Google's New G1 Android

Google Launches The Android G1 To Compete With Apple's iPhone
Similar look but with Some Unique New Features

Move Over iPhone Make Room For ANDROID



The Google Android G1 is going to change the way cell phone users interact with Google's client advertisers. But are serious consumers and business people going to embrace it? One Blogger says NO!

Canada Is On Hold

It’s inevitable that Google’s Android mobile operating system will show up in Canada, at some point on some device. We don’t expect Rogers to release the G1 in Canada. It doesn’t address an underserved core market need. The current iteration of the phone lacks consumer and business functionality, relative to other smart phones, with the hope that developers will follow up the release with applications to fill in the blanks.

This first generation Google phone certainly seems rushed to market. Perhaps following Google’s philosophy of perpetual beta or ‘launch early and iterate’. This philosophy seems to serve them well when the product is free. We don’t think it plays well when the product costs $179 plus a two year service contract commitment.

Some of the more material deficiencies:

• Visually the G1 hardware is very 2006. HTC are masters of ugly utilitarian sliders. It may be superficial to some, but design is important.
• Non-standard headphone jack. Add the extra 3.5mm headphone HTC, LG, and you other cell phone manufacturers! Wake up! People like to use their existing headphones or purchase better headphones. All headphones have standard jacks. The cheap crappy non standard jack headphones you ship with phones do not cut it. Carrying an extra mini-USB adaptor with your mobile is a pain.
• Only one Google account per phone. Breaking news for you folks at Google - most people have multiple email accounts. Even multiple Gmail accounts. With the one Google account per G1 phone lock, you have handicapped your phone with your own applications relative to other smartphones.
• Contacts and Syncing. Nice attempt at trying to get us to move all of our contacts over to the Google cloud. See the previous note regarding multiple email accounts. Similarly, our contacts exist in several places for multiple reasons. Now as our contacts change on our other platforms, perhaps Outlook/Exchange at work, we need to regularly upload them to Gmail Contacts just to access them from the G-Phone. Nice and convenient not.
• No video playback except for YouTube. Not as important to us but people out there do seem to care.
• No multi-touch. The trackball and browser controls are okay but multi-touch has been public now for almost two years and it’s great.

Most customers will rightfully pass on the G1. If you are a consumer user, the iPhone is worlds ahead. If you are a business user, then RIM has a great Blackberry for you. Expect geek aspirers to choose the G1. Real geeks work on Linux Mobile devices or highly powerful Nokia N95/N96 hardware.

Not all is bad. Android seems to be a good, lightweight, and powerful mobile operating system. Given Google’s ability to fund its development and sustain it through low market share, it should continue to get even better. Within the next 18 months, we should begin to see Android on much better devices from Samsung and others.

We don’t think that Apple or RIM have to worry at this point but Android is certainly a direct threat to the Linux Mobile and Windows Mobile operating systems. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft responds. The Mobile OS space is long overdue for a shakeout.

The new G1 has a few enhancements which the iPhone does not presently have including a slide out keyboard and a Trackball.

Introducing the Google Breathalyzer

Goggle's Mail Goggles will help you in the blurry times. :: AP

If we scan the globe with Google Earth, will we actually be able to see Google extending its tentacles to every arena in the world? Ruling the search, e-mail and (possibly) phone worlds wasn't enough, so now Google's getting in on the breathalyzer action, too. Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to introduce you to Mail Goggles, a tool that, when enabled, forces users to answer math questions before sending regrettable late-night e-mails. It's the trusty, non-judgmental, sober friend you've always wanted. We're not sure where history will place this among the greatest inventions of all time, but we've got to assume it'll rank up there with the toothbrush, indoor plumbing and refrigeration.

Google Offers Free Web Analytics to Advertisers

Google is today releasing the latest version of its Urchin hosted analytics service - now dubbed Google Analytics - which will be free to AdWords advertisers and would likely attract more advertisers to sign up, reports ClickZ. Google began charging $199 per month for the service starting in May, lowering it from the $495 it was charging after it acquired Urchin in March.

In the latest version, which will be available in 16 languages, Google has added customized dashboards for different types of users: webmasters, marketers and executives. The software is also integrated with AdWords.

Marketers can access both website and AdWords analytics through one interface. They can also automatically tag each keyword and track it - as well as ROI, via the automatic importing of keyword pricing data. Initiatives in other channels - e.g., email, banner ads - can also be tracked.

Google has also developed a help center, including a section that explains key analytics concepts. And it has trained sales reps to help its larger advertisers.

"My suspicion is that the available market of companies that could benefit from Google Analytics numbers in the millions worldwide," according to JupiterResearch analyst Eric Peterson. "A secondary audience is the millions of bloggers in the world who don't have any visibility into the traffic their posts generate."

Google to launch AdSense for Games

Game publishers can add video, display and text ads

By Mike Shields, Mediaweek

Google is making an aggressive play in the online gaming world, as the search giant announced it will expand its AdSense product to various Web-based gaming sites and platforms.

Like Google AdSense for publishers, which allows Web sites and blogs of all sizes to add text links to ads delivered by Google to their pages on a self-serve basis, Google's AdSense for Games has been designed to enable game publishers large and small to monetize their game by adding video, display and text ads from the company. However, at launch, Google is limiting AdSense for Games to publishers, who produce games that have a minimum level of usage.

Among Google's initial partners is Mochi Media, a company which provides distribution and analytics tools for a network of small game publishers, many of whom create games that are built to travel across the Internet--anywhere from pure gaming sites to personal blogs. Google's deal with Mochi will initially focus solely on international ad inventory.

It appears with this move, Google has decided at least for now to focus more on the low hanging fruit in the nascent in-game ad world--casual Web based games that easily accommodate online advertising. Back in February of 2007, the company acquired the startup in-game ad firm Adscape Media, which to many signaled that Google may look to aggressively challenge companies like Microsoft's Massive Inc., which specializes in delivering ads within PC and console games. Yet to date, Adscape has been conspicuously quiet, though there have been whispers that Google will eventually launch an ad-supported virtual world.

Mike Shields is a senior editor for Mediaweek.

Google Tacks On 10 More Years To E-Mail Archiving Program

By Michele Masterson, ChannelWeb

Aimed at businesses that need to retain and store e-mail, Google (NSDQ:GOOG) has added 10 more years to its e-mail archiving service, Google Message Discover.

"Regulations and guidelines like the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure put pressure on IT organizations to ensure that e-mail is properly retained and can be reliably located and preserved in the event of legal discovery," Google said in a company blog. "Coupled with the growing importance of e-mail as a store of intellectual property, e-mail archiving has become both legally necessary and critical to the operation of your business."

According to a Google whitepaper, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure applies "to virtually all organizations, in all industries, including private, public and non-profit organizations. In short, if an organization can have a civil lawsuit filed against it, then the FRCP should figure prominently in that organization's data management strategy."

The hosted archiving service costs a flat fee of $45 per user per year for up to 10 years of retention, and includes spam, virus, policy-based TSL encryption, audit reporting and content filtering, via security solutions from Google subsidiary Postini. A one-year subscription to Google Message Discovery services costs $25 per year.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based message archiving system can be used with Lotus Domino 6.5-7x; Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) Exchange Server 2000 or 2003, standard or enterprise editions; Microsoft Small Business Server With Exchange Server 2000 or 2003, standard or enterprise editions; and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.

The messaging security market is big business and poised for growth. According to a study by IDC last year, the industry is expected to double from $2 billion in 2006 to $4.8 billion in 2011.

Elsewhere in the industry, MessageLabs, the largest hosted security services company was acquired Wednesday by Symantec (NSDQ:SYMC) for $695 million in cash.

Symantec said that MessageLabs is the No. 1 provider of online messaging security worldwide with more than eight million end users at more than 19,000 clients ranging from small business to the Fortune 500. Symantec plans to cross-sell and up-sell its existing SaaS offerings of backup, storage and online remote access into the MessageLabs customer base.

Google launches map making tool

VERONICA C. SILVA, GMANews.TV

Google, Inc. on Wednesday announced the availability of a new map-making tool that will allow members of the internet community to add and share information on the internet about the user’s local geography.

The Philippines joins 121 other countries for which Google developed its Map Maker tool to get more users online.

In a press briefing in Makati City, Google Product Marketing Manager for Asia Pacific Jason Chuck demonstrated how online users can collaborate to bring accurate and up-to-date data that other internet users can find to be valuable either for information, business and other uses.

“Google Map Maker is a tool based on Google Maps where users can interface to solve key problems," said Chuck.

Among these key problems that internet users encounter is the lack of comprehensive and up-to-date information about a certain geography, particularly for a local area.

The Philippines joins other countries in lacking high quality maps, said Chuck. “Google Map Maker is a simple tool that allows internet users to create and annotate maps," he added.

Compared to traditional, maybe even paper-based maps, Google Map Maker leverages on the knowledge of local internet users, including experts, who may be more knowledgeable about a local geography.

“Since the map data is collected from people who have first-hand knowledge of the area, the information becomes more meaningful and relevant to users," Chuck stated in a prepared statement.

To verify the accuracy of the data submitted, the internet community helps moderate the entries by voting.

Chuck said Google Map Maker has several uses—for education, research, business, hazard mitigation and environmental protection. It also has economic uses such as tourism promotion and agricultural forecasting.

In a statement, Google quoted a geologist as saying that the tool is helpful to students.

Dr. Carlo A. Arcilla, Director of state-run University of the Philippines (UP) National Institute of Geological Sciences said the tool can help geology students actually apply what they have learned by contributing their own geographic information. “I intend to use Google Map Maker as part of class activities to encourage my students to become contributors," Arcilla added.

The Philippine's official map maker said it can also use Google Map Maker.

In the same prepared statement, Google quoted the National Mapping Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA) as saying that it also uses Google Earth and Google Maps as one of its tools to cross-reference their map data and keep it updated.

Another application of the Google Map Maker is for business, particularly for small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs).

Chuck said businesses can use Google Map Maker to make their presence felt on the internet.

For instance, SMEs themselves can edit the map to pinpoint their exact location.

With this, hopefully, the SMEs can gain more customers.

Chuck said the Philippines is one of the focus countries of the California-based company because the country has a good internet user market.

The Philippines has always been among the first countries to benefit from Google’s products and services.

Besides having a localized Google search page (www.google.com.ph), Google recently released its new internet browser Chrome which is also available in Filipino.

Chuck noted that many Filipinos are even on YouTube, a video-sharing web site which Google acquired in 2006. - GMANews.TV

Google man asks Internet to name his baby

A Google employee and his wife are asking Internet users to choose the name of their child.

Jason Morrison has posted a poll on his personal website, inviting members of the public to vote on what he should call his baby, who is due in November.

Jason Morrison and his wife Ann have turned to the internet for help naming their baby. [Agencies]

He has proposed 17 different names – nine if the baby is a girl, eight if it’s a boy – and is also allowing visitors to the site to suggest their own alternatives.

Olivia currently has most votes in the girl category, some distance ahead of Ada in second place. Dylan is the most popular boy's name, although Alexander, Isaac, Levi and Nicholas have all received significant backing.

Mr Morrison, from Ohio in the United States, originally sent the link to friends and colleagues at Google, but his unique poll has now been picked up by several popular internet forums, and votes are flooding in.

The programmer and web developer says that he and his wife turned to the web after failing to find inspiration from baby name websites and other more orthodox sources.

“As a Googler, though, the answer should have been obvious - let the Internet do it,” he said.

“So that’s what we’re doing, opening up our baby’s name to an Internet-wide vote.”

Online polls have shown themselves vulnerable to mischievous surfers – football fans north of the border famously hijacked a poll to name a footbridge outside the new Wembley Stadium with a wave of votes for Scottish player Jim Baxter – so Mr Morrison and his wife have given themselves an escape clause.

“We do reserve the right to ignore the results of the poll completely. Otherwise we’ll end up with a kid named Mr Splashy Pants,” he writes on his blog.

Finally! Google to Offer RSS Feeds for Web Search Results

A rumor that's been floating around the web lately is that Google will offer RSS feeds for new results in basic web search. Today Search Engine Land confirmed that Google will "soon" offer this functionality. Why is this big news? Because there's no better way to keep track of new mentions of a company, person or concept online than through RSS.


As Search Engine Land's Matt McGee points out in his post, Google is the only major web search engine to not offer feeds for basic web search, as they do in blog search and news. We'd previously recommended Live.com for web search feeds, but who really cares about Live.com search results? They're terrible. Google feeds are good news.

Google says that the new feeds will be part of the Google Alerts product, which currently delivers e-mail alerts for new search results in web, blog and other result types. Google Alerts are widely used but are, we'd argue, like training wheels for people not yet comfortable with RSS feeds. There's nothing wrong with that, but many of us want our feeds.

Though blogs and news sites are of growing importance, there's still nothing quite like good old Web Search for getting a broad picture of who is linking where and what kind of online mentions are occurring. Google says it cannot confirm when the web search feeds will be available.

We hope that Google web search feeds will include "site:" searches for new mentions of keywords inside particular domains (Live and Yahoo do), and that they will deliver nice clean direct URLs - which Live.com feeds do but Yahoo search feeds do not.

There's still no alerts or feeds available for Google Image Search, probably because the index is so woefully behind the web at large.

Google Starts To Classify Content Types In Web Search

Like other search engines, Google already distinguishes between various types of content. You can search specifically for images, videos, books, blog posts, and so forth. Google has separate search engines for each. But two recent changes suggest that Google is improving its ability to classify different types of content that’s gathered from ordinary web pages.

Search Engine Roundtable points to a discussion on WebmasterWorld about the addition of dates at the beginning of some search results — something Michael Gray spotted in mid-September. From my personal experience, this seems to be happening mostly on content that Google can identify as blog posts and news articles — but not exclusively on those types of content.

And speaking of identifying types of content, Google Operating System points out that Google is starting to show special forum-related information in search results when it can identify that the result comes from a message board. Author Alex Chitu suggests this could mean new advanced search options in the future:

This new feature shows that Google is able to automatically classify web pages and to extract relevant information. Once Google starts to show data for other kinds of web pages, we can expect to see an option to restrict the search results to a certain category (forums, reviews, blogs, news articles).

The screenshot above has examples of both cases, the top showing dates in the snippets, and the bottom showing forum information.

Google Chrome - Google New Wonder

Google Chrome (BETA) for Windows

A fresh take on the browser

At Google, we spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And like all of you, in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends - all using a browser. People are spending an increasing amount of time online, and they're doing things never imagined when the web first appeared about 15 years ago.

Since we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if you started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build.

So today we're releasing the beta version of a new open source browser: Google Chrome.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff - the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better . By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built V8, a more powerful JavaScript engine, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers.

This is just the beginning - Google Chrome is far from done. We've released this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and we'll continue to make it even faster and more robust.

We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we're committed to continuing on their path. We've used components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox, among others - and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better.

But enough from us. The best test of Google Chrome is to try it yourself.

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