Mobile panel at Monaco Media Forum

Last weekend at the Monaco Media Forum Rich Wong from Accel hosted a panel on mobile. Very interesting discussion on whether 2009 is the year of mobile (again). Same themes come out - iPhone, flat rate data plan.

Panelists: Alvin Wang Graylin, CEO, minfo;Omar Hamoui, CEO, AdMob; Alexandre Mars, CEO, Phonevalley and Head of Mobile, Publicis Groupe; Federico Pisani Massamormile,CEO, Hanzo; and Jon Medved, CEO, Vringo; Moderator: Rich Wong, Accel Partners.




Nikesh Arora also spoke at the event and served as co-chair.

Admob raises $15.7M from Sequoia and Accel

Talk about a strong statement... A few weeks after Sequoia told its CEOs to buckle up for a tough ride, it turns around and invests $15.7M along with Accel in Admob. This raises Admob's total funding to $34.3 million...

And in all the excitement, they let it be known that they have turned cash-positive and are serving over 5B ads... How is that for a nice middle finger to the doom sayers!

I must admit I love what Admob is doing and how they are doing it. Their mobile metrics provides great insight into the growing trends in mobile advertising (even if it is very skewed towards the US and some emerging markets) and Omar Hamoui (CEO), Russell Buckley (MD Europe) and the team are ever-present in the mobile ecosystem (disclosure: I serve with Russell on the Board of the Mobile Marketing Association).

In any case, a great piece of news in this otherwise dire market...

Related articles by Zemanta

• Mobile Ad Firm AdMob Closes $15.7 Million In Third Round
• AdMob Raises $15.7M in Series C Funding