VentureBeat

Today at the launch of T-Mobile’s G1 Google Android phone, Medialets, a company which has had success running an analytics and ad network for Apple iPhone, will announce its platform availability for Android phones.

Initially, Medialets will consist of an analytics package before rolling out the advertising platform. It will have the same look and feel as the current Medialets product for the iPhone — and in fact, will offer side-by-side comparison for any developers who happen to be running apps on both Android phones and the iPhone.

After several months of talking to mainly iPhone developers, I wasn’t sure how many would actually make the jump over the Android to work there as well. But Eric Litman, chief executive of Medialets assured me that the number is “larger than [he] thought it would be.” Quite a few of the top application makers on the iPhone are apparently doing Android as well, Litman continued.

But others are sitting back and taking a wait-and-see approach to Android. Another analytics company working on the iPhone, Pinch Media, feels “there’s enough uncertainty about the Marketplace (Android’s App Store) as well as the basic level of analytics that Google will be providing that we’re gathering a bit more data before putting our resources into it,” Pinch Media founder Greg Yardley told us.

So why is Medialets making sure it’s on Android on day one? “Mobile is our market,” Litman told me. Litman sees Android as the next step in the evolution of the market place after the iPhone has changed things.

One thing that Medialets can’t help but be concerned about with regards to the Android platform is that Google runs it — the same Google which runs its own analytics and advertising services. While Litman thinks it’s likely that Google will eventually enter the space, in terms of analytics, no one is quite sure how robust it will be. Litman also emphasized the importance of comparing applications on Android to those on the iPhone for better overall data for the mobile space.

The ultimate goal is “helping developers make better applications and make more money off of those applications because they are better,” Litman said.

Developers can sign up for the beta of the Android analytics package here. It’ll go live when the Android phones are launched next month.

A newly formed partnership between iPhone analytics firm Pinch Media and mobile search and ad company JumpTap may connect brand-name advertisers with iPhone application users.

The partnership, announced at MobileBeat, could be a formidable force in the tiny but growing world of iPhone application ads. Pinch Media will provide the analytics platform. JumpTap’s 35-person salesforce has ties to Madison Avenue, including an investment from ad holding firm giant WPP, and will provide a connection between ad agencies and developers.

Ad networks for iPhone apps have been springing up at a steady click since the launch of the App Store. AdMob, which won Tesla Award for crowd favorite at last week’s MobileBeat conference, also announced impressive new features for advertisers on the iPhone. Medialets has been busy creating its own ad network for apps, hoping to separate itself by integrating ads more directly into applications. AppLoop, another app ad network, is emphasizing location-aware metrics for advertisers hoping to use the iPhone’s GPS capabilities. PurpleTalk, meanwhile, is attempting to set up an ad network of applications that use splash pages to cross-promote one another, while running smaller ads alongside.

Pinch Media launched its analytics platform before the App Store’s official launch. According to co-founder and chief executive Greg Yardley, the company is already working with “quite a few” iPhone apps to provide metrics on things like daily user activity, length and number of sessions, or custom action tracking, meaning developers can see which features are being used (or aren’t). The company, however, wouldn’t disclose which apps are using its analytics.

JumpTap, founded in 2004, began as a mobile search company, selling its white-label search platform to mobile carriers. After developing relationships with 17 carriers, including Boost Mobile, Alltel Wireless, and Virgin Mobile USA, the company started a mobile ad network in December of 2007, using carrier-provided data to target advertising. JumpTap already has relationships with all four of the major ad holding firms and many of the major digital agencies, according to chief marketing officer Paran Johar. Johar himself jumped ship from ad firm MRM Worldwide, a division of McCann Worldgroup, where he was in charge of digital strategy for clients including General Motors and Microsoft. The company says it reaches about 150 million mobile subscribers currently.

The plan is to fold iPhone app’s users into vertical ad audiences that can be sold to brand advertisers. “The iPhone market is still relatively small when it comes to advertising,” says Pinch Media’s Yardley. “The biggest applications might have a million users. A million users is not a tremendous amount of reach when it comes to doing an ad buy.” By bundling together an app’s user base with other mobile inventory already represented by JumpTap, developers get a chance to place high-end advertising on their apps, and media buyers can target the ever-so-sexy iPhone user base. This focus on top-tier advertisers puts the company in opposition to AdMob, according to JumpTap’s Johar. “AdMob is a great business, but really focused on the self-service market and the long tail of direct response. We are focused on premium content.”

SocialMedia, a San Francisco company that places ads on social networks and other areas where there’s a social component for advertisers to tap, has hired Savvian investment bank to raise what could be a $20 million second round, we’re hearing.

I wrote about SocialMedia last month, and described the evolution of its offerings including its new FriendRank technology to help place socially relevant ads.

Apparently, so much interest from venture capitalists has since hit the company that it has decided to hire Savvian to manage the incoming. Savvian helped manage the fundraising process of Federated Media, another new ad company that raised a large round. Savvian’s partners Rich Jasen and John Labros are the bankers involved, and are said to understand this sector.

Typically a company at this stage doesn’t like to sell more than 20 percent of its shares in a round, and we’re hearing SocialMedia is of this mindset. If you do some quick math, that means it could be looking to raise money at a $60 million value before the investment ($80 million post). From what I hear, the company hasn’t set a valuation yet, but plans to wrap up funding by end of summer.

The company raised a small amount of capital last year. The company told me earlier it sees a large opportunity and wants to hire a bigger sales organiztion to help it move beyond serving ads within applications on Facebook and leading social networks. It wants to serve ads on other platforms where advertising can be made social, such as FriendFeed or Wordpress or on the iPhone.

A slew of new companies have arisen to serve ads and analytics on the iPhone, which is notable, because the precise location information, and potential to tap into communciations between people afford a whole swath of new social advertising potential.

We at VentureBeat have invited companies like Skydeck (which tracks your communication patterns on your phone) and new iPhone ad company MediaLets to MobileBeat, our conference next week, for demonstrations of their technology and their findings of the market thus far. Other companies like Pinch Media, which provides iPhone tracking stats and analytics, and Apploop, which offers repurposed CPC ads on iPhone apps, are emerging.