…almost eveyone.

As you probably know, the Android based G1 has officially seen the light of day and, so far, it’s getting a big thumbs up. Well, apart from Ulf Washbusch, (ex-Product Marketing Manager for Google Mobile). Ulf has created a blog post which criticises the G1:

It’s funny - but the first time I heard about Android was about 2.5 years ago, when Eric Schmidt told me about the device at Stanford after I got a job offer from Google (yet before I accepted it!). Since then I have seen many iterations of the software. The software. Not the device itself, because sadly it hasn’t changed in many years. The reason many people see the phone as ugly and old-fashioned is simply… because it IS! It’s a design unchanged for at least two years, without iterations on it besides color schemas (it’s now available in Zune-brown along with white and black) and the silly ‘with Google’ description on the back. Don’t ask me what ‘with Google’ means. I didn’t understand it back then and still don’t understand it today.

So I guess he doesn’t want to work for Google ever again! There are a couple of points that Ulf raised that seem to be a common cry amongst people who have seen the G1 - ‘Where do I plug in my headphones?’ and ‘No video player?’. For some strange reason, the powers that be have seen no to include a 3.5mm headphone jack or built-in video file support! That’s fine, I’ll play YouTube media at full volume on a ‘low cost data plan’! Come on Google/T-Mobile, you’ll have to do better than that.

Some valid points Ulf but I’m not sure how well your current employers, MySpace, will view these comments considering their recent collaboration with Google on Open Social!

Popularity: 49% [?]

aka Android based handset

It hasn’t been officially launched yet but images are already in the wild. Do a little digging on the T-Mobile site and you’ll shots like this:

The handset, apparently designated G1, will be officially unveiled later today. Cometh the hour, cometh the insatiable hordes - there seems to be a huge appetite for info on this handset with little or no marketing on Google or T-Mobiles part. Not surprisingly, Google participation is enough to guarantee a huge following.

So, it’s only a matter of hours before we get the official announcement. In the meantime and just in case you haven’t seen them, here’s the rumoured G1 specs:

• One touch access to: Search, Maps, Gmail, Youtube, Calendar, and Google Talk
• Gmail account and data plan required
• GPS
• 3.1 MegaPixel camera
• Dimensions: 4.6 x 2.16 x 0.63 in
• Weight 5.6 ounces
• 480×320 65K color screen
• 5 hour talk time, 130 hour standby time
• Expandable up to 8GB

Popularity: 49% [?]

…according to Google

Figures forecasthing the sale of up to 130,000+ Android handsets are being touted by Google and T-Mobile. Apparently, the sheer level of anticipation over the Android-based mobile phones has analyists suggesting sales in the region of 400,000 handsets by 2009. Whilst I agree that there would appear to be a strong interest in Android handsets, I’m not so sure these figures add up especially when you consider how little marketing has been done so far. This means that the end of year market share of 4% that Google and T-Mobile want will be extremely hard going.

Now, if you think that T-Mobile is aiming high, take a look at this - HTC and Google are thinking even bigger. Some rumours suggest that around 700,000 handsets will shipped worldwide in order to prevent shortages! Now that’s thinking big.

HTC and T-Mobile are the only companies looking for big gains. Apple has sold a huge number of iPhones, both generation 1 and 3G, albeit on the back of a lot of hype and a huge marketing campaign. But they’re not stopping there. Jobs and Co are hoping to sell 10 million iPhones by 2009!

The key battleground for Google and Apple will be the availability of apps that can be used to customise the handsets. Currently, 1 - 0 to Apple but we mustn’t forget that the Android OS is Linux based and will have huge appeal to the Open Source commmunity. This rather clever move on the part of Google could just tip the odds.

I’m going to put my feet up with a beer and watch as battle commences. By the time the dust settles…I’ll be very drunk!

Popularity: 31% [?]

Only £2.99, but only for a limited time. This app, which puts Google Earth on your iPhone, usually costs $10. Now I have to admit it’s pretty impressive; touch screen control of Google Earth and integration into the iPhones GPS makes this application a must have - even if only for the ‘look at me’ factor!

Other nice little features include highlight locations with Wikipedia information and Flickr phont’s, where provided. You can even take photos of locations visited and add them to the Earthscape database. This images can then be presented to other users with geotags attached.

Admittedly, Google Earth is free but the level of integration in EarthScape puts makes it worth every penny.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Google Dominates

We all know that Google pretty much owns search, for now. One day, a new competitor will capture users imagination and knock Google of the perch but in the meantime the search giant is building up its empire. A report from comScore yesterday revealed the latest figures for online video viewing - guess what? Yeah, Googles YouTube won. Sorry, did I say ‘won’? I meant annihilated the competition! Nearly half of all the video views were served by Google.

In July, figures show that over 11 billion videos were watched online with Google accounting for 5 billion of those views. Googles closest rival was Fox Interactive (think MySpace TV) with only 445 million views. Microsoft trailed into third place with almost 283 million videos.

The figures for unique visits were equally impressive: Google with 92 million unique viewers in July, Fox Interactive on nearly 55 million viewers, and Yahoo in third position with 32 million unique viewers.

The current expectations are that Google will win everytime, but not to this extent. These figures are real slap in the face, especially for Fox Interactive who forked out $580 million dollars for MySpace. Time for a new plan of attack from Fox, Microsoft and Yahoo before it gets too embarassing.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Alongside contextual ads, of course!

Google announced yesterday that they are expanding historical newspaper archives that users can search online. Google will scanning the archives of a number of partnering newspapers then making the results available on Google’s News Archive Search.

The technology uses optical character recognition to scan and distinguish between headlines and text - basically, it’s an extension of Googles book scanning technolgies.

Unsurprisingly, the news archives results will run contextual ads from Google AdSense with click revenue will being shared with the original publishers. The service will initially launch with millions of articles which will extended in due course.

An interesting point to come out of this technology is Googles hope that the new offering will drive print subscriptions:

“This is built on scanning technology we built for Google Books, but with some new features.

We’ve already started this with books and maps, now we will do it with newspapers. Viewers will see it in their original context, can pan around and search. We will widen the user base and readership of news archives.

We already have News Archive search. You will see an interface similar to Google Books search. But our engineers have built in new algorithms to figure out [things like] what is a headline. As I mouse over the page, headlines are highlighted in blue, indicatingtheir clickability. When you click on something, it centers the story, and zooms in. You can do a snapback to the original article. In the sidebar, in addition to sponsored links we have related articles you can click on.”

Looks like another massive money spinner for the kings of search!

Popularity: 29% [?]

The end of tagging by hand

Looking back, it would seem that Picasa was just left hanging by Google. That’s all set to change on Monday with the launch of facial recognition which should you identify friends and family in your pictures without requiring you to tag them by-hand each time you see them.

The new feature works by suggesting tags for people based on the similarity between their face in the picture and the tags you already put in place for them. This new technology is courtesy of Googles acquistion of Neven Vision, a company specialising in matching facial details with images already stored in a central database.

As yet there’s no guarantee the tech will work but there is a setback - the system works best when users directly face the camera but has problems if they’re not.

It’s a start, now let’s see who gets matched to my ‘horses arse’ photo!

Popularity: 23% [?]

..in Japan.

Figures from Nielson Japan show that Yahoo took 76% of the 350 billion-ish search engine and portal-related pageviews leaving Google trailing far behind with about 5.4%. he figures translate to 21.9 billion pageviews for Yahoo and 2.2 billion for Google. That’s some catching up to do.

To most of us, it might not seem like a big thing until you find out that Japan has one of  the highest levels of internet penetration in the world (about 74%). This makes the Japanese market a key battleground for ad revenue. So how does Google beat Yahoo?

Mobile Web! By targetting Japanese mobile phone companies Google is seeking to sneak in the back door via pre-installed apps on handsets. Docomo and KDDI have integrated Google Search into their start menus which means users get content from mobile and web sites (plus ads, of course!).

Japanese users can also access Google Calendar, Youtube and other Google services. Some Docomo handsets are even being shipped with Google Maps pre-installed.

The question is, ‘Will it be enough?’. I’m not sure,  Internet portals are still big business in Japan and Yahoo caters to that need. Looks like Google are trying to ignore this and draw in users of mobile web apps. It may be successful but only if Google manage to persuade a whole nation of users that the Google way is best.

Popularity: 48% [?]

Another 3 years in the love shack.

That’s right, you can expect to see Google as the default search option inside Firefox for another 3 years or so. The original deal was originally supposed to expire in 2006 but the two internet darlings tied up for another two years. The latest deal should run until 2011.

The Mozilla foundation does well out of this deal - to the tune of $57 million in 2006. That’s in the region of 85% of Mozillas total revenue! Don’t jump the gun; this money allows Mozilla to pay for further development of the Firefox browser, bandwidth and infrastructure services. There is one downside - Mozilla is almost totally reliant on Googles money. Without it we might now see the polished product that Firefox currently is.

Makes me wonder why Goolge haven’t bought Mozilla yet, just think of the potential - a Firefox derivative to replace the traditional OS.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Gunning for Apple?

Based on the answer given at the Android Fireside, I’d say ‘Yes’. During the discussion, one of the audience members threw up this quesition; ‘Will there be technology provided to support content distribution?’.

The answer…

“We’ve thought about it. It would be a great benefit to the Android community if there’s a place people can go to safely and securely download their content and have a billing system so that developers can get paid for their effort, and I have nothing to announce today, we’ve thought of it…We wouldn’t have done our job if we didn’t provide something that helps developers get distribution.” –Andy Rubin

There you have it. Looks like Googles Android shotgun has both barrels aimed squarely at Apple!

Is it just me, or can you feel a Google monopoly growing here?

Popularity: 5% [?]