R2D2 and Roy Batty, both created as androids but with wildly divergent results. One a trusted side-kick, with all the answers. The other the intelligent psycho android played by Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner, who kills his maker. Which one will Google’s Android be?After speaking with some folks, lets clear up some confusion, the G-Phone is not a phone like iPhone, but rather an operating system. Google at this point will not be making the phone, they are partnering with manufacturers to use their operating system. It appears that Google has and continues to benefit from this confusion which it helped create.

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer called the Android platform “a mere press release,” which is correct. Understanding the impact on the mobile industry, be it a benevolent “open” platform that helps the consumer or not, is not possible at this point.

Only time will tell. But the new $10 million Android developer competition should help Google’s cause.

Quick Links:

Android

Roy Batty

Blade Runner

Star Wars

R2D2

Google’s Android

Steve Ballmer comments

Where is Steve Case? AOL’s new beta mobile search product knows and it found him 8 seconds (using a Motorola Q). The product is fast and simple to use, although it doesn’t match the screen capture on the site promoting the product.

Also, you would think the search process would be the same on different phones, it wasn’t. The option to select the search category was not present on one phone and it was on another.

Google’s mobile search product well too, but didn’t perform as well as AOL. Curiously, using the Motorola Q, Google misidentified the phone as a Sony Ericsson P990i. I am not sure why they presented the information upfront, it was the first thing presented – even before the search box.

I did test both services from a Samsung Synch and the both worked well even though some are reporting it only works on true smartphones.

Quick Links:

AOL
AOL Mobile Search
Google
Google Mobile Search
Steve Case

Teri Miller’s joy is Marc Rotenberg’s misery. Mr. Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, tells BusinessWeek in the article The Sell Phone Revolution “Any advertising that causes someone to flip open their cell phone and see an ad won’t be a wondrous moment.” But Teri Miller has experienced shopping nirvana from mobile advertising. When Teri received a text message ad toting the sale of 200 pairs of limited-edition All-Star basketball shoes, she jumped to the store and bought two pairs.

The difference in opinion: relevance. The more intrusive the medium the personal the advertising needs to be. We all have hot buttons, and if an ad campaign pushes our hot buttons we will react. According to ABI research, worldwide mobile advertising will be touching a lot of peoples’ hot buttons in the future. ABI reports that marketers will spend $3 billion on worldwide mobile advertising this year and the number will grow to $19 billion by 2011.

Quick Links:

BusinessWeek, The Sell Phone Revolution,  Catherine Holahan BIO
ABI Research Report Mobile Marketing and Advertising
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Mr. Marc Rotenberg BIO