Wired’s Epicenter reports that Google is launching some kind of a secret new music search service sometime next week called either “OneBox”, “Google Audio”, or “Google Music”. The article states that Google is expected to roll out several new vertical search products starting with music and likely travel after that. Should be interesting.
The Telegraph also reports on this service as well as the fresh rumors that Google will also be launching its own phone based on its Android operating system. The phone may be available as early as prior to the end of this year. The interesting element is that Google is rumored to be selling the phone direct to consumers through traditional retail outlets, effectively bypassing the mobile operators. This could mark the beginning of the user-customized handset experience.
“”The move would fulfil Google’s pledge to bring a new generation of open-standard mobile internet devices to consumers,” writes Scott Moritz (of industry webiste The Street, which broke the story). “By bypassing the carriers, who keep tight controls over the features and applications that are allowed on phones, Google will presumably offer a device that lets users determine the functions. ”
If you can get your hands on the October 12, 2009 New Yorker there is a very good article by Ken Auletta regarding Google’s growing pains. As they try to do everything from green energy to building the world’s largest data center infrastructure (investing a whopping $2.8 billion last year alone) search remains Google’s only profit generator. The company has over 150 “products” on the table currently and, from the sound of it, will be adding a few very soon.
As with most New Yorker content, you’ve either got to read in the magazine or have a digital subscription yet the abstract they provide gives a nice summary (or 50,000 foot view) of the article:
Ken Auletta, Annals of Communications, “Searching for Trouble,” The New Yorker, October 12, 2009, p. 46
Read the full text of this article in the digital edition. (Subscription required.)
October 12, 2009 Issue
ABSTRACT: ANNALS OF COMMUNICATIONS about Google’s growing pains. Writer tells about Mel Karmazin, the then C.O.O. of Viacom, visiting Google in 2003, looking for a potential partner in the tech world. Karmazin was interested in Google’s advertising business, but found Google’s system to be too mechanized compared to the advertising model used at that time in mainstream media. Google search now takes in about four of every ten online advertising dollars, and last year, Google’s revenues exceeded twenty-two billion dollars, more than two-thirds of the thirty billion in total U.S. newspaper advertising projected for this year. Google has reinforced the notion that traditional media now want to combat: that digital information and content should be free and that advertising alone should subsidize it. To many, Google appears impregnable. But the same has been thought of the Big Three auto companies, I.B.M., and Microsoft. Describes the array of new products Google has introduced in the last few years, including Google Maps, Gmail, Google Books, and Google TV, Audio, and Print Ads. In 2006, Google announced its acquisition of YouTube, and the following year DoubleClick. In its pursuit of expansion, Google has had to set aside old alliances. Now Google plans to compete with Amazon to sell electronic books. Both companies have ventured into cloud computing, which allows a user to access data stored in a remote server from anywhere. Tells about Google’s purchase of Android, a mobile software company, and its intentions to claim a bigger slice of the mobile-phone business. This direct competition with Apple risked causing turmoil at the most senior levels of Google since several of Apple’s directors, including Al Gore, also sit on Google’s board. Mentions the pending federal court decision on the proposed Google Books settlement. Discusses Google’s unusual management structure, with power concentrated in the hands of Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt. Considers the risk of such a large company losing focus because of rapid expansion. Mentions the departure of Sheryl Sandberg to Facebook and Google’s failed attempt to acquire Twitter in the spring. Discusses concerns about Google’s data collection process. Google was not immune to the economic downturn. The company hired only ninety-nine new employees in the fourth quarter of 2008, fewer than it added in a week at the start of the year. The company has also laid off some of its contract workers and employees. Whatever obstacles arise, there’s little doubt that Google will remain a dominant force.
