Google Acquires AdMeld for $400 million
Google has acquired advertising startup AdMeld for $400 million. Launched in 2007, New York-based AdMeld provides ad optimization services for web publishers. With AdMeld tools publishers can pull advertising from hundreds of ad networks, ad exchanges, and other sources, enabling them to see the most and least effective performing ads. AdMeld is currently headed by former Myspace CEO Michael Barrett, which joined the company in 2009.
No announcement has been made by AdMeld regarding the deal yet.
—
Google Chromebook Now Available to Pre-order
Google announced via Twitter on Thursday that its Chromebook laptops are finally now available for pre-order from Amazon and Best Buy. The half dozen models that can be ordered are manufactured by Samsung and Acer and are both expected to ship on June 15.
Amazon describes the laptops like this:“Chromebooks are built and optimized for the web, where you already spend most of your computing time. So you get a faster, simpler and more secure experience without all the headaches of ordinary computers.”
Acer’s version will cost $350 with an 11.6-inch display, a dual-core Intel Atom processor, integrated dual-band Wi-Fi and optional 3G, an HD webcam with a noise cancelling microphone, two USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 card reader, and one HDMI output. The 2.95lb device will reportedly offer up to six hours of continuous usage. The Samsung version costs a little more with pricing set at $430 for Wi-Fi only and $500 for integrated 3G connectivity. It has a larger 12.1-inch display along with 8.5 hours of battery life, and those upgrades push the total weight to 3.26lbs. It also trades the HDMI port for Mini-VGA.
—
UK Will Have to Wait until 2012 to Get Music Portion of iCloud
Some sad news for our friends in the UK: it looks like Apple’s new cloud music storage service, iCloud – due to launch in the US around Septembe r- will not be coming to the UK until at least quarter one of 2012. A spokesman for the Performing Right Society (PRS), which ensures that composers, songwriters and music publishers are paid for their work, reportedly told The Telegraph that negotiations with Apple about ensuring rights in the UK had started but were at a “very early stage.”
“The licensing team at the PRS have started talks with Apple, but are a long way off from any deals being signed…It is very much the early stages of the negotiations and is similar to the launch of iTunes – which began in the US and took a while to roll out to other countries,” they said. The iCloud service would automatically back up everything purchased from the iTunes Stores, allowing them to be downloaded onto a user’s other registered devices for free. The optional subscription service iTunes Match would examine a user’s existing music library (both iTunes and non-iTunes purchased songs) and match them with iTunes versions in a user’s iCloud account, automatically uploading any songs in the user’s library that iTunes didn’t already carry. The iTunes Match service, unlike the free iCloud syncing, would incur a $25 annual fee.
