Category Archives: Google Phone

Google Open Social opens Social

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Google’s OpenSocial launches Thursday and will be a set of 3 APIs that will allow interface with a stable of early partners in the project incluing Friendster and LinkedIn.   Unclear to me is if the big social network players – Myspace and Facebook – will shun this solution in favor of trying to keep most  of the balls in their courts.   Eyeballs that is.  

The really provocative challenge in Social Networks is whether to close them up and try to keep everybody inside your own network (Myspace’s approach), or to open them up somewhat and hope developers will create applications to interface with your users, but still try to keep everybody playing in your application environment by your rules (Facebook), or to open things up even more as Google will do on Thursday. 

Google seems to be everywhere these days.  The Google Phone or gPhone will be out soon and I predict the Google Phone will be a spectacular success.  They may even launch their own cellular carrier network and seem to be on a tear all over the online space.   

For Google Social the partners are big, important players including linkedIn, Plaxo, Friendster, Ning, and more, but absent are the two key players in the social place, Myspace and Facebook.  If Myspace and Facebook keep doing their own thing it is going to be hard to predict how all this will shake out.   Google historically has been a fabulous tech company but conspicuously failed with their “Orkut” social network which never took off in the USA though it remains popular in Brazil.    Will Google Social turn all this around?   I just don’t know, but will be sure to check it out when available, and hope to be able to develop a travel application for the new Google Social.

TechCrunch has details.

Google as Social Network = THE killer application?

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Google’s acting social at the Googleplex and this could become an earthquake in the social network landscape.   TechCrunch reports that Maka Maka appears to be the Google codename for their social network integration, which may be a way to tie together existing Google stuff in a seamless and user friendly way.   For many of us Google aleady has a lot of info.   I use Gmail, Google Toolbar, and more.  If they simply say to me “click here and we’ll make it all work great” I’m going to do it.    If it works, I’ll keep it.  If I, and 50,000,000 other users keep it Google will be bigger than Facebook….almost overnight.  If they integrate it all with the upcoming Google Phone?   Wow.

TechCrunch:
The real killer app for Google is not to turn Orkut into a Facebook clone. It is to turn every Google app into a social application without you even noticing that you’ve joined yet another social network.

Hey Yahoo!   Why don’t you DO THIS!    Use Mash to get all Yahoo users going.  Don’t ask others to sign them up – simply have a  one click Mash page creation thing where YOU set up a page for all Yahoo users…..right NOW.    If people want to delete it, fine.  If not, rock on with the new largest social network, and populate it with people …. later.

Bye Bye Sprint, Cell ya later!

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Thinking about moving away from Sprint now that I can hopefully unlock my Treo 650 from the evil clutches of the marginal Sprint signal here in Southern Oregon.   With a theoretically robust national network and a top of the line phone you’d think I’d get a signal on, say, all the key cities on the main drag here which is Highway 101.  But it is not so – I’ve had connetivity problems even in Medford which is the largest city on I5 for hundreds of miles.

I’m also underwhelmed by the Treo 650, though I’d have to say the Google maps integration is nothing short of brilliant.    When I tested some iPhones in Atlantic City I was blown away by the mapping feature from Google.   Treo 650 mapping is inferior due to the small touchscreen but still very, very nice – one of those applications that Ben Franklin would have flipped his wig for (and then probably improved on – that dude ROCKED as a technologist!)

So, when Google gets busy with the new phone or software I’m gone, Sprint.  Unless you sign up with them and get me a better phone with better features and cheaper cost.   I’m not holding my breath on that.

G Phone Musings

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David Berlind has a very insightful piece about the upcoming offering from Google in the cell phone space.   Usually this is called the “G Phone” (or maybe “gPhone”?  “gee, Phone!”), and it’s certainly coming soon to a handheld device near you.  

It is still not clear if Google will actually endorse the hardware as well as the mobile software they’ve been working on, but there will be a phone by next year (I still predict it’ll be out in time for Christmas), and it will feature rich integration with Google maps, search, and probably a bunch of other clever Googley applications developed for the explosive mobile market.

Berlind notes that we are all seeking technological “religious experiences” with our devices, and the current crop of phones, even including the iPhone, do not deliver enough of them.

David is harder on the Apple iPhone than I have been but I agree that the holy grail ain’t here yet, and also agree that Google, learning from iPhone’s mistakes and all the hype and feedback about that project, might hit the cellular nail on the head with the gPhone.      I predict a major Google phone innovation in using advertising to defray the cost of calling.   This could take many forms but I think a clever integration of highly targeted advertising during web browsing and text messaging could be fairly inoffensive to users but provide a decent portion of the revenues that the carrier would need.   Frankly all Google needs to do is reduce the cellular cost enough to the customer that they’ll switch over from other carriers like ATT and Sprint.     These companies have done little to create brand loyalty and a better system will have users leaving in droves.

But we may have to wait until 2008 to find out how good the gPhone is going to be.  

Unless they are out by Christmas, in which case I may actually do my Christmas shopping early this year.

Google will strike gold with mobile OS

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Well, Google does it again with yet another online brilliancy. How do you market a “Google Phone” without paying a dime for hardware development? Engaget is reporting that Google appears more likely to release a mobile OS to multiple phone vendors rather than develop it’s own phone. This is a *really clever* approach because it will allow Google to maintain core competency focus on software and advertising, something that founders appear to think has been lacking lately with the many aquisitions. Also, this will bring market forces to bear to quickly lower the price of iPhone-like mobile devices. How does Google benefit from lower prices on browsing phones? Why, ADVERTISING of course! Ads remain about 98% of Google revenue and mobile ads are arguably the online sector with the most explosive growth potential. Rather than go head to head with the iPhone Google will continue to sing it’s praises and then simply scoop up all the juicy advertising revenues as users demand Googley browsing capabilities on their phones. Vendors may get squeezed by customers to lower prices on the phones but Google still comes out a big ad winner.

No wonder they can throw such a lavish Google Party every year!

Palm Treo Problems

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Ha – I just wrote about how unhappy I’ve been with my Treo 650 and to spite me it went into an endless loop thing after a hot synch and now the phone won’t turn on. I did find this nice Treo Troubleshooting forum post which has a lot of helpful stuff and links, but I also am deciding that my price point for a Google Phone is going up – way up if I have to buy a new phone in any case.

The Treo is too much an example of tech designed for tech people rather than regular folks. It’s a good phone though Sprint rural connectivity has been very lacking and I always find myself wanting a better browser and also a modem for my laptop. My old little sprint cell gave great modem capabilities even with regular service (Sprint only supported them in a marginally weird way after I bought a Sprint branded but “no longer supported” connection cable and software). I think they were gearing up for the EVDO stuff.

(hours later) I’m not finding an easy fix for the Treo problems so it looks like a complete reset will be needed. I’m reading for a Google phone now.