It sounds like it’d take more than knocking one out of the park for it to work for you.
It sounds like this is going to break down on Microsoft/Apple lines, for the most part. That’s sad, though. I don’t see how Google’s going to do it, but if they’re this far along, they’ve found a way for it to work. I also won’t understimate them.
I wouldn’t underestimate Microsoft or Apple, for what it’s worth.
And after the phone comes out, they still won’t be making hardware. Nobody makes anything any more, they just hire someone else to do it for them. What I imagine will happen is that if Google’s serious about making this phone, then they’ve already got prototypes in the hands of testers. Obviously, these phones will be using the conventional network, but they’ll be able to test a lot of things with the phones even so. Then, when/if Google get’s the spectrum, they’ll introduce the units the same way they did Gmail, via invite. This will help create buzz and anticipation. It’ll also enable them to work out more of the kinks before they release the phones to the general public.
As for the ad revenue being able to pay for everything, don’t be too sure that it couldn’t. We’re talking about being able to offer advertisers a highly targeted market here, with the possibility of multi-tiered rates. Having your ad displayed on the phone would cost you X amount, having your ad come up when the user searched on their phone for a product like you offer would cost X amount more, and having the customer hear your ad before they placed a call would be the most expensive option.
Note, also, that if Google get’s the spectrum, then they’re required to make it available (for a price) to the other cellphone companies. So, it could very well be that Google’s customers are getting the price of their airtime underwritten by AT&T’s customers.
There’s already a free phone. Free once you pay the $400 to buy the equipment, but all domestic US calls are free afterwards. As long as you have hi-speed Internet. It’s called
Ooma.
Whaaaaaat?? Gmail is not like any other free email service! The “conversation” style threading is one primary and obvious difference, but the ability to add multiple labels to emails (rather than sorting into folders) and so on makes an enormous difference.
And Google Maps are so far superior to things like MapQuest that it isn’t even worth comparing them.
Google was also the first to introduce News searches, image searches, video searches, Google Scholar, and probably a half dozen other searches.
Anyways, I get the feeling that cell phone is only a small part of the goal. I’d wager that if Google does win the spectrum they will try to roll out ad supported internet. It’d still be a cell-phone, but done through VoIP, using GoogleTalk’s software.
I also don’t think the articles quite grasp the potential of advertising through a Google phone. Forget listening to or watching ads before you call. That’s bush league stuff. Think more along the lines of highly targeted advertising through information gathered on location, scanned G-Mail messages, and other information google gathers.
Picture this. A user uses G-Talk, and activates the feature that broadcasts what music you are listening to. This user has all the albums of a band except the most recent one. Google knows this because it has never seen you play a song from this album, and/or because you sent an e-mail to a friend that you are thinking about buying it. Google also knows where you are because there (probably) will be GPS on the phone. Let’s say you are walking past a record store. Up pops a message saying “New album by Cool band on sale for 12.95 at BestBuy one block away”. Companies will pay a fortune for advertising this specific.
Also, if you know how to use Google search, you can find things (using intitle:“index.of” modifiers to locate music, pdf documents, video, etc. while eliminating spam and html pages completely from your search) that nearly render file sharing programs useless in comparison. Google is extremely powerful under the hood. Moreso than even they would tell you.
HotBot was fine in its day, but there are many reasons why Google beat out Webcrawler and Hotbot in the search engine world.
You are exactly right, but the privacy concerns will persist until Google says that they’re not going to let the information out for anyone.
That’s only “Free” if you consider my $50/month internet access “Free”.
As for all the other speculation, I for one, would MUCH RATHER pay $70/month than have targeted advertising on my phone. Maybe I’m the only one.
If the ads are as non-intrusive as any other Google application, sign me up.
I have to admit that the directions on Google maps tended to be sub-par when they first came out (and this is compared to the already idiotic directions you often see with online maps), but they have since become the best. The real clincher though is the ability to change the directions so amazingly easily.
Say the directions tell you to take a section of I-95, but you know that at that time of day it will be bumper to bumper. Trying to force a different route, or the use of a specific street used to be a royal pain in the ass. Now, you just click on the route and drag the right section to the road you want and it replots your directions using that path. I was incredibly impressed when I saw that. Perhaps the other map sites have that ability now, but once I saw it on Google Maps, there was no longer a reason to ever visit them again to find out.
Oh, and the best part, there was no announcement. No flashing link telling me about new features I should read up on. No, they just incorporated the ability so seemlessly that it was easily noticed without being at all distracting. That is the kind of innovation that makes people so crazy for Google.
I don’t know how active you two were online before Google started up but I can only assume that you don’t really remember what internet search was like pre-Google. The Alta Vistas of the world were driven by people paying for the top positions for placement (if you think Google’s side bar ads are annoying just think back to when the first few pages of results were paid placements rather than genuine results). Even if someone wasn’t paying to show up on the first few pages of results for your keywords the engines were easy to game. Once you got out of the largest handful of search engines the number of indexed pages became incredibly small. Google’s relevence algorithm is obvious in hindsight but no one had anything close to it before they came along. Revolutionary is the only way that Google could possibly be described. The trend toward irrelevance in search engines was suddenly overturned.
Google’s two buttons were great because “I’m Feeling Lucky” worked 99% of the time; I was lucky if I could find a useful site in the first two pages for most other engines. And even back when they were alpha.google.stanford.edu it supported a very strong boolean matching set. Alta Vista had the similar functionality in theory though in practice it corrupted it with paid search results while most of the rest weren’t that strong with their language understanding. The only thing that was in a few search engines before that Google lacks is to search within results.
Google has had search within results for years, probably since day one.
I must confess to being a total Google whore. I know that they haven’t always lived up to the “Don’t be evil” ideal, but they really do seem to have an excellent business model which provides genuinely useful services. A couple of times I’ve searched for a location or product and found the targeted ads very apposite and actually bought stuff. Handy, non-annoying advertisements. Wow, that’s gold.
It seems likely that Google is now making more money from advertising than the largest UK commercial broadcaster
I don’t think anyone has mentioned Picasa, Web-albums or their Blog service. All for free and with tons of storage space. I use Picasa and Web-Albums all the time. Gmail rocks. I used to use the blog service but I’ve shifted over to the Web-Albums instead.
Once you have Picasa (photo organizer with editor) you simply press the blog button or the web-album button to send a photo (or group of pics) to the blog or album you’ve created or want to create. Could not be easier.
I thought the stuff was going to come out a little sooner. Say, this week.