Last week news broke that Google has acquired an advertising optimization platform for publishers named AdMeld for $400 million.
They basically created sophisticated software to help publishers identify and sign the best advertisers for their web sites.
Here is a cute video from AdMeld on how it works:
An Introduction to Admeld from Admeld on Vimeo.
Webmasters are trying to figure out why Google would spend so much on a company like this. A WebmasterWorld thread considers the talent of the company or maybe the technology something more valuable than what most of us see.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Update: Google officially announced the deal on their blog a couple hours after posting this. Google said:
