What is Google, These Days?

Sometimes there is no good way to describe a company except by long clumsy strings of words. How does one discriminate between service providers who own facilities from those who do not; who own different kinds or amounts of facilities; who operate in different customer segments. Worse, how does one describe companies whose business ambitions and scope defy simple explanation, or operate in multiple categories, some of which do not seem to have widely-understood names, yet?

In other cases, shorter tags can be used, but are imprecise. Gvien that all the growth in the cable TV business is in voice and data, plus small business and even, in some cases, in enterprise services, does calling them "cable" companies, referrring to their use of physical access media, or "cable TV" companies, referring to their legacy business, make sense?

Google causes us those sorts of problems. Journalists and bloggers often use shorthand such as "search giant." But Google already operates in more important segments and businesses than that. Now it's into browsers, cloud computing infrastructure, mobile phone operating systems, advertising placement systems, video, wikis, email, blogging, software as a service, messaging and other applications including collaboration. 

It's part media company, part advertising services provider, part software company, part computing utility. And to say it is a "software" company belies the customer segments and types of software it creates. If you are somebody who thinks the most-valuable asset is knowledge about what people are doing--right now--and what they are interested in, that's one way of describing what Google does, in its totality. It creates software for people to use at least partly to create knowledge about what they do, who they know and what they are doing now. 

That then creates the ad-based revenue streams that so far have been the foundation for its business model. So in a broad sense, Google creates software people really like to harvest the analytics and monetize that capability. But that's hard to capture in a simple adjective. Harder still is to figure out what Google is, so the search for an appropriate adjective can begin. 

iPhone Shopper Demographics Changing

There is no doubt that Apple iPhone users are atypical of most mobile phone users. They are younger, more technologically savvy and richer. In July 2008, people checking out the iPhone on AT&T's Web site were about 40 percent more likely to have an income of $100,000 or more, compared to the typical wireless shopper. 

At annual income levels below $59,000, iPhone shoppers were about 25 percent less likely to be looking. In the $60,000 to $100,000 annual income bracket, iPhone inquires were just about the same as the "average" mobile phone inquirer.

That suggests the next big surge of usage will be concentrated in the ranks of users with incomes in that $60,000 to $100,000 range. It is not yet a truly "mass market" device, yet. But there are some signs of change. 

Social Networking: Glass Half Full

More than one-half of adults surveyed in 17 countries do not know what social networking is, according to Synovate. The company surveyed 13,000 consumers in Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the United States if they were familiar with social networking.

U.S. 3G Catches European Penetration Rates

comScore reports that the United States has caught up with Western Europe in the adoption of third generation wireless subscribers.  Some 28.4 percent of American mobile subscribers now have 3G devices compared to 28.3 percent in the largest countries in Europe. The number of U.S. subscribers with 3G enabled devices has grown 80 percent to 64.2 million during the past year. 

Chrome Gaining Share?

Google's Chrome, just a few days into beta launch, already owns one percent of the Web browser market. Apple's Safari browser has 2.4 percent share. It isn't clear how much of that share is people test driving Chrome, and who may decide to stick with their default browser. At Silicon Alley Insider, about six percent of visits on Sept. 4 were from Chrome browsers, about 41 percent from Firefox browsers.

On one of my blogs, between Sept.2 and Sept. 3, 2008, Chrome browsers represented more than five percent of visits. About 49 percent were Internet Explorer while 40 percent were Firefox browsers. Safari users were about four percent. 

FCC Acts on Potential Interference Issues

The Federal Communications Commission has ordered a freeze on the granting of any equipment authorization requests for wireless microphones that would operate in any of the 700 MHz Band frequencies. In addition, the FCC is considering a ban on any wireless microphones operating in the space. The issue, as often is the case for licensed spectrum holders or prospective holders, is signal interference.

The spectrum in question is in the over-the-air band corresponding to broadcast channels 2 through 51, which will be converting to digital broadcasting next February 2009. To avoid local interference with broadcast TV signals, wireless microphones would be restricted to the guard bands between each of the 6-MHz channels.

Many of you who attend conferences might have discovered that Research in Motion BlackBerries cause significant interference with wireless microphones, enough so that audiovisual personnel always will ask for speaker or panelist BlackBerries to be turned off. Potential interference also has been an issue with various tests of "white spaces" between TV channels as well.

Boingo Supports Sony Ericsson Handsets

Boingo Wireless now supports  Sony Ericsson UIQ 3.0 handsets. Owners of those devices now can download the Boingo Mobile application to get online worldwide at more than 80,000 Boingo hotspots. Boingo Mobile supports Wi-Fi enabled Sony Ericsson W960i, P1i and G900 models.  

 

Boingo’s network includes more than 500 airports, including 85 of the top 100 airports worldwide, as well as hotels, coffee shops, restaurants, cafés and retail locations.

As an aside, I have been attempting to test the Boingo Wi-Fi network in my normal travels. The issue for me is that I am an untypical user. There is fixed broadband at every tethered location where I normally work and I have a Verizon Wireless 3G card for mobility. 

At some airports I also have access to the T-Mobile Wi-Fi network, especially at Denver International--which also offers its own free service--and at the Dulles International Airport, where I also have T-Mobile Wi-Fi access for no additional fee.

The Boingo software is really easy to use, I will say that. 

My particular issue is that the T-Mobile hot spot signal normally is much stronger (I'm right under the radios) where I normally am sitting in either Denver or Washington. Moreover, I have the 3G card, so I typically slap in the 3G card without worrying about the Wi-Fi. 

I normally can get in some minutes of use after boarding the plane by using the 3G, and typically cannot get signal with any Wi-Fi provider out on the tarmac.

I do have a Nokia N95 with Wi-Fi access, so I have been thinking I should test the Boingo service with the mobile. But I am not a typical user. I do lots of keyboard entry, so when I am in a stationary location, my preference is to power up the PC. 

In my case, Wi-Fi is a secondary or backup service for a PC. The other mobile I carry does have mobile data access as well, so there's even more complication. 

If I didn't have 3G and other options, there's no question Boingo would be useful, either for PC or mobile handset access.