Google sharpens aim on mobile marketing with AdMob

Four years ago, Omar Hamoui was just another ineffectual entrepreneur trying to spruce up his resume in graduate school.
Now, he's poised to become Google Inc.'s newest weapon as the company aims to extend its dominance of online advertising from computers to mobile devices.
Google is buying Hamoui's expertise in a $750 million acquisition of AdMob, a network for ads on iPhones and similar gadgets. He launched the business while struggling to support his wife and children as a student at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Hamoui, 32, changed his life by setting up a system for advertising on mobile devices. Though that sounds simple, it was a breakthrough because Hamoui's network got around stifling controls that wireless carriers had imposed on the content their customers could see on their phones. The crack that AdMob opened in the carriers' "walled gardens" made it easier for independent programmers to profit from applications planted on mobile phones.