Mobile Ad Network News: WHERE, Jumptap and Todacell

This week so far has seen a few notable news bits from the quickly evolving world of mobile ad networks.

ULocate announced that it will extend its location targeted ad network to a small batch of third-party publishers. Known as WhereAds, they’ll include locally targeted inventory on Geocade, Jambase, MocoSpace and Superpages.com. The location targeted and presumably more relevant ads are seeing CTRs up to three times greater than comparative mobile ads according to the press release.

Next, Jumptap has announced it has launched a self-serve tool for mobile app and Web site publishers to join its ad network. This is very much in line with the strategy previously expressed in talks we’ve had with Jumptap CMO Paran Johar. The idea is to maintain a core business in premium mobile ad placements but also begin to move down the tail with self-serve offerings to smaller publishers and advertisers whose hunger for mobile continues to grow.

Lastly, Todacell has announced it will likewise expand, though its growth comes in the form of $1 million in funding and geographic expansion. The latter will include sales offices in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, London and Bombay. Like uLocate’s strategy above, its publisher partners will be limited to about a dozen, allowing it to focus on a premium and limited crop of inventory. Funding comes from current and former employers of Amdocs.