According to reports, Google is developing the technology to enable them to start selling advertising space on real life billboards and posters in Street View. Google registered a new patent which describes how it plans to identify buildings, posters, signs and billboards and give advertisers the ability to replace these images with their own ads.
As cool as this is, it raises a number of potential questions which I’m sure will have to be dealt with some point in the near future, especially if this technology can be used for turn-by-turn navigation and Augmented Reality applications. Who actually owns the real life space once it’s online/mobile?
I would say Google own it but no doubt the likes of JCDecaux and advertisers will pipe up and suddenly want their cut. Google will probably play nice and give these sorts of companies revenue share but who knows? Would love to see the outcome of a court case on this one.
This is a really interesting subject and something I think we’ll be hearing much more about in the years to come. What’s your view?
There is much talk at the moment about ‘how‘, ‘when‘ and ‘if‘ the mobile browser will become the replacement for applications.
The theory makes sense, once handsets are powerful enough we’ll no longer need hundreds of apps all wasting space on our phone, we”ll just launch are browser and get what we need through that.
If you take the desktop internet experience today as an example – Google Docs, Google Maps, YouTube, Hulu and even Photoshop all can be accessed in the browser. Obviously some have limitations compared to applications that exist on your hard drive but they are improving literally everyday.
It stands to reason that one day this will migrate onto mobile. Currently handsets and operators aren’t quite there yet, faster, more reliable networks and hardware will be required to do the heavy lifting as some of these services need high speed connections and better processors to work efficiently.
Google have just lunched a new addition to their search homepage called ‘Near Me Now’. The button, which only appears on US iPhone and Android handsets that visit Google.com, allows the user to search their immediate vicinity.
The site uses the phones GPS to find user location and provides categorised results such as coffee shops, bars, ATMs and banks.
If you take a look at the video below you’ll see it in action. It’s basically taken one of the best, most useful parts of Google Maps Mobile application and thrown it into the browser.
It’s nowhere near as visual or rich as the Google Maps Mobile app but the functionality is there. This is the start, a mobile website is hooking into the GPS function on the phone..what’s next?
…You can probably expect things like camera functionality to be streamed directly into a mobile web page (like the webcam chat on Gmail, left) one day soon.
No sooner than ranting about manufacturers beginning to have the upper hand, Google today confirmed that they intend to turn operators into their bitches.
As you all probably know by now, Google are releasing their own phone called the Nexus One. The phone is nice, good features but definitely no iPhone killer. However as suggested by Mobile Industry Review it represents something much more than that.
About 6 years ago the first Nokia handsets shipped with Wi-Fi capabilities, there was a huge buzz about being able to make free calls over the Internet using your mobile, however operators put a stop to that by strong-arming the manufacturer by literally saying “Disable it or we won’t bulk buy your phones”.
Sure enough the Wi-Fi stayed but the phones never got VOIP calls until YEARS later. And when it did arrive they tried to charge for it. Operators want other stuff too like putting their own maps application on phones, app stores, and a whole bunch of extra crap they were never meant to do. If you’re trying to build something into the core user interface it’s probably better to let the people who made the rest of the phone do it.
This is typical of how things work in the mobile industry, manufacturers bend over backwards for operators because without them it’s extremely difficult to get your latest and greatest mobile into consumers hands.
But what if you’re the most visited company on the web?
Android Market Share Exploding: Up 4.3% Since October 
