Google buying display ad startup Teracent

The financial terms of Google's purchase of the San Mateo, California-based Teracent were not disclosed. Google said the transaction is expected to close this quarter.

"We've been busy releasing new features and products to help improve display advertising on the Web for everyone," Neal Mohan, Google's vice president for product management, and engineering director Joerg Heilig said in a blog post.

"We believe that Teracent's technology fits neatly into these efforts."

Google said Teracent can pick and choose from thousands of creative elements of a display ad in real-time and tweak images, products, messages or colors for factors like geographic location, language or the time of day.

"This technology can help advertisers get better results from their display ad campaigns," Mohan and Heilig said.

"In turn, this enables publishers to make more money from their ad space and delivers Web users better ads and more ad-funded Web content," they said.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, has been on a buying spree lately and announced earlier this month that it was buying smartphone ad specialty firm AdMob in a 750-million-dollar stock deal.

Google hopes AdMob will help it more effectively extend its lucrative Internet advertising domain into the booming world of mobile devices.

(c) 2009 AFP