All gPhone Blog - The Unofficial Google Phone Blog

Last week Google launched the mobile version of AdSense and they are heavily promoting it on the AdWords side of things as well. They are giving free click-throughs for the next couple months to get the word out.

While not a lot of details were provided when Google purchased Zingku, more details are coming out. 

Zingku’s platform lets users build mobile social networks designed to share content, like photos, push out polls and poll results, and communicate through text messages, e-mail, and IM.

The most interesting application, at least from Google’s perspective, has to be Zingku’s flyer function. The flyer program lets merchants send Zingku members promotional messages like discount codes.

source: InformationWeek

All the stars are starting to align for a big announcement from Google in the coming weeks or months that they have have in fact been working on a mobile device and it will be available in 2008. Google has acquired Zingku for an undisclosed amount of money. It seems that Google is only going after the technology, not necessarily the company itself.

Google has entered an agreement to acquire “certain assets and technology” from mobile platform operator Zingku

source: TechCrunch

 I wish we would have thought about this soon. Want to know what Google is planning for an upcoming product launch? Check out the job ads on their site. That is exactly what the smart people over at the Inquirer did and they found some very interesting new positions available at Google.

There’s at least ten jobs up for grabs and one of them is for a Strategic Partner Development Manager.

The job description gives it away because this manager needs to co-ordinate with “Google’s online and wireless partners – access providers, portals, mobile operators – across the region.”

source: the Inquirer

Guardian newspaper is reporting that Google is:

…considering a move into the U.K. wireless market after the U.K.’s telecommunications regulator Thursday unveiled plans to liberalize parts of the country’s mobile phone radio spectrum, the Guardian reports Friday, without citing sources.

source: CBS MarketWatch

While this is very much in the early stages, this could be significant opportunity for Google. Can you imagine if they win the US 700MHZ auction and then also take over a slice of the wireless spectrum in the UK?

 We wanted to let the dust settle a little before we got back to  posting about all the craziness surrounding the gPhone. Our inbox is literally filled to the brim with rumors around 3G vs. EDGE vs. WiMAX. Based on everything we have read to date, the gPhone is still a “go” and the specs around a Java-based browser seem dead-on. We were very surprised to see so many articles stating the gPhone is dead. A secret of this scale is basically impossible to keep from the public in this day-and-age. Too many companies are involved and inevitability someone will have loose lips. Here is the latest confirmation from DigiTimes:

Google will definitely launch its own-brand handset but has yet to finalize the handset’s specifications, OS, production contractor and operating partners, according to sources at Taiwan handset makers.

source: DigiTimes

It ought to be very intersting to see what Google has to present at TechCrunch40 next week. If it is just their version of PowerPoint, I will be very disappointed. I guess we will know in less than 5 days.

We just got permission to post this - On top of everything else we’ve got planned, Google will present something at TechCrunch40 next week.

source: TechCrunch

It has been a crazy few weeks since the gPhone rumors started up at a wildfire pace. While we are still probably weeks or even months away from an official announcement from Google, Business Week has just put out an article saying, more or less, that the gPhone is real and Google has plans to open up its API to the programming world. That is the EXACT reason we created this blog. When these applications start to become available, AllgPhone.com will be the aggregator of all the great mashups and applications that come from the mobile development community.

Here are a few of the highlights from the article:

It’s not that these Silicon Valley startups have nothing to say about the world’s largest Web search engine. The problem is, they can’t. Many mobile-software developers in the Bay Area and beyond are hard at work cobbling together services and tools they hope will be packaged with a wireless operating system under wraps at Googleplex—and they’ve been sworn to secrecy.

Google is expected to open up much of its gPhone programming code, known in industry parlance as the application programming interface (API), enabling mobile developers to easily integrate Google’s applications with their own software and to distribute those applications to all users of the gPhone platform (BusinessWeek.com, 9/6/07), whatever phone model or carrier they happen to use.

By designing for gPhone’s particular flavor of Linux, open-source developers may be able to present a unified front—and reduce development costs. Consultancy ABI Research forecasts that Linux will be the fastest-growing smartphone operating system in the next five years.

source: Business Week

I am sure that Thomas Husson is a pretty smart guy, but sometimes I really wonder why these guys get paid so much damn money. Look at this quote from Husson:

Husson said that, because Google is essentially an advertising company, the extent to which a mobile phone would fit into its business model is questionable. “[Google’s] interest today is to have its applications embedded on as many phones as possible. Google is really a platform company,” he said.

But Husson suggested “it wouldn’t be much of a surprise” if a Google phone emerged, particularly as the company has expressed interest in acquiring radio spectrum in the US that could be used for a mobile network.

source: ZDNet.co.uk

How many things can you point out wrong with this quote? First off, within the same paragraph, Husson says “Google is essentially an advertising company” and then “Google is really a platform company.” Well, which one is it? Personally, I think Google is a media company. At least I am willing to take a stance and stick to it. Then Husson goes on to say “..mobile phone would fit into its business model is questionable” and then “But Husson suggested ‘it wouldn’t be much of a surprise’ if a Google phone emerged.” Seriously, are they going to launch a phone or not? I group analysts and meteorologists together - both get paid whether they are right or wrong.

Here is what Julie Ask wrote about recently regarding very interesting survey results as it relates to cell phone usage:

Are consumers interested? Maybe. About one-third of 18- to 24-year-old survey respondents said they would be open to advertising messages on their phone if they were given a free phone. (They aren’t even paying for phones today so why not drop ads on top?) About one-quarter of the same age group said free voice minutes would motivate them. This younger age group provides (in my mind) an especially attractive target segment given that they are migrating off of family plans for the first time in their lives and finding they have a $70-$80 per month cellphone habit they might not be able to support. Half of 18- to 24-year-old respondents we surveyed are on their parents’ plan, but less than 15% of 25- to 34-year-old respondents are.

source: RCR Wireless News

Here are my thoughts. I doubt a free phone is much of an incentive, as Julie mentioned, most people don’t pay much more than $50-75 dollars for a top-of-the-line cell phone. If Google is going to provide a price incentive to get people to use the Google Phone, they will be subsiding the plan cost, not the cost of the phone itself. I also think it is very interesting that 1/3 say a free phone with advertising messages is okay, but only 1/4 say they would want free voice minutes. Personally, I would be willing to pay $200-300 for a cell phone if I don’t have to pay more than $25 a month for an unlimited voice/data plan.

I could sit here and post 200 gPhone related rumors from the 1000s of leads we get each day, but the fact of the matter is most of these rumors are just re-hashes of the same 3-4 articles we have already mentioned here, here and here.

That being said, when we find something truly interesting and news-worthy, we will be the first to post about it here. The Boston Globe had a very interesting report citing several “unnamed sources” saying that they have seen demos of the Google Phone. Here are a couple of the key excerpts:

One entrepreneur who has seen the Google phone prototype, but asked not to be named, described it as “simpler” and not as flashy as Apple’s iPhone.

Another entrepreneur, who saw a prototype earlier this year, described three-dimensional, animated buttons on the screen. That prototype had a small QWERTY keyboard, like a Treo or a BlackBerry, rather than relying on a touch-screen, as the iPhone does.

In August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Google had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in its cellphone project, with the hope that several different manufacturers will build the phones and multiple carriers will help distribute them, with Google supplying the software and perhaps delivering ads to the devices.

source: Boston Globe