August 15th, 2011
Top 5 Reasons Why Google Bought Motorola
Google continues its “innovation run” by acquiring smartphone vendor Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The deal between the search giant and mobile phone pioneer signals Google’s official entry into the smartphone market. According to Google CEO Larry Page, the Motorola acquisition will “supercharge the Android ecosystem.” Among the 39 manufacturers that use the Android OS, Google thinks Motorola is the best company to enhance and improve the Android platform.
Motorola has 80 years of innovation in communications, introducing the world’s first portable mobile phone over 30 years ago. Motorola was one of the founding members of the Open Handset Alliance, and was one of the first smartphone vendors to associate a definitive brand with the Android ecosystem via its Droid smartphones.
Here are my top five reasons why Google acquire Motorola:
- Most People Access Social Sites via Mobile
A no-brainer, most people log in to Facebook or Twitter through their mobile phones. The Android OS supports both social platforms (and if not, through a third-party app). And with most offices implementing a social media policy, most employees will go online using their cellphones. People who are using mobile to access Facebook are twice more active than non-mobile users.
- Mobile Payment System (Google Wallet)
PayPal sued Google months ago when the former PayPal employees “took” their ideas to Google. PayPal won’t bother suing the search giant if they know that they’re in trouble when Google launches Google Wallet payment system. Regardless who wins the lawsuit; Google Wallet will enhance mobile eCommerce for everyone and is now being deemed to be better than PayPal.
- Location-based Deals (Google Offers)
Why do people check-in? Is it just a fad? I bet not, with Foursquare hitting the 10 million mark months ago, Google sees the potential of location-based deals to complement Google Places. Google Offers has been launched in major cities already, which I suppose are heavy-users of mobile phones. Need I say, go figure?
- Mobile Landing Pages
With Google Places giving a boost to small and local businesses, Google recently added a useful function on Google sites by allowing users to make a simple mobile landing page for free. It gives a business owner without any HTML experience a quick and convenient way to build a mobile landing page for his business. Businesses can also integrate their social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube on the mobile landing page. The game-changer: businesses can get analytics of traffic to their mobile sites.
- Every Internet Company Needs a Smart(phone) Ally
Twitter has Apple. Facebook has Microsoft. Google now has Motorola. In the mobile phone wars, functionality of a unit used to be a crucial factor for it to be a hit among consumers. Today, a smartphone should be social media-friendly for people to buy it. More than 150 million Android devices activated on the planet, it’s Apple’s closest rival in the war of smartphones. And with Motorola carrying an extensive patent portfolio, it’s Google’s counter-punch even before Apple asserts their intellectual property rights against them.
July 12th, 2011
Google+ Reaches 10 Million…and counting!
A week after Google’s new social networking platform ran abuzz over the Internet, Google+ has just reached 10 million users and counting. Such growth is more than significant even for search giant Google. But again, the question still lingers: Can Google+ users can sustain its growth?
According to Paul Allen of Ancestry.com, he came up with a practical method to calculate the number of Google+ members. Allen sampled a number of surnames from the U.S. Census Bureau data in order to make a comparison with the surnames of Google+ users. Surname popularity and the number of users on Google+ with each surname is all he used to “guesstimate” the percentage of the U.S. population that signed up and became 1st generation Google+ users. After that, Allen calculated the ratio of U.S. to non-U.S. users to come up with an estimated number of Google+ users on the planet. Of course, the findings are from a third-party source, but it’s worth a look. This is Allen’s findings so far:
Google+ has approximately 9.5 million users worldwide, with 2.2 million joining in the past 32 to 34 hours, according to Allen’s estimates.
Meanwhile, Google Offers has been launched in New York and San Francisco. Offers will be integrated to Google’s other product, Google Wallet, as a convenient means for mobile payments and ties up with deals sent to your email. A few months ago, pundits say that Google Wallet can replace PayPal if it’s properly integrated with Google’s other products
Furthermore, Google Offers is being integrated with Google Places as well, from the looks of it, Google wants to overwhelm Groupon and Foursquare with one smooth stroke. Foursquare has already tapped Groupon and Gilt among others to enhance their daily deals. And with Google+ gaining momentum everyday and an integration at hand, it looks like the search giant will finally catch up in the race for social media supremacy.
