First Wave, now Google Voice….no invite needed.
Be sure you get your Google Voice number if you don’t have one.
voice.google.com
Archive for the ‘Google’ Category
Never could get a Google Wave invite…worry no more, Wave is out of Beta and no invite is needed.
“Wave open sign-ups: Google Wave is open to all users at wave.google.com, as a Google Labs product — no invitation needed. Google Apps administrators will also have the option to add Wave as a Labs feature for their domains, helping groups of people communicate and work together more productively.”
I can’t help but think that Google’s 5 year plan is to release GoogleOS and mash together all the apps….Gmail, Google Voice, Wave, Reader, Online Docs, Calendar, Picasa, YouTube, etc. They will make it so you can’t pull one piece out unless you get rid of the entire bunch. That is until they are sued for being anti-competitive like Microsoft was.
Looks like it has started.
“There is a rumor going around the blogosphere that Google may be working on a VoIP service utilizing Google Voice integration with Gmail. A spokesperson for Google tells WebPronews, “We’re always testing new features and looking for ways to improve our products. We have nothing to announce at this time.”
Read more here
Lauren Rosenberg was going for a walk and used Google Map directions to give her a route. Unfortunately for Lauren, Deer Valley Drive, also known as Utah State Route 224, was part of the route.
While walking on Deer Valley Drive she was hit by a car. She is suing Google for $100,000.
I hope she is alright but if she wins the suit the judge should make use the money for common sense classes.
I wonder how much work a carrier does to an operating system before they release it to their handsets. You read about some handsets just getting Android 2.1 when 2.2 is already released. I would think that Google would make it easy for the carriers to tweak what they want, disable this, disable something else, disable another useful thing, etc.
Now that Android is a ‘standard’ with regular feature releases people are going to learn how much carriers cripple the software on phones…..Android on Sprint can do AB&C, while on Verizon it can only do XY&Z.
Carriers that are quick to release the newest software will come out on top. People will have two criteria for making a decision on a mobile phone, the hardware and the version of software it is running; why by great hardware that has to year old software?
This is a great video from The Onion about Google subsidized phones. Google listens to your conversations and inserts audio ads relevant to the conversation. Talking to a friend about where to go to dinner, Google will tell you real time. Check out the video, very funny.
New Google Phone Service Whispers Targeted Ads Directly Into Users’ Ears
Looks like Google is getting out of the direct hardware sales business. Soon people wanting to buy a Nexus One will need to buy it directly from a carrier. Google thinks that people want to see and hold a phone before they make a purchase.
The writing was on the wall when Google released a statement that they will not be releasing a Nexus One for the Verizon network.
No doubt they will continue with the Android OS, but they might get out of the hardware business altogether.
Read more details here
Mobile Beat has a story that claims Android Sales Surpassed iPhone sales during Q1 2010.
Stories like this bring up more questions than they answer:
- Are people not buying iPhones because they are waiting for the iPhone HD?
- Is this a story of open source triumphs over locked down closed source?
- Does Apple even care?
- Does Google care?
- Should I care?!?
- Is Android going to become the Windows of mobile phones, everyone sells it on different hardware – but Apple does it ‘better’?
- It is the fact that Google gives Android away for free lets the hardware manufacturers focus on awesome hardware?
- Is it just a flawed survey…people do tend to fib.
- And on, and on, and on.
It is very hard for smaller companies beat the price of “Free” that Google offers for its standard services.
“I’ve recently been thinking about how Google Voice, Google Wave and Google Buzz joining the full Google Apps lineup would make it a budget-friendly teleworking platform. Organizations can now literally purchase themselves a “telework in a box” solution — a complete office productivity software, communications and collaboration package — with little or no requirement for support from their own technical staff.”
Read the 9 reasons here
