• by Shankar Gupta , February 19, 2007

Google has agreed to purchase in-game ad firm Adscape for $23 million, according to a report late last week in Red Herring.

With the acquisition, Google will be following one of its major competitors, Microsoft, into the in-game ad space. Last year, Microsoft acquired in-game ad firm Massive Incorporated.

Unlike Massive, however, the one-year-old Adscape isn't yet serving ads in any games. Rather, the San Francisco-based company simply has the technology to do so.

Google's purchase of the in-game ad company marks yet another effort to gain a foothold in other media. Late last year, the search giant began selling ads for dozens of major newspapers. Google also last year bought radio ad technology firm dMarc and started selling radio ads six months later.

But Google's moves into other media haven't been entirely smooth. dMarc's founders recently left the company amid reports of growing tension between the firm and Google over differing approaches to radio ad sales, as well as disputes over dMarc's compensation under the performance-based deal with Google.

Meanwhile, Microsoft's acquisition of Massive also appeared to result in a shake-up; founder and CEO Mitch Davis recently left the company, replaced by Cory Van Arsdale, formerly general manager of Microsoft's online services group.