Motorola's new Droid phone for Verizon Wireless is off to a hot start, with expected sales of 765,000 phones by the end of the year, Ad Age reports. Those aren't close to the same sales numbers the iPhone achieved, but they are enough for mobile ad network Greystripe to expand into the Droid market with new ad formats that launch today.
However, as marketers begin to advertise on the Droid and other smartphones supported by Google's Android operating system, questions remain, due in part to Google's acquisition of the AdMob mobile ad network.
Greystripe has rolled out pre-roll, interstitial, and post-roll ad inventory for Droid phones, and developers are already using them, according to TechCrunch. But AdMob presents a unique challenge for Greystripe and all other mobile ad networks. While Google could potentially close the ad market for Android and force advertisers to go through AdMob, that action looks doubtful, according to TechCrunch. At the same time, competing mobile networks will still have their work cut out for them; AdMob already offers Android-specific ads on its network.
