The 140 million dollars that Google dished out for Russian contextual ad company Begun now seems rather cheap, given their fantastic financial results for the first half of 2008.
As reported by Profy, Begun has had 25% higher profits in the first two quarters of 2008 than in the entire 2007. Add to that the 173.000 publishers (an increase of 30.000 over last year) in Begun's roster and it's obvious that this company is on track to completely corner the huge Russian contextual advertising market.
In other words, Begun was ripe for acquisition; it probably needed funds to be able to sustain its quick growth, and on the other hand it showed huge potential. The question is, how do Microsoft, AOL and others always manage to miss chances like this one, while Google always seems to snag them at the exactly right time?