Google, Apple plan mobile ad attack

Mobile advertising offers some nice ancillary income and, if anything else, gives a maturing tech giant some street cred as still being the "cool kid on the block." That's part of the reason why it seems Apple was looking to acquire San Mateo, Calif.-based AdMob Inc. before Google grabbed the mobile ad company for $750 million in stock -- a price Apple probably wasn't willing to pay. But it looks like Apple will use its own expertise to get money from ads on phones. After all, it was Apple's iPhone (with a crazy amount of apps to sell against) that helped mobile advertising come to the mainstream and gave AdMob a viable business model.