Google, Wal-Mart, and T Mobile

Two separate items--connected:

Here's a new survey of U.S. internet users. Take a look at what people are willing to pay for:


T-Mobile and Google go mega mass market--Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart To Sell Google's G1 Phones At Discount Starting Wed

October 27, 2008: 08:37 PM EST
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Wal-Mart Inc. (WMT) will start selling the G1 phone at a discounted price starting Wednesday, a Wal-Mart spokesman confirmed Monday night.

Wal-Mart will carry the Google Inc. (GOOG) G1 phone, sold through Deutsche Telekom AG's (DT) T-Mobile USA, in 550 Wal-Mart stores at the reduced price of $ 148.88 for new customers, or existing customers eligible for an upgrade, who sign up for a two-year agreement, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said.

Consumers interested in purchasing the T-Mobile G1 can save $31.11 at Wal-Mart as opposed to buying through T-Mobile, which sells the device for $179.99.

The T-Mobile G1, released for pre-order last month, is the first phone that's compatible with Android, Google's new operating system.

Google and T-Mobile Debut the G1

Google seems intent on challenging every sector of the media, mobile, and on-line spaces. Today along with their partner T-Mobile they released the G1 Mobile device.
Check out a promotional video here.

Among many other things this "phone" will be capable of streaming*, both video and audio. As the T-Mobile site explains the G1 is open source using the new Android platform. This directly from the T-Mobile:

Are you a developer?

The T-Mobile G1 features Android, an open-source platform for mobile phones that allows you to create applications for the T-Mobile G1™.

If you are a developer and have an idea of your own, find out how to make it a reality.

So far, it sounds like a pretty good challenger but it's not perfect. Engadget highlights a significant shortcoming--no mini plug for a pair of headphones, but a proprietary exitUSB jack that will require a special pair of headphones or an adapter that won't be available at launch.

Check out Engadget's coverage here.

You also might be interested that the G1, what some are calling the anti-iPhone, will also have a pre-loaded music store from Amazon.

Engadget: Amazon just announced that its MP3 music store will be pre-loaded as an application on the T-Mobile G1. Users will be able to search, download, buy and play music from Amazon MP3 -- that's a selection of 6 million DRM-free MP3 songs from all four major labels and many independents. The pre-loaded Amazon MP3 application provides G1 owners with a phone-optimised view of the Amazon MP3 store -- WiFi is required to download music, but searching, browsing, and listening to samples can be done over 3G "the T-Mobile network." Tracks cost around $0.89 with most albums priced between $5.99 and $9.99. How you like them Apples, Apple.

Search, apps, content and devices...Google here, there and everywhere. It will be interesting to see how it all works out. Let the Apple vs. Blackberry vs. Google death match begin.

Google Hits 1%!

1% of the browser market in one day.  That's the word coming from the Stat Counter blog- the company I use to track traffic to this blog.  

Just downloaded it and started playing around with it and it seems pretty easy and quick.  As a side note...as much as I like Firefox, version 3 has crashed quite a bit even though I have have downloaded the 3.01 fix.  The browser market just got a little more competitive and ultimately that has got to be good for you and me.  

Here's their release:

Chrome Grabs 1% in One Day!

According to research conducted by us here at StatCounter, Google’s new browser, Chrome, has taken 1% of the global browser market within a day of launch.

Google’s unusual step of publicising the Chrome browser on its notoriously clutter-free homepage is an indication of the plans that Google has for this browser…

“This is a phenomenal performance,” commented Aodhan Cullen, “this is war on Microsoft but the big loser could be Firefox.”

While Google may have the Internet Explorer market share in its sights, the fact that many Firefox users are more “mobile” as far as browser use is concerned, may impact on the current Firefox market share.

Note: The StatCounter analysis was conducted today, Wednesday, 03 September 2008, and was based on a sample of 18.5 million page views globally. The analysis identified that Internet Explorer holds 70% of the global browser market followed by Firefox with 22%.

Google Chrome

Today, Tuesday Google will officially release the beta version of their new browser CHROME.

From Goog's Official blog they point out some points of differentiation as to why a new Browser to take on IE and Firefox:

What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications

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 a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, 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're releasing 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 will continue to make it even faster and more robust.

Google also created a comic book that takes us on a tour. See it here.

Why is this important for us radio folks?

• Let it serve as a reminder that leaders lead. Google is a leader and they are not content to have the best search engine in the business. They want it all. Radio take note.
• Technology continues to move at warp speed and radio is still tinkering with digital radio 1.0.
• Take note of the commitment to open source. Proprietary apps and closed architecture will continue to evaporate. This is important especially when we are thinking about our local station on-line communities. Sure build your own and build your database, but don't forget to be on Facebook, Twitter, and wherever else your listeners are already loitering.
• Be flexible, versatile, and nimble. Not because you want to, but because you NEED to.
• Don't forget--Google is all about the money, profits, and growth. What innovations can radio stations roll out? Think entertainment and technology. For radio the two will go hand in hand.

A Different View of the News

Found an interesting visual news aggregator called Newsmap

Based on the Google news aggregator it assembles news live, as it happens, and can be viewed in a number of different formats.
I will let the creator explain how it works--I'm not sure I could adequately describe how a "treemap visualization algorithm" functions.

Newsmap is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. A treemap visualization algorithm helps display the enormous amount of information gathered by the aggregator. Treemaps are traditionally space-constrained visualizations of information. Newsmap's objective takes that goal a step further and provides a tool to divide information into quickly recognizable bands which, when presented together, reveal underlying patterns in news reporting across cultures and within news segments in constant change around the globe.

Newsmap does not pretend to replace the googlenews aggregator. Its objective is to simply demonstrate visually the relationships between data and the unseen patterns in news media. It is not thought to display an unbiased view of the news; on the contrary, it is thought to ironically accentuate the bias of it.

It's sorta like what Drudge does, but without the human intervention and direction. Of course, it is still dependent on the news agencies and the writers to report and create the stories in the first place.

With a lot of the original news content being created by newspapers (especially large papers like NY Times, Washington Post, and LA Times); it will be interesting to observe as newspaper newsrooms continue to shrink what will become of a lot of this reporting. Who will pick up the slack and report the news? Or will some stories go unreported? Or with less detail?

I suspect it will morph into whatever viable financial model works. Whether that is good for the news business and the news consumer we'll have to wait and see.

And The Winners Are...

AT&T, Verizon and Echostar and NO Google.

Get ready, the march of nationwide high speed wireless rolls on.

Airwaves Auction Winners Named
Thursday March 20, 9:52 pm ET
By John Dunbar, Associated Press Writer AT&T, Verizon Wireless Dominate in Record Airwaves Auction

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The two largest cell phone companies dominated bidding in a record-setting government airwaves auction, according to results released Thursday.

AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless combined to account for $16 billion of the $19.6 billion bid in the auction, an Associated Press analysis of Federal Communications Commission data shows. Verizon Wireless bid $9.4 billion and AT&T $6.6 billion.

The results raised concern that the auction failed to attract any significant new competitors to the cellular telephone market to challenge the dominant companies. For example, Google Inc. was not among the winners, meaning the search engine giant will not be entering the wireless business.

One new entrant, Frontier Wireless LLC, owned by direct broadcast satellite television company EchoStar Corp., won nearly enough licenses to create a nationwide footprint. Frontier bid $712 million, according to FCC data.

The spectrum was made available thanks to the nationwide transition to digital broadcasting. The hope is that consumers will benefit from more advanced wireless services such as high-speed Internet access. The money raised will be used to help public safety programs and offset the federal budget deficit.

There's more details available just click here for the rest of the story.

It's interesting that even with it's deep pockets and a never ending hunger for expansion Google didn't make the cut.

Think about what has developed thus far in the wireless world and then close your eyes for a moment and imagine what the media landscape is going to look and SOUND like once these licenses turn into reality.

Maybe it's not the best idea to close our eyes. Way too dark and scary in there.

googleyahoomicrosoftaol.com

Last week Microsoft announced an unsolicited mega billion dollar offer to buy Yahoo...today Google says it might want to team up with Yahoo in some sort of deal or try to stop the Microsoft deal altogether...CNBC reports that AOL now might be in play because everyone else is in play. There will be deals done in this space and no matter what deals are done it is not good for radio.

The genesis of Yahoo's problems is not traffic but sales. Yahoo has lots of users but has failed to monetize their traffic. Advertising revenue is the engine that has been driving Google and killing Yahoo. At the same time, Google continues to grow, innovate, invest, and dream up new ways to be a part of your world; while Yahoo's much touted new sales platform was troubled from the start and failed.

The biggest on-line players will ultimately get bigger, better, stronger, and more competitive over time. And that doesn't account for what is being cooked up in someones garage right now that will change everything all over again. While we in the radio business continue to hold on to our 1980's music machine and spot model.

Not only are our music positions at risk, but the very lifeblood of every station, our spots, are at risk too. And right now your LOCAL ADVERTISERS can advertise FOR FREE on Google. I know. I did it. And it took less than 5 minutes to set up. They call it the Local Business Center.

So if someone did a search for my company, Harve Alan Media, this is what they got in Google Maps-a likely place a consumer would end up if they were searching for a local furniture store.

From there they could choose 'more info' and get this:

How about coupons? No problem:

Attract new customers by creating a coupon for your business. Creating a coupon is free, and only takes a few minutes. You can create as many coupons as you want. Coupons will appear along with your business listing in Google Maps.

I'm not suggesting we have all been sitting around doing nothing to address the problems, but innovation has been slow to come especially when compared with our competitors in the on-line content and advertising space.

BTW-how long before Google starts charging for those free ads?