amcnellis

Really boggles the mind. Would love to see the company's financials.

This is true, though I don't have high expectations for Isis. Boku has advantage here in that they're offering much more of an open ecosystem with their "Accounts" product, and plus they already have the carrier relationships with their legacy carrier micropayment service.

That said, it's ridiculous that carriers even have a say in this stuff anymore. When did carriers get the authority to approve apps?

i know Thiel thinks NZ is a libertarian utopia, but have we seen much success in tech from the country recently?

Looks like the deeper cuts, in his division and more broadly, are confirmed: http://allthingsd.com/20120305/yahoos-new-ceo-preps-major-re...

I completely disagree. Internet ad supply far outstrips demand due to proliferation of UGC and other "non-premium" content. If you look at the prices of ads on any given ad exchange, particularly those with large amounts of long-tail inventory like Google AdX, CPMs are in the pennies versus ~$10-20 for television and newspapers. Additionally, just look at video ads. In an ad-supported, long-form online video (like Hulu), you see significantly fewer advertisements than the equivalent program on cable TV.

Finally, look at search ads. You think it's not worth seeing a couple of inconspicuous (yet often fully-relevant and targeted) text ads in return for Google's products? Same thing for Facebook...