Hope the next thing they do would be the Google Gears like this one here http://www.gadget9.com/2007/06.....nto-gears/

This will be interesting to watch as many cell phone service providers have agreements with specific content providers.

Cheers,
Aidan
http://www.MappingTheWeb.com

I don’t think this is necessarily bad for the cell phone operators. This could get many more people to buy cell phone data plans. I currently don’t have one because of the lack of something like this making it worthless for me. And I don’t buy ringtones or anything else from them regardless. If this was available for me, I’d actually go pay for the data plan.

A possible Billion Dollar RingBack Tone Advertizing opportunity exists for Google, particularly after acquisition of GranCentral, have mentioned it here:

http://www.iprash.com/2007/07/.....vertising/

Goog for them, because this could get many more people to buy cell phone data plans?!

“Business innovation demands faith, compels earnestness, requires courage, is honestly selfish, is penalized for mistakes, and is the essence of life.”

It really doesn’t suprise me that this offering is coming. I was an almost hire for google, made it through all 13 interviews, they flew me out there and said they were going to present me an offer, then at the last minute they tell me that rather than marketing, they felt that I should begin interviewing for a business development position. Well, after 3 interviews that never materialized, and by then I had to gamble with going back to school or hoping that their hr machine would call me back on the marketing position, so I chose school. That said, I gained some helpful insight during the interviews. Specifically, the employees continually conveyed that the company was going to stop thinking so much about what can be searched from the computer keyboard, and start thinking mobile. No brainer, right? You would think so, but the way their marketing team talked it was like they didn’t even care about information for the pc anymore (as if the pc was web 1.0). Their marketing team is focused on presenting marketing focused specifically to each user, and what better way to do this than through cell phones. By creating a search engine for mobile content they gain substantial control over how that information is organized, and in doing so influence over mobile content providers. If google can pull it off, which I assume they will, they will have set the stage for developing a powerful vehicle by which they can push their own products and services under the cloak of organizing information. In my opinion, mobile content providers will jump at the opportunity to hand over the organizing of their content to google. It is a small price to pay for easy access to your content by potential customers.

Mobile apps & service providers - tough market due to the highly fragmented and territorial conglomeration of providers.

If anyone can do it successfully, Google seems to be the one.

Lots of money in ring tones, thats for sure. Maybe Google will give them away for free?

I am all for competition, but the mobile market in the US is soooo behind due to oligopolistic nature. With some common standards and a release on all the blocks we would see a revolution in mobile services.

I love, love, love Google’s mapping system for cell phones. It’s awesome. When my laptop broke during a visit to San Fran earlier this year, I was able to ask it for all of the Best Buys in the city that were nearby and it only took us a few minutes to find our way to one. It’s fantastic.

Mobile’s a smart place to play right now, Google’s smart to move into whatever they can with it. I don’t think carriers profit that much from ringtones personally, or at least to where they’d be disrupted by free offerings since you get tons already. Usually the free stuff isn’t as good as what you’ve got to pay for, also. I don’t really understand how unlimited data plans on iPhone is disrupting anything - I get that now on my Q with Verizon, I think. Where did you hear that Verizon is blocking VoIP? I’d like to read more on this.

I think the only place to develop right now is in mobile.

Dot Mobi speculators will be singing in the streets if Google used the Mobi extension and the Mobi approach…

OK, so how long do you think it will take for some so-called “SEO” to start selling their “service” of positioning someone’s site on the new Google mobile service?

What’s the difference between this new Google mobile service and the current service that they provide. Can’t you access Google via a cell phone already?

How is this any different than Yahoo! Go, which is already out and receiving plenty of positive buzz?

@ # 12 we dont know yet

it isn’t launched. duh-

but it is Google; with a track record of exellence

hopefully they will use the .mobi url for their service like Bank of America and other companies do

@#14 mobi time,

why .mobi? what’s the benefit?

Google has already started the beta version of the mobile search. Its really cool when you are working it out on your smart cell phones. I use an E61 and the experience is amazing.

Hi #15 - the benefit is that its a way to market a site using an extension that requires sites be mobile friendly across a wide range of devices and that encourages developers to pay particular attention to site design and the mobile context - a context of motion and short uses on a small screen (likely smaller than 14 inches anyway)

instead of users having to guess at a url such as some variation of a long subdomain which may require many keystrokes, or trying a url which may not work such as the regular url - or having to rely on a transcoder/miniaturizing functionalty which may or may not exist with a given service or browser and that may or may not format a site in a way that is acceptable to the site owner, one can use an extension that requires across the site spectrum that sites work regardless of technology, browser used, cellphone sophistaication etc

its also new and the mobile web, for as long as it has existed, is really still very new and branding something new (.mobi) for something new like real functioning mobile web sites (across devices), seems fitting in that it may be worth it to rally around a new brand fo this potentially extremely large market

lots of companys that have .com sites are launching .tv sites for example with sites that have some tv focus

that, and Google is a .mobi investor so it would make sense for them to do so imo - http://www.3next.mobi by http://www.three.mobi is a new example of a .mobi site by an investor (hutchison) for example

@ mobi time,,

Thanks!

.mobi seems to be made unnecessary as its investor Google is already transcoding web sites making them more mobile friendly for it’s mobile search engine. That is an odd move considering it’s “support” of .mobi

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I don’t believe its that odd - without transcoding, there wouldn’t be much of a “mobile web” for them to show in mobile search results. I know from checking out sites from my mobile phone that many either don’t resolve or if they do they are hard to navigate. You can’t have a mobile search with results that behave like that.

But this doesn’t take away from .mobi whose standards stipulate the creation of sites that resolve on all phones and across all browsers regardless of sophistication or whether or not they “minitiarize”. If you were going to market a mobile website, it might not be the best idea to rely on transcoding or minitiarization technology because there are so many different services, phones, browsers etc and the worst thing that could happen I think is someone goes to visit a marketed site and find nothing there because it could not resolve (or resolved badly) because it relied on there being some kind of service that translated the site into some idea of a mobile friendly form.

What you’d want to do is make sure your site resolves everwhere in a consistent fashion and with it designed in a way easy to use on a small screen in motion. Granted, any site or domain extension can be made to do this. .Mobi requires it per their rules and makes for a consistent form of name.extension instead of a long subdomain with multiple dots or whatever. It also distinguishes itself from other extensions and says this is a mobile site that is designed for the mobile (small screen, mobile context) web and will likely work (or should anyway) on a low tech phone, a high tech phone, with or without transconder etc - in addition to being able to work on a PC.

That said, I have wondered why they and M haven’t yet launched some sort of .mobi initiative. But then again other investors have been launching stuff lately and the extension is relatively new (not even a year). It should be interesting watching the mobile web develop over the coming months and years.