If you develop iPhone or Android applications, we're happy to let you know about the beta launch of AdSense for mobile applications. Participants in the beta will be able to display text and image ads in their mobile applications to earn revenue. We've seen positive results in our trials, and we're excited to roll this out to new developers to continue supporting the growth of mobile applications.

You can visit our new microsite to learn more about AdSense for mobile applications, see our beta requirements, or sign up. If you're selected to participate in the beta, we'll be in touch with you shortly with next steps for getting started.

You can also learn more about the program by watching the video below, in which Howard Steinberg, Director of Business Development at Urbanspoon, describes how he tested AdSense for mobile applications:

Are you a developer, or are you interested in learning about developer tools and technologies like Android and OpenSocial? If so, we'd like to let you know about the Google I/O Developer Conference on May 27th and 28th in San Francisco.

As an AdSense publisher, you may be interested in learning how to spice up your site with our APIs, or how tools like App Engine and the Google Web Toolkit can help you focus on your content and code rather than maintenance or scaling issues. At Google I/O, you'll have the opportunity to learn about these topics from Googlers and also meet other developers.

Over 2,000 are expected to be in attendance, and if you'd like to be one of them, we hope you'll register for the event. For more information, check out the official site or follow us on Twitter.

Posted by Christine Tsai - Google Developer Programs

We've been working to make it easier for advertisers to show display ads on the content network -- which benefits you, because it results in more budgets devoted to advertising on AdSense sites like yours. (As a reminder, "display ads" include all types of image-based ads, such as banners, rich media, and video ads.) In addition to recent launches such as DoubleClick Studio, third-party ad serving, and expandable rich media ads, we also launched the AdWords Display Ad Builder last October. This tool allows AdWords advertisers to create display ads using customizable templates and to target them to AdSense sites in a matter of minutes.

Since its launch, the Display Ad Builder has been extended to advertisers in over 100 countries and 40 languages. With over 90 customizable templates and thousands of active users of all sizes, the Display Ad Builder has quickly become what we believe is the largest platform for self-serve display ad creation on the web. Its usage varies from the largest digital agency, like Razorfish, to smaller advertisers like the Wilshire Grand Los Angeles. We'd like to take a few minutes to tell you more about the impact of this tool and how it can benefit you as a publisher:

• More advertisers creating display ads: In just six months, the Display Ad Builder has significantly increased the number of AdWords advertisers using image-based ads. Many of these advertisers were already advertising with text ads on Google.com and AdSense sites, but have now found the visual elements, interactivity, and animations of display ads to be effective at increasing clicks, conversions, and overall ROI.
  
  
• Higher quality, more relevant display ads for your site: With simplified display ad creation now available to advertisers of all sizes and industries, the display ads that show on your site are likely to be even more relevant to your content and audience. For sites with niche content or with an advertiser base that would be less likely to have the budgets to invest in display ad creation, this is especially true. The templates that we offer also vary well beyond simple static banners, including interactive rich media templates that allow users to scroll between or roll over multiple product images, in addition to multiple templates with animated text and images.
  
  
• Higher potential earnings: As the reach of ads created with Display Ad Builder grows, we've seen encouraging results -- ads created with the Display Ad Builder have average click-through rates that outperform industry averages. We believe that this is due to the combination of advanced contextual targeting on AdSense, combined with templates that encourage best practices in effective display ad creation. We've also heard from many advertisers that they're finding improved cost per conversion efficiencies with the tool, meaning that more of their marketing budgets can be effectively deployed online, on your sites.
  

So what can you do to take advantage of the many newly created display ads? First, make sure that your ad units are opted into image ads. And, since many publishers are advertisers too, you may be interested in getting started with the Display Ad Builder yourself. To learn more, you can also view our series of how-to videos or read our feed of Display Ad Builder announcements.