Google Inc.’s share price up, acquires two start-ups to bolster mobile and advertising services

Google Inc., which owns the most widely-used Internet search engine in the world, is to take control of two start-ups in order to expand its reach in mobile and advertising services. The company is to acquire Emu, which is a smartphone-messaging application, and Directr Inc., which is a video-creation service.

Recently, the company has concentrated on expanding its offerings portfolio through a series of acquisitions that are oriented towards online and mobile services. According to a filing posted in July, the amount of money spent on takeovers more than tripled over the first six months of the fiscal year and reached $4.2 billion.

Google Inc. explained that it is to buy Emus service, which is to provide the companys clients with the opportunity to schedule calendar events, share locations or look up restaurants and movies using the application. Emu published an announcement on its website, revealing that its application will be shut down after the acquisition is finalized.

YouTube, which is currently owned by Google Inc. announced that it purchased the mobile-video start-up Directr in an attempt to add more small-business customers to the company and make Google more competitive when it comes to video-advertising services. No details of the two deals, including acquisitions prices, were disclosed.

The news of the acquisitions come at a time when the largest search engine in the world revealed that it intends to give some ranking bonus points to encrypted Web pages. This is how Google Inc. hopes to motivate website developers to use technology that is oriented towards protecting their websites from hackers attacks and breaking.

The company wrote in a blog post, which was cited by the Wall Street Journal: “We hope to see more websites using HTTPS in the future.”

Google Inc. was 0.24% up to close at $574.49 per share yesterday, marking a one-year change of +28.03%. According to the information published on CNN Money, the 42 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Google Inc. have a median target of $670.00, with a high estimate of $750.00 and a low estimate of $570.00. The median estimate represents a +16.63% increase from the last price of $574.49.