Blang!

CNN continues to circle the drain. What happened to this former “most trusted” news authority? I’m consistantly stunned by what a joke it’s become. I guess they are trying to emulate Fox?

Anyhow, the premise of this story is that Google, for all it’s cash and prestige, actually never releases a “killer” anything. It’s fair comment that Google has had many unsuccessful “product” releases, but, it seems this particular “business insider” hasn’t been paying attention.

First, the dismissive claim that the only thing Google has ever done well is its original search engine. Uh what?

First of all, even if that were true, search is still the most important application on the web and Google’s turned it into gold not only by making the best search engine, but by creating adwords. The dominance of search can not be dismissed. It still makes Google is still the most important company on the web and if Google never did anything else, they would still make a zillion dollars.

But setting aside search for the moment, somehow, Dan Frommer has never looked up an address on Google maps, or watched his own channel (CNN) zoom in on a map using Google Earth. What about street view? If ever their was a “killer-app” on the web, that has to be it. He says, “Google is no product-killer” ? Perhaps he should go ask the map makers at Rand McNally or map-quest their opinion on that?

And what about that gmail thing? Granted that Google hasn’t destroyed anyone, but GMail slammed hotmail and does anyone still have a yahoo mail account? I guess they do if they love spam.

How about phones? The article makes a big deal about how Google launched, the canceled it’s Nexus One phone making it sound like Google’s attempt at getting into phones was over, case closed… This must be intentional ignorance. The Nexis One was introduced to demonstrate the power of Google’s Android phone operating system which is now gaining market share at stunning rate. While the “iPhone” gets all the press, Android is steadily gaining market share.

As I’ve pointed out before, unlike Apple which is the only company that can release iX-ish products (iPad, iPhone, iPod, etc) Android can be taken and used by anyone. Thus it’s starting to appear on phones, tablets, set-top boxes, netbooks, and the list continues to grow.

I think maybe CNN is a bit sore over that other “non-killer-app”, Google news. Ya, the one that is so not important that every news outlet in America has been whining about the “death of real journalism”. Or maybe it’s the threat that youtube will replace news channels where you have to sit through hours of garbage just to see a few solid news stories?

Let us not forget the punch line to all this; Apple and Microsoft buy adds on CNN, Google does not. But of course this would never have any influence on a company with true journalistic integrity would it?

I’m really not that strongly anti-Apple, but I keep coming across these prominent stories on digg about how people are switching away from Apple.  The latest of which is “Switching from iPhone to Android”. Choice quote “Android is looking good nowadays, and Apple’s creepy corporate culture is wearing me down.”

Just in case you’ve not ready any of my other posts on the topic, I predicted Android will rule the world because it’s open and therefore it can run on anything. In much the same way that VHS ultimately crushed Betamax, (or the Phillips screw beat Robertson’s design), (a perceived) technical superiority is no match for proliferation. Devices running Android will starting appearing out of the woodwork while the next Apple gadget has to wait for Apple.

But I digress; the topic of this post is actually digg’s ability to predict the future. For a long time I thought digg wasn’t anything special, just another site rehashing stories from other sites. But then the 2008 US presidential election came along.

Long before his name was ever mentioned in main stream media, while everyone was still talking about Rudy Giuliani or Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama was generating buzz on digg. And against all odds he actually won! From nowhere to the first black president, and all predicted on digg. Was it just a fluke? I don’t think so.

Since then I’ve noticed that I read about new movies on digg long long before anyone else has even heard of them. A recent example is Avitar. It was getting “buzz” on digg before anyone even knew what it was about and now it’s the most successful box office movie of all time.  Another example was “The Dark Knight”. Heath Ledger was getting “buzz” as the Joker long before he died. His death may have propelled the movie even higher, but I have a feeling that it was going to be a smash hit even if he hadn’t passed away.

However, there is one thing to be cautious of, does digg reflect the true feeling of the people, or is it just the result of clever marketing planting stories? Or a better question, does it matter? If all we care about is predicting the future, then whether or not the buzz is real or artificially generated, the result is the same.

So is digg predicting the future downfall of  the iPhone, or is Google just planting all those positive Android postings? Either way, if recent digg history is any indication, Apple should be worried.

Just a quick follow up to my post from yesterday about just how disruptive Android is going to be. I spotted a story today on Engadget that talks about how Motorola is planning to put Android on it’s set top boxesматраци.

As an interesting side note; the article correctly points out that it’s even harder to deal with cable companies than cellular companies. But, keep in mind, cell companies are only now starting to bend since Apple demonstrated it had the power to transform their business.

Cable companies are still arrogant. They sit on their comfortable monopolies printing money paying little attention to emerging trends and doing no innovation. Do they not realize that TV over IP is about to transform broadcast and cable? If we could ever get decent bandwidth, who would need cable?

If anyone had doubts about the impact Google is having on the mobile space, the Mobile World Congress (MWC) should have put those doubts to rest.

Ad revenue from Android phones are the fastest growing segment of the mobile ad space and mobile carriers are starting to make some disturbing pronouncements such as Vodafone chief Vittorio Colao declaring that they may start to charge search engines for access to their network. Cell phone carriers are true “bellheads“. They just can’t fathom a network where they don’t control every aspect of it. I’m just dieing to see what happens when Vodafone cuts off their customers from Google (”What? Your network doesn’t have ‘The Internet’?!?!).

But I digress. The point of this post is that even though the iPhone still gets all the media attention, Google’s Android is the one gaining market share and making the most waves in telecom circles.

And it won’t stop there. Android’s openness is poised to make it the most disruptive technology this decade. Unlike the iPhone which only runs on devices developed, sanctioned and released by Apple, Android can run on anything. Soon it’ll be popping up not only on phones, but netbooks, laptops, TVs, desk phones and absolutely anything that device manufactures want to put an interface on.

Android won’t just challenge the smart phone market, but it has the potential to make inroads into every consumer technology out there; tipping over everyone’s apple cart as it goes.

” Google Inc. is set to offer its free Android mobile-phone operating system for computers, opening a new front in its rivalry with Microsoft Corp. by challenging the dominance of the company’s Windows software. Acer Inc., the world’s second-largest laptop maker, will release a low-cost notebook powered by Android next quarter” [full story]
carrier to noise ratio

Android was a slow starter but is continuing to make waves… Inching closer and closer to that dream system.

MTS released a zinger of a press release today attacking Bell and Telus. Here is a couple of highlights with my comments:

“Granting the Bell and Telus request would also put Canada directly at odds with the emerging international consensus that an open access model is the optimal means for broadening competitive choice for broadband customers.”

Open access?! This must have been written by someone on the Allstream side of the business because you can reset assured nobody at MTS even knows what open access means. But wait! It gets better:

“Compared to most of the industrialized world, Canadians already pay higher prices for slower Internet speeds.”

And nowhere is that more true than in MTS’s home territory. If MTS is so eagar to provide faster, cheaper internet, why don’t they start with Manitoba?

I’m floored by these statements, not because they’re wrong, but because they’re 100% right! MTS continues to be the beast with two heads. The Allstream head is a “nethead” that gets this whole internet thing, and the MTS head is a “bellhead” that represents the worst of “big telco” arragance and poor service.

I’m just glad that someone at Allstream understands what’s at stake and is doing something to counter the rest of the ILECs. Maybe there is hope for Canada after all?

In recent posts I’ve been lamenting the lack of the “perfect device” (one that’s the size of a phone but has capabilities of laptop, including docking to a mouse, keyboard & monitor). I’ve also debated which of the major companies would win this battle (Microsoft, Google, RIM, or Apple). I’m ready to declare a victor.

And the winner is (or will be); Google Andriod!

Even though Andriod has yet to have any major devices make it to market, the momentum is now unmistakable. Motorola, Nokia, and Samsung have phones released or in the works; but more importantly, so do companies like Acer (who just announced that they are working on several Andriod devices) and HP. That’s the critical cross-over that will win this fight. The openness of Andriod means it will dominate the vast majority of devices ending the iPhone and Blackberry dominance.

The only things standing in the way is to crack the Telcom dominance over wireless data.

As predicted, the first netbook running Andriod has been released. The WiFi networking is to be expected, but the real “killer” feature would have been 3G networking. Of course then you’d need an affordable data plan.

Just because I like patting myself on the back, here is a story about a device I predicted earlier this year.

“Hewlett-Packard confirmed Tuesday that it is testing Google’s Android operating system as a possible alternative to Windows in some of its netbook computers.”

Of course there are a couple cautions about this story; It’s April 1st so it could be a joke and it’s only in testing so it may not see the light of day.

Hot on the heels of my posting on the future of mobile devices comes a story on Venture Beat describing how they got the Google operating system Andriod running on an ASUS netbook.

Android’s Linux core seems to be giving it an early advantage due to Linux’s easy portability and vast hardware support. The article doesn’t mention it but some netbooks have support for 3G sim cards which just makes compelte sense.

I want to point out that a 3G enabled netbook running Android is still not the dream device I’m looking for but it’s getting close. The essential component of the dream device is the hardware. It must be cell phone sized but when docked, become a fully functional workstation (keyboard, mouse, full sized monitor etc.)

Netbooks aren’t the hardware solution. he netbooks are really just crappy laptops. Too big to carry around and with few of the “mobile” featuers that a smart phone would have.

They key aspect of the article is the discussion about how many manufacturers see Andriod as a replacement operating system to Microsoft based systems.