» eBuddy, a leading mobile and online IM specialist, has announcend a new partnership with global mobile ad network, Inmobi. The one year agreement is thought to be a seven-figure deal, which suggests there are some guarantees on inventory. Inmobi’s previous deal with eBuddy, announced in November of last year, covered twelve countries, including the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, South Africa, Australia and India – but it is not known if the new arrangement covers these markets. The partnership was announced by Onno Bakker at the recent Plugg event. eBuddy is one of the biggest IM providers on mobile and has an estimated nine million unique users a month. [The Next Web]

» Hot on the heels of its recent announcement that it is to manage non-guaranteed inventory from owned and operated AOL sites in six European markets, Rubicon has announced that they are moving into the French market. The REVV marketplace is now available to French publishers as the yield optimiser looks to strengthen its position in the European market. There are no details of what publishers Rubicon will be working with. Publishers here always remain tight lipped about which vendors they’re using. At this stage though premium European publishers continue to test the three yield optimiser, as they try to figure which one best fits their business needs. Interesting to see how the French market will play out this year. It looks likely to follow similar buy-side trends seen in the US and the UK with publishers looking to increase their yield across non-premium inventory. [Rubicon]