Rumour has it BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion is trying to buy mobile ad company Millenial Media, but negotiations are hitting a rough patch. Thanks to the recent acquisitions of AdMob and Quattro by Google and and Apple respectively, the reported asking price is $400 – $500 million – just a bit too rich for RIM’s blood, apparently.
RIM has already dedicated itself to getting into the mobile advertising, having announced a new ad aggregation platform that pulled in ads from multiple networks, including Millenial and Quattro. However, the BlackBerry Advertising Service has yet to go live, and if RIM does end up buying Millenial, it may change the ad service from a pile of network-agnostic ads to something more proprietary. Apple’s run with iAds seems to be doing alright, but something tells me we won’t see anything quite that rich on BlackBerry, no matter who RIM ends up buying. If this Millenial deal falls through altogether, I’m curious if RIM will pursue other BlackBerry Advertising Service partners…
[via WSJ]