MSearchGroove

Reports like this one from Mobile Entertainment are everywhere you look - all trying to piece together Google’s real agenda. Top of the list: plans for a Google device. As it turns out Google is showing off a prototype to handset manufacturers and operators, gearing up for a launch that could come sometime next year. (But scroll down to my favorite post on Google Double-Speak and you might believe it will be here sooner…)

To recap: The Google phone (according to some images circulating in the blogosphere) shows a device that actually looks a lot like a more rounded iPhone. The actual package – likely to be part of an ad-funded scheme – has all the makings of an end-to-end Google experience. It will likely bundle mobile search, Gmail, Maps – the works, really. And, if it is free to the user, then who can beat it? But it might not be so cheap for Google. IT Week reports the U.S. operator GlobalPhone already owns the gphone.com domain name - while googlephone.com is currently used by a site offering mobile phone downloads.

What about the 700 MHz wireless spectrum? Not much change there. Google recently pledged to bid $4.6 billion – and the FCC ended up only approving rules that would keep the spectrum (or at least a slice of it) open to any device and all software. Is a partial victory enough for Google to bid on the spectrum? Watch this space.

In the meantime, Investor’s Business Daily (via CNN Money.com) gives us some insights into Google’s plans for video ads (which I include in this post because of the role video will ultimately play in the mobile advertising mix). A welcome comment that puts the events of the last days back into perspective from Greg Sterling, head of the Sterling Market Intelligence research firm. “We’re really three years out for Google to get much meaningful revenue from this, but it’s definitely coming.” Google – like the rest of the industry – will have to be patient. User acceptance of mobile advertising is fragmented and it’s certainly not second nature to click through on ads…yet.

Sure, targeting is an important part of the ad pitch – but it doesn’t seem that Google is pursuing this to deliver ads via online or mobile. This short snippet from the India Times tells us Google’s is lukewarm on behavioral targeting and reluctant to do more than find links between an individual searcher’s queries. From the article: Susan Wojcicki, Google vice president of product management for advertising, said Google was shying away from the industry race to deliver tools for advertisers that stitch together a user’s various online actions into one profile.

And finally, an amusing and insightful post from Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim that I’d like to share.

He’s taken a look at Google’s track record and concludes that there’s a Google Loophole in the company’s recent string of denials and murky plans. (What’s a Google Loophole? “It’s when Google makes a precisely worded statement denying a rumor, but then turns around and does a variation on it. For example, “we have no plans for an IPO” - at the time they didn’t, but then look what happened.”)

Andy figures Google’s efforts to get the FCC to allow the connection of any phone to the new 700 MHz spectrum is likely based on its plans to launch a phone. “Ah, but they’ve said they’re not interested in building a mobile phone, I hear you cry. Google Loophole!” His take: “Google isn’t building the Gphone. They’re building the prototype, mapping out the specs and then shopping existing phone manufacturers for the actual production.” In a nutshell, best not to believe everything you read (from Google). “With the FCC deciding that the new wireless network should allow any phone to connect to it, Google’s mobile plans are primed and ready.”

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• Usability, Mobile Search, Mobile Advertising

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