• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, January 5, 2010

Hold on. Get ready. If the first five days into 2010 provide any indication of things to come this year, I'm expecting a wild ride in mobile search and ad targeting. It appears a new battle has emerged between two Silicon Valley companies. One company resides in Mountain View, Calif., and the other in Cupertino, Calif. Both originally started by technology innovators.

The gloves came off Tuesday when both Google and Apple made major announcements that will notably change search, advertising and mobile. While Google Tuesday unveiled the Nexus One, Apple reported acquiring Quattro Wireless, Waltham, Mass.

Andy Miller, vice president of mobile advertising at Apple, confirmed in a blog post on the ad platform's site, but didn't confirm the reported $275 million price tag. In October, the patent application surfaced, initially reported by Macworld.com. The patent is based on an operating system with embedded advertisements. The application published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was filed on April 18, 2008.

The patent's abstract explains how an "operating system presents one or more advertisements to a user and disables one or more functions while the advertisement is being presented. At the end of the advertisement, the operating system again enables the function(s). The advertisement can be visual or audible. The presentation of the advertisement(s) can be made as part of an approach where the user obtains a good or service, such as the operating system, for free or at reduced cost."

Along with the patent, acquiring Quattro gives Apple a means to capitalize on its growing popularity of apps for iPhone, display advertising, and eventually search advertising. Even before Google introduced Google Goggles, which allows the phone's camera to take a picture of an object and search for more information across the Web, or the ability for Android to identify barcodes with a simple snap of a camera phone photo, iPhone application developers had already begun to use the phone's camera and Google's search engine as a means to connect with products and information posted across the Web.

Apple's purchase of Quattro puts the company on even footing with Google in mobile display advertising, as well as somewhat closer to search. It has been reported that Apple seemed interested in pursuing the mobile ad company AdMob, which Google signed an agreement to acquire for $750 million. Google's purchase of AdMob isn't a done deal. The company disclosed last month the Federal Trade Commission wants more time to review antitrust issues and has made a second request to Google for documents.

And while the deal hasn't closed, AdMob has already begun to see growth. Worldwide requests from Android devices increased 97% from October to December, according to the company's Web site. AdMob received more than 1 billion ad requests from Android devices in Dec 2009.

The U.S. leads in adoption of Android. Ninety percent of Android traffic was in the United States in December, up from 84% in October, according to the company's Web site.

And, just this week, Internet analytics firm Net Applications reported Google Chrome, which has only been around for about 15 months, reached 4.63% of browser market share in December, up from 3.93%, sequentially. It took No. 3 place in market share. Apple Safari grew its share to 4.46% last month from 4.36% in the month prior.

Now backed by two tech giants, could 2010 become the year of mobile search and advertising? Ad and marketing execs have been waiting for years.