Google has acquired Teracent for Super-Advanced A/B Testing
Google just announced on their blog (hat tip to Andy Beal) that they’ve acquired ad company Teracent. I’ve looked around, but I don’t see the terms of the deal as being disclosed yet.

Most interesting so far is the tweets I’ve been seeing already talking about how “scary it is” that Google continues to acquire ad companies. Here’s what’s important to take away from this purchase: it isn’t new marketshare.

Based on what I’m reading on Teracent, they’re very advanced and automated A/B testing services. If you’re not familiar with the term, go read up on this quick description of A/B testing at Wikipedia. It’s pretty common for everyone online to engage in this activity to increase performance – and this offers Google the ability to give this to advertisers out of the box.

It’s an important value-add, and it might change the game in a lot of Adsense heavy circles, but it isn’t something that’ll lead to antitrust issues.