Former AdMob boss Omar Hamoui reveals his next big thing: gnomes

Location-based photo gnomes with a mobile social twist, mind...

Former AdMob boss Omar Hamoui left Google relatively quickly after it acquired his mobile advertising firm, and launched a company called Churn Labs to work on a series of apps.

The first one has been released, and it's pretty quirky. Gnonstop Gnomes is a social location game that revolves around, yep, little beardy men with pointy hats.

The idea: users create a gnome avatar then insert it into photos Amelie-style. However, gnomes can also be passed from handset to handset, allowing them to journey across the road - and the original owner to keep track of their progress. The app is available for iPhone and Android.

"We’re really happy to finally bring this to market," says partner Mike Rowehl in a tongue-in-cheek blog post. "Early on we decided to focus on mobile, local, social, photo sharing, and gnomes, and this project really allowed us put it all together.  We haven’t yet figured out how to work group buying into it, but we have some ideas."

And Hamoui? "This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I got sidetracked with the whole mobile advertising thing for a bit, but it’s good to finally see this becoming a reality."