Yahoo buys mobile game ad company Actionality

Yahoo continues to increase its offerings in mobile services. Earlier this month, it bought a small game startup called Actionality.

Yahoo’s expanding line of mobile services already includes games, and this purchase gives Yahoo another place to sell ads. Actionality sticks ads into mobile games and other applications as they’re being downloaded from a mobile web browser to a phone; competitors include Greystripe.

Yahoo also recently announced that it is expanding its mobile ad services to include Vodafone.

However, the profitability of mobile advertising — whether on a mobile browser or in a download — is in question.

We covered a mobile ad company called AdMob earlier this month, when it announced a number of brand-name partnerships and a rapid increase in traffic. A veteran affiliate marketer in the comment section of that story caustically provided his perspective and his data on how very little money Admob has made him, despite his initial enthusiasm for it.

The big question remains: do users actually respond to mobile advertising like they do to online advertising?

Actionality raised an undisclosed amount from Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures last year.