Google Boost

Yes you heard it here first - Google has finally begun their global conquest by planning on selling advertising on mobile phones:

But for now at least, Google will not put its brand on a phone. The software running on the phones may not even display the Google logo. Instead, Google is giving the software away to others who will build the phones. The company invested heavily in the project to ensure that all of its services are available on mobile phones. Its ultimate goal is to cash in on the effort by selling advertisements to mobile phone users, just as it does on Internet-connected computers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/05/technology/05cnd-gphone.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Here is one glaring problem with this plan (amongst others) - let’s compare a mobile phone’s LCD screen size real estate with a home computer monitor’s. Does Google plan on flooding my Motorola Razor phone with unsolicited text ads? And should they decide to do that, what would those text ads be based upon? I do not use my mobile phone to browse the internet - I use it to make phone calls. Ok so that’s more than one problem. What about the long-term (nobody thinks of these things - the greed and “gotta have it now” mentality of corporate America fucks up everything for all of us) effect of letting Google gain a foothold in mobile communications? Does AT&T think that Google is going to be a “nice guy”, donate some open-source platform to them with no strings attached?

Where does Google’s altruism end?

It doesn’t - someone will have to get squeezed out eventually in the mad dash to monopoly - once Google becomes the platform for mobile communications, what does Google need AT&T for? Google can source their own hardware, buy out AT&T or launch their own Google satellites into space (don’t laugh - as of this writing Google’s stock is up over $775 a share - they can afford their own space shuttle (or 3)).