported a revenue of €52.5 million in 2008. According to a source, the revenue will be north of €100M for 2009. Another ad network that’s not named in the overview, Amobee, does not disclose revenue numbers but says it has the largest inventory of operators globally across over 25 countries, thus possibly placing its revenue figure ahead JumpTap, the leader in the North American operator market. Also, what few Adwords and Adsense customers know, Google frequently re-purposes web PC ads for mobile. Ads that users mean to be displayed at the PC get transcoded and run on mobile. This means that calculations based on mobile web impressions like the one done by IDC make Google’s mobile advertising business appear bigger than it actually is.

So with all these players seeing growth — and given the recent acquisition of Admob by Google and Quattro by Apple — it’s clear that some of the behemoths out there are watching the space for a strategic way in. Which raises the question: After Admob and Quattro, who’s next — which of these mobile ad companies are particularly suited for the next acquisition?

Well, stay tuned. I’ll be answering that question in a follow-up story shortly.

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