Posts Tagged ‘Nexus One’

Google v Facebook. This time it’s personal

Posted: February 18, 2010 in Digital Marketing, Display advertising, Industry News, Information communications technology, Internet, Media & Entertainment, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Industry News, Mobile Internet, Mobile Technology
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How Orwell would have delighted in satirising today’s tech titans’ perpetual war. Remember when Apple v Microsoft was the defining Oceania v Eurasia battle for supremacy? If so you’re experiencing a doubleplusungood false memory: both are now unimpeachable allies, working to replace Google with Bing as the iPhone’s default search provider. Likewise, you would simply be mistaken to recall Google’s chequebook-wielding flirtation with Facebook three years ago.

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Google and Facebook, as every goodthinker knows, are dangerously implacable enemies.

That war entered a venomous new stage last week, when the internet’s biggest search company announced that it had also become a Facebook-style social network. Google Buzz, launched on Tuesday, intends to turn Gmail’s 150 million users into a vast pool of shared personal information, building on similar initiatives such as Google Wave and Google Social Search.

Then it emerged last week that Google had bought the social- networking start-up Aardvark, which lets users “tap the knowledge of people in your network”. In other words, it was advancing its tanks even farther across Facebook’s lawn.

What we are witnessing is the ultimate battle for control of the internet. Google, employing the world’s smartest software engineers, has dominated the desktop-internet era for a decade through its unbeatable algorithm-based computing power. But now we’re into the mobile-internet era, Facebook intends to dominate by knowing what we are thinking, doing and intending to spend — wherever we happen to be. As Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg sees it, this “social graph”, built around our friends, family and colleagues, will determine how hundreds of millions of us decide on everything from holidays to cosmetic surgeons. And with Facebook the proprietary gatekeeper — its mobile-phone applications already attracting extraordinary engagement from members — that’s a potential advertiser proposition that Google can only dream of.

It’s not that Mr Zuckerberg is still only 25 and naively arrogant that annoys Google, nor that his company has enticed swaths of senior Google talent. It’s that Facebook’s fast-growing dominance of the “social” internet threatens its rival’s entire business model. If it can sell advertisers access not just to what you’re thinking, but to where you are, who you’re with and what you plan to do, Facebook’s revenues from individually targeted “behavioural” advertising could increase exponentially. And it knows it.

“Google is not representative of the future of technology in any way,” a Facebook veteran boasted to Wired recently. “Facebook is an advanced communications network enabling myriad communication forms. It almost doesn’t make sense to compare them.”

The mobile internet changes everything — how we behave, spend, declare our intentions, and consume content. That’s why Google is pushing so aggressively its Android smartphone platform and Nexus One handsets. It’s also why Apple has helped software developers to distribute three billion iPhone apps. “That mobile device is never more than a metre or two away from my body, even when I’m asleep,” explains Android’s Eric Tseng. “It knows all my friends through contacts applications; it knows where I am because it’s got a GPS chip; what I’m doing as I’ve got my calendar on it; and it’s got all this contextual knowledge about me. That’s very powerful.”

Already 16 million Britons access the internet through their phones, with five million doing so to visit Facebook — putting it comfortably ahead of Google traffic. And we’re just at the start of this revolution: 3G mobile penetration in Western Europe rose from 17 per cent in 2007 to 29 per cent in 2009, and is forecast to reach 67 per cent next year; in Japan it is already 91 per cent. The lesson from Japan is that, unlike the desktop internet, where people are averse to paying for content, the networked mobile phone is a consumer goldmine. Morgan Stanley estimates that $43 billion was made from the mobile internet in Japan in 2008. Proportionately, Europe today is where Japan was almost a decade ago.

Why is Facebook so well positioned? Because , when all your friends are on Facebook, it makes no sense to go elsewhere.

Mr Zuckerberg’s human-powered view of the internet also taps into our yearning, as social creatures, to climb Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to attain self-actualisation: of the 400 million active Facebook users (up from 200 million last summer), half log on in any given day; they share five billion pieces of content a week and upload more than three billion photos each month. On average, they spend more than 55 minutes a day on Facebook. Those who access it via their mobile devices are “twice as active”. Now do you see why the search gurus in Google’s Mountain View headquarters are so anxious?

So it’s a slam-dunk that Facebook, quickly emerging as the repository of all human intentions, will trounce Google, right? Well, possibly — except for two teeny details. The first is money. Google has $24.5 billion in the bank, after making $6.5 billion profit in the past year. And Facebook — although Mr Zuckerberg predicted a 70 per cent revenue growth this year — only went “cashflow positive” last autumn. There’s a lot you can do with the odd $25 billion: from writing open cheques to YouTube until it can dominate the market in online TV and film distribution, to saturation- advertising its Chrome browser on London buses. Don’t be surprised if Facebook announces a public share offering soon to build a war chest.

Mr Zuckerberg’s second challenge is to convince his customers to surrender their privacy. A business based on giving advertisers access to your personal data must somehow convince you that it’s in your interests to do so: and so far, his repeated clumsy attempts have met a substantial consumer backlash. Early reactions to Buzz have also reminded Google that many of us are unhappy ceding vast amounts of personal information to a private business.

And never forget how quickly fashions change in the online ecosystem. Remember Friendster, Friends Reunited, even MySpace — owned by this newspaper’s parent, and currently struggling in between CEOs? All were the next big social thing once. That’s people for you.

You never can rely on them.

David Rowan is editor of Wired

URL Link:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7028215.ece

Apple vs. Google How the battle between Silicon Valley’s superstars will shape the future of mobile computing

Posted: January 16, 2010 in Industry News, Information communications technology, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Applications, Mobile Handsets, Mobile Industry News, Mobile Internet, Mobile Phones, Mobile Technology, Smartphones
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By Peter Burrows

http://images.businessweek.com/mz/10/04/600/0104_mz_28applegoogle.jpg

Photo-Illustration by David Rudes

On Jan. 5, Google (GOOG) did a very Apple-like thing. In a presentation at the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., the 11-year-old search behemoth unveiled Nexus One, a stylish touchscreen smartphone that runs on the company’s Android operating system, is sold through a Google-operated retail Web site, and greets the market with an advertising tagline (“Web meets phone”) as simple and optimistic as the one Apple used in 2007 to introduce its iPhone (“The Internet in your pocket”).

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On the same day, Apple did a very Google-like thing. Steve Jobs, the king of splashy product launches and in-house development, announced a strategic acquisition. For $275 million, Apple purchased Quattro Wireless, an upstart advertising company that excels at targeting ads to mobile-phone users based on their behavior.

When companies start to imitate one another, it’s usually either an extreme case of flattery—or war. In the case of Google and Apple, it’s both. Separated by a mere 10 miles in Silicon Valley, the two have been on famously good terms for almost a decade. Jobs and Google CEO Eric Schmidt, both 54, spent years in separate battles against Microsoft (MSFT) while Schmidt was at Sun Microsystems (JAVA) and Novell (NOVL). Over time, they went from spiritual allies to strategic ones. When Apple had an opening on its board in 2006, Jobs tapped Schmidt. “Eric is obviously doing a terrific job as CEO of Google,” Jobs said at the time. Schmidt, meanwhile, called Apple “one of the companies in the world that I most admire.”

Tensions in Silicon Valley’s special relationship began to emerge in late 2007, when Google announced plans to develop Android for mobile phones. Apple had unveiled its iPhone in January of that year, and it was clear that the two companies would spar in the smartphone business. Still, both were niche players, with more formidable rivals in companies like Nokia (NOK), Samsung, and Research In Motion (RIMM). Only after software developers began creating thousands of mobile apps, and it became clear that phones would become the computers of the future, did the conflicts begin to grow serious. Last summer, Apple refused to approve two Google apps for sale to iPhone users, raising questions about how much of a Google presence Apple would allow on its devices. In August, Schmidt gave up his board seat. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses,” Jobs said at the time, “Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings.”

Now the companies have entered a new, more adversarial phase. With Nexus One, Google, which had been content to power multiple phonemakers’ devices with Android, enters the hardware game, becoming a direct threat to the iPhone. With its Quattro purchase, Apple aims to create completely new kinds of mobile ads, say three sources familiar with Apple’s thinking. The goal isn’t so much to compete with Google in search as to make search on mobile phones obsolete. “Apple and Google both want more,” says Chris Cunningham, founder of the New York mobile advertising firm Appssavvy. “They’re gearing up for the ultimate fight.”

Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton declined to comment on the company’s advertising plans or its relationship with Google. Google spokeswoman Katie Watson said the company would not make executives available for this story. She did provide a statement, attributed to Vic Gundotra, Google’s vice-president of engineering: “Apple is a valued partner of ours and we continue to work closely with them to help move the entire mobile ecosystem forward.”

URL Link to Businessweek:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_04/b4164028483414.htm

DIY Touchscreen Analysis – (iphone out does them all)

Posted: January 11, 2010 in Industry News, Information communications technology, Mobile Handsets, Mobile Phones, Mobile Technology, Smartphones, Technology
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touch-screen-test-header2

The success of the iPhone has triggered the adoption of touchscreen systems in a wide range of mobile devices, and a bevy of new gadgets equipped with capacitive sensing technology have now hit the market.  MOTO has years of experience developing products that use capacitive touch, and we’ve had the opportunity to test many of the latest devices. Our conclusion: All touchscreens are not created not equal.

It takes finesse to create a touchscreen system that’s pleasant to use, because touchscreens require seamless integration between hardware components, software algorithms, and user-interface design. If a manufacturer cuts corners or flubs any of the critical elements, the user’s experience with a touchscreen product is likely to suffer.

Simple and True

Although we usually use sophisticated tools to test touch screen accuracy, MOTO has also developed a simple technique anyone can use to evaluate the resolution and accuracy of a touchscreen device. All you need is a basic drawing program (download one if necessary), a steady hand, and a few straight lines drawn very slowly on the screen.

This video shows what happened when we recently took several touchscreen systems out for a test drive:

DIY Touchscreen Analysis from MOTO Development Group on Vimeo.

The Virtue of Slow

Why do you need to draw slowly?  On a good touchscreen, users can draw clean straight lines, even while going very slowly, so the graphics that appear on screen accurately represent what was physically drawn.

On inferior touchscreens, it’s basically impossible to draw straight lines. Instead, the lines look jagged or zig-zag, no matter how slowly you go, because the sensor size is too big, the touch-sampling rate is too low, and/or the algorithms that convert gestures into images are too non-linear to faithfully represent user inputs.

Pressure Matters

Also, even on a single device, the amount of pressure and the part of the finger you use on the screen has an impact on how well it senses. A good touchscreen device will produce linear output regardless of whether you’re using the full pad of your finger, or just the dry corner of your cuticle.  When comparing devices, make sure to use even pressure across all of them.

If you want to show the most extreme case, draw very lightly with the corner of your finger. The artifacts will increase significantly, showing which device is really the best with a weak signal. This is important because quick keyboard use and light flicks on the screen really push the limits of the touch panel’s ability to sense.

Here you can see the results of our test:

diytouchscreenanalysis3

Edge Performance

Take careful note of the performance at the edges of the screen. The performance at the edge is challenging to tune, and separate from the basic “waviness” test. The iPhone tracks all curve very strongly as you approach the edge of the screen, despite a straight finger trajectory. This is especially obvious at the bottom, where the iPhone has a sensitivity problem.

The Droid Eris [Nexus One] is actually the clear winner for edge performance — the signal tracks right off the edge of the screen very consistently.

[edit] As of time of first writing, we hadn’t tested the Nexus One.  It does slightly better than the Eris.  In fact, they both use the same touch controller IC.

A Quest for High Signal-to-Noise Ratio

To create a superior touchscreen experience, it’s essential to develop a touchscreen sensor that has the highest possible signal-to-noise ratio, or SNR. When a manufacturer gets it right, the device tracks touch inputs almost as if they were connected to physical objects in the real world. Get it wrong and consumers end up with inferior touchscreen systems that are inaccurate, insensitive, and absolutely infuriating to use for typing.

Key drivers of SNR include:

  • Conductive sensor material
  • Substrate material
  • Substrate thickness
  • Distance from display (the biggest noise source)
  • Sensing waveform
  • Sensor pattern
  • Sensor pitch
  • Analog sensing circuitry
  • Sample rate

Touchscreens are a catalyst for innovation and a powerful way for device manufacturers to differentiate their products in an intensely competitive marketplace. But as our demonstration shows, there’s a right way and a wrong way to deploy the technology. MOTO has worked with capacitive touch interfaces for more than 15 years, and here are some essential dos and don’ts for anyone entering the field:

  • Don’t skimp on materials. With touchscreen hardware, manufacturers get what they pay for — and consumers will notice the difference.
  • Allow ample time to develop your algorithms. Don’t treat touchscreen algorithms as an element of component sourcing; for best results, create a distinct touch development track under your own roof to make sure your products are both responsive and accurate.
  • Closely integrate touchscreen hardware, software, and user interaction development, and do so as early as possible in the product development process. Never treat them as separate tasks.

URL Link Labs Moto:

http://labs.moto.com/diy-touchscreen-analysis/

Google’s Nexus One won’t shake Apple’s iPhone to the core… yet

Posted: January 10, 2010 in Industry News, Information communications technology, Mobile Handsets, Mobile Phones, Mobile Technology, Smartphones, Technology
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Posted By, John Naughton, The Observer, Sunday 10 January 2010

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Google Nexus One: the latest mobile to take on the iPhone, which is still the market leader. Photograph: Engadget

Google Nexus One

Last Tuesday, Google finally confirmed it was entering the hardware market by launching its own mobile phone handset. The Nexus One is made to Google’s specifications by HTC, a Taiwanese firm, and runs the latest version of Google’s Android software, an open source operating system already running on a number of handsets, including ones made by HTC and Motorola.

Salivating over a head-to-head contest between Google and Apple, the mainstream news media made as much of it as they could. The BBC even dispatched its technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones, to Google’s HQ, where he dutifully asked if the company thought its new phone would provide competition for Apple’s iPhone. The Google spokesman waffled, but needn’t have bothered. The truth is that, in most respects, the Google phone is inferior to the Apple product.

That’s not to say that it doesn’t have some nice features: a powerful processor chip, for example; the ability to run more than one application at a time; a nice screen with much higher resolution than that of the iPhone; turn-by-turn navigation (with Street View so that you can see your destination); voice recognition software which – depending on who you talk to – works 90% of the time; etc.

But it also has a relatively small number of downloadable apps and very little memory for storing them; no easy way of transferring music files to the device; and the attractiveness of the high-resolution screen is somewhat dented by the fact that it doesn’t support “multi-touch” interactions in the way the Apple product does. Whatever else the Google phone is, an “iPhone killer” it ain’t.

But perhaps that’s intentional. Despite their tender years, the boys who run Google have consistently shown a good grasp of military strategy, the first law of which is always to decline combat on territory dominated by your enemy and fight only on ground where you have the advantage. That’s why for years Google avoided getting into the PC operating system market – Microsoft’s fiefdom – and concentrated instead on search and networked services, where it was overwhelmingly dominant.

This also explains its mobile phone strategy. They recognise that the functional elegance of the iPhone comes from having total control of both the hardware and its software. This kind of integrated mastery, which is Apple’s stock-in-trade, would be difficult to acquire quickly, even for a company as smart as Google.

So they’ve created the software – the Android operating system – then given it away to any handset manufacturer who wants to use it. Google thus effectively arranges that the smartphone market will be flooded by devices which, while not perhaps offering all the functionality of the iPhone, still give consumers more reasons for not buying the Apple device. In that sense, the implicit message of the Nexus One is: “This is what a good non-Apple smartphone could be like; now go forth and multiply.”

This is also implicit in the network strategy Google has devised for the device. You can buy it unlocked for $529 (£330) and use it on any mobile network or get it for $179 (£112) from T-mobile on a two-year contract. Compare that with the iPhone, which is essentially tethered to contracts with network operators of Apple’s choosing in each of the 94 countries where it’s on offer. If this works, it will mean that the mobile phone market will soon have lots of non-Apple smartphones providing their users with internet connections on the move, together with access to location-based advertising and other services.

Google’s nightmare is that Apple might get a dominant grip on the mobile internet and its associated advertising business. This isn’t just paranoia. Last week news broke that Apple is acquiring a mobile advertising outfit called Quattro Wireless for a reported $275m. So Google’s fears about Steve Jobs & Co are rational, fuelled by the realisation that the days when Apple was just a quirky computer manufacture have long gone; its current market cap ($193bn) makes it nearly as valuable as Google ($198bn).

And Apple has been building a substantial cloud-computing infrastructure, including a $1bn data centre, which is possibly the world’s largest server farm, in North Carolina. The iPhone/Nexus competition is interesting, but is really only a skirmish in what might become an interesting war.

URL Link to the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/10/google-nexus-one-apple-iphone

How Mobile Search And Display Ads Could Become Goldmine For Local Businesses

Posted: January 8, 2010 in Customer Relationship Marketing, Digital Marketing, Display advertising, Industry News, Information communications technology, Location Based Services, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Internet, Mobile Search, Mobile Technology, Search Marketing, SMS Marketing, Technology, Trade Associations
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Posted By, by Laurie Sullivan, Friday 8th Jan, 5:26 PM

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Google has been testing the inclusion of click-to-call phone numbers in search ads on high-end mobile phones, a spokesperson confirmed. It’s a feature that fits in nicely with Nexus One, Google’s mobile phone announced earlier this week.

In anticipation of rolling out the feature more broadly, Google contacted several AdWords advertisers to advise them that it plans to extend the feature to their AdWords accounts. It’s similar to a cost-per-call service where the advertiser is charged for the click to call the same way you might get charged for clicks from an ad to a Web site.

When MediaPost asked Google late last month about displaying phone numbers in ads and charging advertisers when calls are initiated, the Mountain View, Calif. search engine had nothing to report. Now the company says it will have more details when the feature is finally rolled out.

Google had few words to say about mobile search, advertising or business models during the Nexus One press conference earlier this week. That’s when it announced the phone. But as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft make investments and push harder into mobile, many industry experts believe local businesses could have the most to gain through online search and display mobile advertising.

The intersection of local and mobile creates two distinct and huge ad opportunities, especially for small businesses, according to Kevin Lee, chief executive officer at Didit, New York. “National advertisers with regional footprints will certainly need to spend on mobile,” he says. “Plus, there are millions of small businesses who would love to grow but need something other than search engine advertising.”

Andrew Shotland, owner of Local SEO Guide, a SEO in Pleasanton, Calif., has a different perspective on the topic. He says if Nexus One is the “on ramp” for more people to get into mobile search, then you will see opportunities for small businesses in mobile advertising, but he doesn’t believe Google’s phone does anything out of the ordinary that any smartphone can do.

On second thought, Shotland says, “the voice search is pretty killer and it’s a key step in the evolution of mobile search, but I don’t think it’s specific to local.”

Using search engines to comparison shop has become a major service offered by Microsoft’s Bing for mobile. The huge opportunity for retailers resides in a search query that ties eventually to a sale, whether through a browser or application through an mcommerce-enabled mobile site, or being driven into the store and finding it stocked on the aisle.

Speaking with MediaPost on Wednesday, Jamie Wells, director of global trade marketing for the Mobile Media group at Microsoft, says it’s the next opportunity and the next hot area for search. “If you look at the classic purchase funnel, this really is the last mile,” he says. “You invest all this money in television, outdoor and radio to drive awareness — the last thing you want to do is allow a competitor to swoop in and undercut all that investment. You want to make sure to complete the sale. That’s what mobile search will do.”

Many functions related to mobile search have been available, but Yahoo, Microsoft and Google are beginning to see a rise in use. Increased search activity, competitive pricing for mobile advertising between search engines, and qwerty keyboards in more mobile phones allow for longer search queries. Google’s recently announced voice search technology should help boost efforts, too.

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) estimates that wireless handsets, which contribute more than 30% of total wireless phone shipments, will become the primary driver for revenue this year for electronics. Smartphones should lead the way, generating nearly $17 billion in shipment revenue and more than 52 million unit sales in 2010, according to the CEA.

That push requires more support through agencies for companies of all sizes. Agencies have typically been shy when it comes to investing in people like Patrick Moorhead, who moved to Draftcb from Razorfish last year to become vice president and director of mobile platforms.

Moorhead’s charter at Draftcb is to help the agency realize investments in technology and strategy, and educate all aspects of company divisions, from media planning to creative services. It also means helping clients understand they can’t — and should not — ignore search and display mobile advertising, especially small companies.

A mobile campaign and strategy can put small companies on a more even footing with larger competitors. He says advertisers need to step up and create a strategy, and stop thinking they can just test mobile in a six-week campaign to see what happens. “Creating an iPhone app and calling it a mobile strategy just isn’t enough,” Moorhead says.

The barriers have been dropping to enable all the “dream” devices that consumers have been speculating about for years. For example, there has been time to add mobile into the marketing mix and invest in the basic infrastructure to support SMS messaging as a component of CRM, Moorhead says, but they haven’t taken it seriously. Now it’s time.

URL Link to Mediapost:

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=120265

Google’s not so secret weapon in selling the Nexus One: Search dominance

Posted: January 8, 2010 in Information communications technology, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Handsets, Mobile Phones, Mobile Search, Mobile Technology, Online Advertising, Search, Search Marketing, Technology, Telecommunications
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My Comments on the below article:

I think the strategy is sound and I don’t blame Google for doing it.  At the end of the day, if the device is good consumers will buy it, in the end word of mouth is enough to spread the buzz. Give it the intial push and create awareness and see it spread like wildfire.  You got to give it to Google, with the AdMob acquisition and launch of Android they are well positioned to dominate the mobile market through technology and advertising.  They also have access to all that iphone data on user behavior on the AdMob media network.  This is so clever as I am sure this data will shape the way the Android is developed in the coming years.  They will be one step ahead of their competitors all the time!

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Posted 07 January 2010 21:57pm by Meghan Keane

When it comes to selling smartphones, it pays to be the king of search. Google jumped directly into the smartphone seas this week with the launch of the Nexus One. One of the first things the search giant did (besides open an online store to sell the phone) was put a big ad for the phone on its homepage.

That’s prime real estate, especially considering that the pristine page is generally ad free. But Google has other tricks when it comes to search that could be more dubious. Like manipulating search results and blocking advertising on its trademarks.   

Google doesn’t like to think of itself as a media company, but as the search giant acquires content startups and starts selling its own products, the lines are getting blurry.

Google’s smartphone is the first phone sold directly to consumers online. It is not sold in stores and has almost no real estate on T-Mobile’s site save for a searchable link that points users to Google’s online store.

But Google has ways around these handicaps. For starters, there’s that covetable slot on google’s homepage. According to Compete.com, Google.com gets over 146 million unique U.S. visitors a month, so that’s nothing to sneeze at. But few Googlers actually go to the search engine’s homepage anymore. More intriguing are the spots that the Nexus gets in Google’s search results. And those are also more complicated.

Back when Google put an ad for T-Mobile’s G1 on its homepage, there was outrage that Google was gifting itself such enviable ad space when it had denied such placement to other companies. But Google wasn’t bumping anyone else off the page to put links to its own products up there.

In the case of paid and organic search results for its products, that may be exactly what’s happening. Google has earned this criticism before and the company insists that it has an AdSense account and pays for Google search ads just like everyone else.

But when you’re paying your own company for prime placement, it still seems a bit unfair. And that could be what’s going on now with the Nexus.

When I searched for “smartphone” earlier today, Nexus One was the top paid result, and the only brand that appeared in organic results on the page:

Results look a lot different when you go to other search engines. My search results for “smartphone” on Bing and Yahoo didn’t return a single result for the Nexus, but plenty of links to competitors’ websites. Meanwhile, Google either isn’t selling ads to competitors on the term “Nexus One” or none have been purchased yet. But a search for “Nexus One” on Bing shows up with Blackberry links on the top and bottom of the page.

Considering the large marketshare that Google has in search, slight favoring of its products could become a thorny issue, especially as Google grows into the content business.

According to Google publicist Jake Hubert:

“Like hundreds of thousands of other businesses, we believe in the value of search marketing to connect with web users.

With regards to the organic search results, our philosophy has always been to not manually intervene with search results (unless a site violates our policies or we must for legal reasons). The ranking of search results is decided by our algorithms, using the contributions of the greater Internet community.”

But no one knows the details of how Google’s algorithm chooses its placements. And according to Andrew Goodman, President of Page Zero Media:

“What’s important about this is that it’s just one instance of a problem that could grow in all directions. It started out as a question mark five years ago when people realized that Google was potentially getting into different verticals.”

While other advertisers have to pay full price to appear in the search engines’ results, Google has much more leeway in how it presents itself there.

Because so much of Google’s search algorithm is unknown, it’s hard to say exactly what propels the placement of a result onto the first page of search terms. The results are personalized and change constantly, and while Google has never aggregiously abused its search algorithms to benefit its own products, that ability is well within the company’s power. Says Goodman:

“It’s not longer a question that Google can manipulate results. They can.”

A more pressing concern is whether anything should be done about it. Mark Schwartz, managing parnter of SteakNY, thinks Google is acting within its rights:

“It’s no surprise they are pulling out all the stops, after all it’s their product and their marketing tools. Why not take full advantage of everything they have to offer?”

But as Google expands into growing markets, its search moves are going to be watched with increasing scrutiny. And on top of attracting inquiries from antitrust regulators, Google has to worry about breaching the trust of its users. When Google launched, the company’s original promise to keep its homepage ad free set it in stark relief to other search engines out there. As Google CEO Eric Schmidt said just last summer:

“People wouldn’t like [ads on the homepage]. We prioritize the end user over the advertiser.”

But while Google cares about users more than its advertising clients, the company cares about its bottom line even more. Says Goodman:

“Promoting their own products from the homepage is breaking a promise that Google implicitly made to searchers a decade ago.”

If the company is also shifting search results in favor of its own products on a regular basis, upstarts like Bing may be getting even more users than they bargained for. And soon.

URL Link to econsultancy:

http://econsultancy.com/blog/5204-google-s-not-so-secret-weapon-in-selling-the-nexus-one-search-dominance#blog_comment_20560

Is Google’s Nexus One phone any good?

Posted: January 8, 2010 in Industry News, Information communications technology, Mobile Handsets, Mobile Phones, Mobile Technology, Technology, Telecommunications
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The screen is fantastic, it links superbly with your online Google account – but does it have what it takes to win over iPhone obsessives? Posted By, Bobbie Johnson, The Guardian, Friday 8 January 2010

The Nexus One phone from Google

The Nexus One phone from Google Photograph: Jeff Chiu/ASSOCIATED PRESS

At first glance, the Nexus One doesn’t look like a revolution waiting to happen. In fact, Google’s much heralded rival to the Apple iPhone looks remarkably similar to almost every high-end mobile phone released in the last two years: big black screen with small button at the bottom. But as soon as you switch on the handset and swipe your finger across the screen to unlock it, it is clear this is more than just another also-ran.

The first thing that strikes you is how incredibly bright and clear the screen is. It’s a 3.7in, low-power, “organic LED” screen that doesn’t need backlighting and allows deep, clear blacks and vivid colours. In terms of visibility, it’s streets ahead of the competition: a gang of Nexus One users waving their prized gadgets in the air could probably send a signal into space.

The second thing that leaps at your eyeballs is the animated background. Whether you’ve got rippling pools of water or computerised lights zipping around the screen, the constant movement whenever you’re using the phone breathes a strange sort of life into this static object.

Above all, though, you are stepping through a portal into Google’s world. On first use, the phone prompts you to log into your Google account – within seconds it has synchronised your email, web searches, contacts book and any other information you happen to keep with the company. Convenient for you, but also – thanks to the constant stream of data being fed back to California – handy for Google. You’re now a satellite-tracked, walking, talking, web-surfing recruit into Google’s informationalised army.

Despite this nagging feeling that you’ve stepped into the pages of Nineteen Eighty-Four, becoming one of Google’s disciples boasts some impressive benefits. Browsing the web is fast, the powerful five-megapixel camera-phone with built-in flash should make the all-important business of taking good photos a doddle. The really futuristic extra, though, is “voice search”. On other handsets, including the iPhone, this addition seems like a gimmick – hey, what kind of dimwit talks to their phone? – but the accuracy and speed of the Nexus One makes it feels like something from Star Trek. I asked for “toy shops in San Francisco” and it found me a (Google) map of local toy shops in a couple of seconds. Combine this with the phone’s simplified “in-car mode” display and ability to speak turn-by-turn directions, and it spells goodbye to satnav.

The downsides are its appearance – sleek but bland, made from a dull, metallic-looking plastic – and the small, rubber trackball that sits under your thumb, which feels like an awkward afterthought (although it does glow in different colours to let you know when the phone is charging or connected via Bluetooth).

But a big “miss” is the feature that makes the iPhone so simple to use: multi-touch. While the Nexus One’s single-finger prodding works well enough, there’s none of the pinching action to zoom into maps and photographs that makes the iPhone feel so advanced, nor its realistic-feel friction. Google’s on-screen keyboard feels cramped, too, and won’t completely satisfy text freaks and heavy emailers.

Also missing is the depth of downloadable applications that have turned the iPhone into something much more like a mini-computer. There are plenty of programs available through the Android Market (and Google is, of course, encouraging armies of coders to feverishly build more), but there is still nowhere near the volume you can get for Apple’s gizmo.

Then, of course, there’s the price. Salivating British gadget fans can buy one now from Google’s US shop – without a sim card or contract – for £330, and Vodafone is scrambling to make it available on a contract here for significantly less. But even then, it’s unlikely to come cheap.

What ultimately justifies the price, Google argues, is the phone’s sheer power. And the thing certainly is fast, with the memory and processing guts equivalent to a top-of-the-range laptop from eight or nine years ago.

But will it beat the iPhone? This debut model falls short of the smooth and totally intuitive design that Apple came up with. Google prides itself on being a company of engineers, and – despite all its bells and whistles – the Nexus One still leaves behind an aftertaste of nerdiness.

URL Link to the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/08/google-nexus-one-phone

Google launches rival to Apple iPhone with Nexus One

Posted: January 5, 2010 in Industry News, Information communications technology, Mobile Phones, Telecommunications
Tags: , , ,
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My comment on the below article:

I have heard from colleagues this is a pretty good phone and Android are upping their game in trying to compete with Apple’s iphone.  I have not used the phone myself but my instincts tell me Apple will still be on top.

Google launches rival to Apple iPhone with Nexus OneGoogle is expected to launch its new mobile phone, the Nexus One, today taking on Apple’s iPhone.

The unveiling is expected to be made at the internet giant’s HQ in Silicon Valley but details have already being leaked after a support page at Google.com temporarily went live before the mistake was realised and the page taken down.

As well as support details on how to get started and activate the new touch screen handset, the page also offered video walkthroughs of new enhancements.

The phone is powered around Google’s Android software, which was launched earlier as a means of ‘moving sideways’ into the mobile market.

Created by Taiwanese manufacturer HTC, the Nexus One has a five megapixel camera compared with the iPhone’s three megapixels and has a 3.7in screen

Experts are already giving the phone the thumbs up with videos of the handset in action already posted on YouTube.

It’s hoped the launch will reveal details on final prices and a release date for the UK market, though it has been speculated that the price tag will be around $530 (£328).

With smart phones dramatically driving mobile marketing forward, it’s important that Google gets involved in an emerging global market.

As a mobile operator it will be able to reach hundreds of millions of people around the world enabling them to use Google tools.

See the phone in action below.

URL Link to Utalkmarketing:

http://www.utalkmarketing.com/pages/Article.aspx?ArticleID=16469&Title=Google_launches_rival_to_Apple_iPhone_with_Nexus_One