Google Inc. Chairman Eric Schmidt has stated that its purchase of mobile company Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. in August was for more than just its patents.

Rather, the aim of  the search engine giant, that bought the company for $12.5 billion, was to acquire Motorola’s product line. “Motorola has some amazing products,” Schmidt told Salesforce.com Inc. Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff.

The acquisition might have come as a surprise but it makes total sense. Gone are the days of Android being called fragmented because of hardware manufacturers tweaking Android to suit their requirements before shipping their handsets. Google can now control their entire mobile experience from hardware to software (Sound familiar? Think iOS).

The acquisition of 17, 000 patents will also help them defend Android against patent claims by their number one competitor – Apple.

Every now and then I get reminded why Google are so successful at what they do – and I am not talking about advertising now. Their search algorithm is brilliantly complicated, and is the number one choice for web searches. The best part of this algorithm is that is is almost always in a state of change, a flux if you will.

Google has put together this video to give us a first hand look at how quickly they make changes to how search queries are interpreted, and how these search results are tested. One very interesting example is how they changed their way of handling misspelled words – you might remember in the past misspelled words were searched as is, and then the user was just reminded that the word might be wrongly spelt. These days it automatically searches the correct spelling first, with an “escape hatch” to confirm the misspelled word. This is just one of the changes Google has made.

Take a look at the video – the part I like most is that the Google engineers still say they understand users have choice of what browser to use. Who would have thought Google employees still told themselves that… Refreshing.

PS: That is a lot of Apple Macs in a Google meeting room...

This is huge. Since 2008 with the start of Open Handset Alliance, Motorola has been a key member, and they have been churning out Android phones since then. We know the history of Motorola – since its wildly successful RAZR it has had a tough time getting on top again. But their recent smartphones have been better than ever, and they have been running Google’s Android OS almost exclusively (they do still make a few retail hardened Windows Mobile devices).

So it is interesting that Google has just announced that they will be buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, at a 63% premium over the current shareprice. A relative bargain if you ask me, especially if you consider all the patents they will acquire in the process as well (Motorola currently has around 17,000 wireless patents). The smartphone race has recently become all about patents, and this will give Google a key advantage.

This is also interesting because it means Google will now have hardware manufacturer ability in house. Until now they needed to form hardware partnerships for their reference devices, like the Nexus and Nexus S. They have already used HTC and Samsung in these roles. This means your next Google reference device will in all probability be a Motorola phone. Google will now finally have complete control over the software and hardware, just like that other fruit company they are competing with…

Find the press release below: (more…)

We all know the deal on Facebook – you get people who use it for simple social networking, and those that click on just about any app or game and become hooked on the platform (much to the dismay of others who have to deal with constant invites). Now Google is also using this method of hooking people to the platform, although it does seem a lot more polished and organized.

Although it is not yet live for everyone (I checked this morning and I am not yet that lucky), Google+ Games will be placed in a fifth button on the top of the screen, and the current catalogue looks pretty great. Most significantly, these games are focussed on sharing your accomplishments within your circles, and the user can cleanly just from the games view to the other Google+ views. You can of course disable games invites in your circles – if you are not yet familiar with Circles, click here to get a proper explanation.  As Google puts it, the games are there when you want them, and gone when you dont. Take a look at this video to see how the games interface will work – very impressive actually.

Google+ Games will have quite a few titles on launch (currently around 16), and includes Angry Birds, Zynga Poker and Sudoko as well. Zynga is the gaming company that has made its fortunes on Facebook with games like Farmville, so its interesting to see them embrace this new platform as well. Google is also inviting developers to jump on board, so expect the platform to grow very quickly. If you happen to be lucky enough to have Google+ games already live on your account, give us your impressions in the comments, OK?

 Update: Looks like Google+ Games has made Facebook sit up and take notice – they have now announced updates to Facebook Games as well, including a new fullscreen view with a ticker screen on the right to monitor your friends and their gaming activity.

Guest Post:  Antonio Petra is Head of Insight at NATIVE and has worked in the digital environment for the past 15 years, with experience in online marketing, strategy, brand building, and analytics. His focus is developing and implementing measurement frameworks and diagnostic tools for large companies to assess their digital platform value and performance.

The future of the web is connected platforms. This is a bold statement, I know, but it is human nature to need parameters whilst at the same time revolt against institutions whose parameters are too onerous. No one platform can ever be an entire digital experience for users, for many reasons, aside from the one I’ve stated above.

What Google+ aims to do is create a layer on top of the internet, a layer which incorporates the connectedness of Facebook while simultaneously breaking down the walls that social platforms require in order to curate the experience of their users. In a sense Google+ is simply a situation where you can have your cake and eat it. Your cake is the connectedness of social media combined with the great experiences on the web you still love (like your favourite news sites) but are outside of the walled garden of social media websites.

You could argue that Facebook Connect gives you this, but Connect is really a way of pushing experiences or content back into Facebook. This, admittedly, is actually an effective way of sharing content. The fact is though it is more biased towards keeping you within the eco-system of Facebook. This is one of the many reasons big brands have simply given up the fight and have shifted their presence into Facebook – it’s really to avoid a conversion hurdle of getting people out of Facebook and into their websites.

In a sense it’s pretty easy to build a Facebook, several clones exist, however the biggest challenge that Google+ faces is in attracting users, and it is an incredible challenge when users are spoilt for choice. It’s why all the clones never amount to Facebook’s success – they may have better features but they can’t attract the audience. I’m not undermining how brilliant Facebook actually is, it has been incredible in terms of foresight into the human need to connect and be heard, and first to market with many features we take for granted today. What I am saying is that all the current criticism over Google+’s obvious Facebook-type features are actually pointless, they’re a ridiculous feature comparison which is biased by what the authors know and are used to versus what is new and maybe a little threatening.

START UP THE MARKETING MACHINE

So basically Google will need to drive users to Google+ in order to make it work. They know now that the subtle coolness of simply putting the product out there for people to discover won’t work (see Google Wave), they also know that simply opting in their entire Gmail user base will also not work (see Google Buzz). Hopefully they have realised it’s a combination of good, old-fashioned marketing and a dose of coolness – and omnipresence doesn’t hurt either.

Google has recently woken up to the power of marketing the brand. The success of Google’S $5-million Super Bowl advert (broadcast in February 2010) has had an impact on the way Google thinks about brand advertising. In a recent interview Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, actually said that the ad paid for itself. “We turned a Super Bowl ad into a ROI phenomenon,” he said.

Just to emphasise this point, + is actually a part of a wave at Google which includes a major re-design of all user interfaces, along with the rebranding of two of their major products. For a company of Google’s size, with its user base, that is a big statement to make. It means they’re taking the comfort of their users very seriously.

WHY GOOGLE+ HAS TO WORK

• ·        REASON #1: THREE STRIKES – YOU’RE OUT!

This is a pride issue for Google. As every tech journalist has pointed out, this is round three of Google’s social media experiment. They have failed rather spectacularly before so I believe this is the make or break and they will throw whatever their $65-billion dollar machine has to throw at it. If they don’t succeed the only way they could get into social media is to buy into the competition, and this would probably prove more expensive a strategy than throwing a bunch of cash at making Google+ work.

Also, the competition is a complex arrangement of competitors, so it may not even be an option. At the moment the stakes seem high, several articles in the months leading up to the launch of Google+ asked whether Google is actually just a search company. I often express my irritation with this statement, because even if Google is just a search company, it’s a damn profitable one. This statement is akin to saying Coca Cola is just a sugary beverage. By making this statement, journalists are ignoring the true money machine behind Google. Google is not a search company – its money spinner is Pay Per Click (PPC).

• ·        REASON #2 – THE GOLDEN AGE OF SEARCH

This brings me to the second reason Google needs to make Google+ work. The day the PPC model is threatened is the day Google will shrug its shroud of apparent complacency and become more aggressive in its approach to social media.

Frankly, I think that day is dawning. The reason for this is that we are experiencing a third fundamental shift in the way we “discover” content. The first phase in the early nineties was when we used to browse around for content. The second phase came in the mid to late nineties when search engines began helping us find content and the third phase began a few years ago with the arrival of social media.

This phase is predominantly a referral phase and PPC revenue can only be negatively affected by a referral-based community. Search has essentially become pretty cluttered and the race to ensure that search results are relevant is being closely run by Google, Affiliates, and Content Farms. However, if Google+ is actually successful it will give Google the opportunity to prolong a PPC-type system.

Because of this we are still to see the Golden Age of Search. Machines and the people who craft the Google Algorithm both seem to be getting smarter every 18 months.

Brands and agencies are scrambling to determine exactly how Google+ will affect their digital presence. I have already received countless emails from clients asking when we’re going to integrate Google+ and when we can show them the new Social Analytics data from the Google Analytics dash that has just been released. It’s not surprising considering Google+ gained 10 million followers in just 16 days, compared to Twitter’s 780 days and Facebook’s 852 days to reach the same amount. Google is indeed a force to be reckoned with.

Greplin, a company making waves for “tackling the other half of search”, launched a competition to redesign wikipedia’s search experience: “everything from the behaviors on the search page, to the layout of content, to the details of typography, color, animations. Today, many people use Google to search Wikipedia, but imagine a whole new experience that makes using Google to search Wikipedia feel outdated.”

It is a novel and positive initiative that might yield some interesting results, but I am wondering if it is possible or needed. Let me explain:

How do you search wikipedia? If you are like the rest of us, you mainly go through Google, then click on the wikipedia link if it exists. When do I only use wikipedia’s search? It is when I am sure there will be content available (something broad like France or Gears) and even then I usually use the Google Chrome’s autocomplete search function.

I feel this is an important point, because it shows the difference between Google and Wikipedia. When searching for information related to the keyword that I am not knowledgeable about, I use wikipedia. When travelling to another country (say Singapore), you want information on that country, you don’t want something specific (not until you are more knowledgeable about the subject). Here Wikipedia crowns king. However this beats the purpose of searching (or trying to improve a search experience): when I know what to find and how to find it. (I don’t know, but I know where to find information so that I can know more).

More often that not, I use Google to search for answers (or when I don’t know where to go look for information). (I don’t know, and I don’t know where and how to find information that I want). Of course you can’t extrapolate one user’s habits to the whole population. Let’s assume I am searching for information (not answers) on something that I am unsure of whether it will be in Wikipedia (random small suburb in a backwater town). Should I use Wikipedia or Google? Google of course. If it is on Wikipedia, it should be in the top few links. If not, then I can find relevant information on other websites. If I went the Wikipedia avenue, I would’ve been presented with nothing and then had to go Google anyway.

In other words, Google will always be more useful when searching answers and information. It boils down to the fact that not all information is for the purpose of being encyclopaedic.

I do think there are perhaps areas where Wikipedia’s search can be made more useful:

> This is a big suggestion, but maybe Wikipedia shouldn’t have 2 frontpages. I like the globe, but if it wants to improve search, the bar has to be made more prominent.

> The second ‘frontpage’ is language specific (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page). Once you are on there, there is no (obvious) link back to the ‘globe’ page and you are stuck with the search in the right top corner.

> Increase the speed. Wikipedia’s search is slower than Google. If I do choose to use Wikipedia and I mistook my perception that there will be information on it, I don’t want to feel as if I wasted time that I could’ve spent by just using Google instead.

What if Wikipedia’s search wasn’t primarily about finding information, but an experience in itself?

A fancy, shiny minorty report whizzing and whistles experience (for example), could make Wikipedia’s search fun to use, but maybe that would just turn into qwiki?

In the end to me, the nature of the information on Wikipedia doesn’t lend itself to being about ‘search’. There isn’t much to find: either there is an article about, or there is not. The middle way is vague, and then I have to resort to Google to find what I am looking for.

What do you think? Can Wikipedia’s search experience be improved? Can it be improved enough so that when searching for information, users would go to Wikipedia first, instead of Google? If I am wrong, I am looking forward to the results of the competition. I am open to being pleasantly surprised!

Many of you have possibly heard of Google Offers, a group buying division of Google, which, along with Facebook Deals, has had very little written about them after their the initial mention a few months back. The reason for this is mainly that Google Offers is still outside South Africa, and in fact only in a few cities in the US.

After a failed attempt to purchase Groupon (perhaps Groupon should have accepted this offer), Google went their own way and decided to tackle the daily deals arena themselves. After all, Google has massive reach and the ability to enter the market globally at lightning speed, faster than Groupon. Right?

Well, so one would think, and there are many reasons why they should, yet thus far they still haven’t. Why not? Some more about Google’s group buying service.

Advantages
- Google has enormous reach worldwide, in both the number of people that visit its various sites and search engine, and in that it also has major clients who use it daily.
- There is a rumour of firms being able to construct their own deals online without Google having to do anything, and hence a lower commission percentage charged. So far, however, Google has hired sales people to bring in deals, and I haven’t seen this part yet
- Google Offers pays businesses part of their portion upfront (we hear 80%) and part after 60 or 90 days. This is regardless of how many coupons are redeemed. That is mighty fair, considering what is going on in South Africa. Read more about group buying payment schemes on this post too.
- Customers and merchants have the knowledge that this isn’t another group buying site about to go bust.
- Payment, support, etc should all work well (although who knows – the Google Offers team is rumoured to be under 30 people strong at the time of writing
- Google will eventually “distribute” deals to consumers through many other channels in addition to email, including search ads, display ads, Android phones, Google Wallet and “Places” pages.

Disadvantages
- The service is new and only in a few cities in the US. Other group buying sites such as LivingSocial.com (www.livingsocial.com) are already in a few continents and numerous countries.
- If it becomes self-service, adding your own deal not only takes time, but admin and also makes it possible for poor deals to enter the system, no matter what the constraints

One merchant canvassed by Google Offers understood that using them would increase search engine rankings, but it seems this is untrue and doesn’t bode by Google’s mantra at all.

In the beginning, if Google Offers is to become a big force in the deals space, Google is going to have to hire thousands of salespeople. According to Google’s Eric Rosenblum, the Google Offers top dog, Google intends to deal with the “salespeople problem” by making the Offers product as much of a self-serve solution as AdWords. As mentioned above, the company’s hope is that merchants will eventually do most of the work, and the company won’t need so many salespeople.

Why doesn’t Google just stick to getting the deals sold on other sites by charging for PPC campaigns? Perhaps a Google group buying aggregator site like AllDeals or Yadda would bring in only slightly less revenue for a lesser investment? Is Google just barking up yet another tree here?

I can hear the collective scratching of heads across the world as people are pondering whether they should use Google+. Your tech/web friends have all loudly blabbered about it on Facebook or Twitter and now you are wondering what the fuss is all about? Bandwidthblog has a write-up here to educate yourself on what Google+ brings to the table.

Should you jump ship, abandon your farms and party photos to a new social network? Not yet. Google+ is experimenting with a new model of online interaction, called ‘Circles’ (which is similar to Diaspora’s ‘aspects’).

Facebook’s interaction is simple. If we accept, we both see each other’s information: a simple handshake if you will. Twitter’s interaction is asynchronous: I follow you what you say, but it is not necessary to reciprocate and follow back.

Google+’s interaction is a bit more complicated. On the get-go you add individuals to certain circles of your life (‘work’,'friends’,'music buddies’, etc). When you share something, you share it with whatever circles you choose. Once that funny cat video is shared, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the people whom you intended it for will actually see it. If they don’t add you to a circle, it will appear in the ‘incoming’ stream (incoming stream? what?). Another important thing to note, is that ‘circles’ are known only to you. If you add “Rob Bikeperson” to “Biker Mice from Bars”, they will only know that they have been added to “a” circle, but not which specific one. In other words, you have your own context about the certain circles of your life and another person has their own context.

Are you lost?

Exactly. Here is a graph to make it easier to understand. Click to enlarge:

Still lost? Exactly.

Some web enthusiasts are claiming the downfall of Facebook (and Twitter). To me Google+ just works differently. It is a new and interesting experiment around the idea of putting different facets of your life front and center. Putting it online comes with its own territory.

Google+ as it stands now is for users who are information consumers. The majority of users on Facebook aren’t facing this problem to such an extent that they would take the effort to understand a new model such as Google+. It’s an important iteration, but not the killer social network that it wants to be.

Graph: By Lee S. translated and reposted by Axel Aigret, Cyril Galliné and Nathalie Gilson. You can view it here.