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Yes, this would be pretty easy to fake — and even if it’s real, it’s just a survey, which means it’s sorta fake by design — but a questionnaire allegedly received by a Mobileburn forum member hints at specs and a rather fascinating concept design for Google’s probably-in-the-works cellphone. Everything seems believable enough, though it seems like they flip-open QWERTY keypad could be a bit tricky to access from the right side thanks to the permanently-affixed nav buttons; features are said to include 3G data, WiFi, and a 2 megapixel camera, not to mention a rather striking Samsung-penned chassis. Typical test-marketing survey mumbo jumbo suggests that the phone would offer “all the exciting Google services from the PC” and — thanks largely to targeted advertising — affordable (as it’s been suggested) flat-rate data service and a three-month trial. Could it be that Apple’s going to see a legitimate competitor in the “pretty, giant-screened cellphone with tight Google integration” market right out of the gate (and with 3G, no less)?

[Via GODMODE]

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Well, what do you know? Sometimes even the the most repetitive of rumors finally comes true. Barely 12 hours after the Wall Street Journal reported that a deal between Sprint, Clearwire and just about everyone else was dangerously close to going down, it seems as if the bottom lines have indeed been signed. Details are pretty light at the moment, but we definitively know that Sprint Nextel Corp. and Clearwire Corp. will be merging their “next-generation wireless broadband businesses to form a new wireless communications company.” Quite simply, the new outfit will be called Clearwire, even though Sprint will hold around 51-percent of the firm, while existing Clearwire shareholders will own 27-percent and the new investors will hold 22-percent. New investors? Ah yes, Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks will collectively invest $3.2 billion in the new company, but that figure is “based on a target price of $20 a share of Clearwire’s common stock, and is subject to a post-closing adjustment.”

[Via CNN]

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We’ve definitely heard this one before, but the buzz around a proposed $12B WiMAX partnership between Sprint, Clearwire, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Intel, and Google is deafening right now, all based on a report in the Wall Street Journal. The plan is for Sprint to merge its XOHM wireless broadband division with Clearwire, and then take a total of $3.2B in investments from a host of other players: $1.05B from Comcast, $1B from Intel, $550M from Time Warner Cable, $500M from Google, and $100M from Bright House. The resulting company will be worth some $12B, and the WSJ says investors have given their final approval for the deal — a rumor we’ve already heard with no meaningful result, so take it with a grain of salt. Or a whole salt lick, actually. We’re not certain why Big Cable is so eager to dump money on Sprint after two previous ventures both folded recently, but if this goes down, it’s a pretty big boost for WiMAX, which was looking pretty sickly lately. Still, asking consumers to have faith in Sprint and Comcast and Time Warner Cable is pretty ballsy — between the three of them, they’ve probably burned everyone in America. We’ll see where this goes — we should have something official pretty soon, according to the Journal.

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It looks like Verizon isn’t taking those 700MHz spectrum open access rules very seriously, and a certain competing bidder isn’t real happy. In a petition filed with the FCC by Google, the company alleges that Verizon is willfully ignoring the “plain meaning of the [open access] rule” by suggesting it will allow one type of access for users who use Verizon-approved devices, and another for those using third-party units. According to the document, “Verizon’s position would completely reverse the meaning of the rule such that the open access condition would apply to none of Verizon’s customers, and thereby render the condition a nullity.” The search giant is calling for the FCC to block Verizon’s $4.7 billion bid on the spectrum unless the company agrees to comply with the previously-decided open access rules. Since this isn’t the first inkling we’ve had that Verizon wasn’t down with open access, we’re not surprised, but it looks like Google has a little more fight left in them — and that could make all the difference. [Warning: PDF read link]

[Via IP Democracy; Thanks, Bram]

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Thanks to inventions like GPS Navigation and online directions, it’s getting harder to get lost by the day. Google Maps has been a big hit for folks trying to navigate to new destinations, and the free service just got cooler with the integration of Street-View into driving directions. Now when you enter a destination and get step by step directions, you can also click on a camera icon on the map to get a street-level view of the roads you’ll be traveling.

Street Maps allows you to rotate the view, click arrows to virtually travel the route, and even check out landmarks that you’ll be passing along the way. That way you’ll have a distinct visual to look out for when you’re going to turn, instead of seeing the tiny street sign at the last possible minute. The photo resolution is so clear, you can check out where there are one-way streets, read parking signs, and even keep tabs on speed limits on your route. The only draw-back is that you need to be within one of the 44 regions of the US to use the feature, but most metropolitan areas have the feature.

[Source: Carscoop]

Apple’s headed straight to the top with a bullet — they went from 159 to 121 in last year’s Fortune 500 ranking, and this year, they’ve pushed their way up to 103. On the list of the “20 most profitable tech companies,” they are solidly at number eight — Fortune says that the introduction of the iPhone and “record sales of Mac computers” have Apple on a rocket trajectory.

Of course, Google’s sitting upstairs at number 7, and you-know-who (not the Harry Potter villain, but close) is up at number one.

But yes, there’s no question that Apple has really been hitting it out of the park lately, and considering the future (the fruits of the SDK, another possible iPhone iteration, and whatever else they’re brewing up in Cupertino), the trends will continue.

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This is a follow on article in the series on transparency and standards.

The previous article examined how both Google and Yahoo have agreed to the standards outlined by the IAB but have not flowed the transparency down to domain owners. Because our industry is so small it’s been suggested that many of the strange policies that come down from on-high in both Google and Yahoo are often not aimed at us but others and domain owners just get caught in the cross fire. I personally don’t subscribe to this view as it would appear to mean that there are a lot of policies that “seem” to be impacting domain owners on a regular basis for the benefit of Google and Yahoo. Although there has been some consolidation the domain industry is still incredibly fragmented at each of the industry levels. I’m still amazed at the number of reasonable sized domainers that I’ve never met before but suddenly popup at one of the domain conferences. There are still too many parking companies and this is despite the recent closures of a few of them. In this fragmented market both Google and Yahoo can really do what they want and there really isn’t anyone large enough that can oppose them. There also isn’t a co-ordinated effort from domain owners to aggregate their traffic now or any time into the future. As an aside it’s been interesting to see how both Google and Yahoo have been restricting the number of new parking companies being launched by raising the “volume of traffic” bar before you can qualify for a direct agreement. While doing this they appear to be ensuring via their contracts that no parking company is achieving market dominance. It’s a very unusual industry that doesn’t have a single dominate player and whole group of companies fighting for second position. There does not appear to be a clear stand-out domain parking leader but rather quite a number of companies that are vying for first position. The real clincher has been the way that both Google and Yahoo are purposefully stifling innovation in the parking industry. The restrictions placed on template design, the development of other potentially lucrative revenue streams and a host of other innovate ideas is incredible. This could be seen as a blatant misuse of market power to reduce the ability of the industry to move forward. To understand what this all means we need appreciate the power of domain traffic. The following is a quotation from a case study conducted by Google in 2007 when they compared the conversion rates of domain versus search traffic for a particular customer. “When we analyzed the results, we were shocked. We didn’t expect to see that domain park sites can bring in the quality of traffic necessary to result in twice the conversion rates, at a cost-per-click that’s equal to that of search.”      When I read this report I congratulated our whole industry on the fact that we’ve managed to negotiate our way out of 50% of the revenue stream. It also means that although we are only 3% of Google/Yahoo’s revenue line we are actually punching at the 6% level of effectiveness. For the past 2 years Google has been reducing its margins to acquire greater volumes of traffic moving them down from 22% (Q1, 06) to 12% (Q4, 2007) (source: Google quarterly report). To put this in context if advertisers paid $1 per click (EPC) in Q1 2006 typical publishers would have been paid 78 cents (ignoring parking companies for the moment) and likewise in Q4 2007 they would be paid 88 cents. This would give an overall increase of 12.8% over 2006/7 but this is not the case for the domain channel. Since the domain channel is converting at double search our EPC was effectively 39 cents in 2006 and 44 cents in 2007. In reality the experience of many domainers has been that EPC rates have fallen by approximately 50% over the same period of time. This means that in 2007 we are being paid 22 cents while other publishers are being paid 88 cents for every dollar of advertising. The domain channel is cross subsidizing other content channel traffic such as mySpace and that they are reaping the benefits of our success. This is not surprising as the mySpace traffic is notoriously bad converting traffic. If you were Google I don’t think that this sort of information is actually what you want to communicate to today’s market. It’s much easier to make a multi-billion dollar deal look a lot better by reducing the income levels of a highly fragmented market and aggregating all the numbers together in a report for the analysts. Isn’t it nice to be needed! Source: Posted by Michael Gilmour — Original post on on Whizzbangsblog — March 17, 2008 

As unlikely as this sounds, rivals Time Warner Cable and Comcast are apparently in talks with Sprint and Clearwire over establishing a nationwide WiMAX network. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the companies are scrambling to get a deal wrapped up by CTIA — which takes place at the beginning of April — and could see an influx of cash from both Google and Intel in excess of $1 billion. It seems the odd-couple partners are keen to cut into heavyweights Verizon and AT&T’s ever-expanding range of at-home and mobile services by offering their own take on a high-speed data and voice system to consumers. Clearly this combination would deflate AT&T and Verizon’s big FCC bandwidth-nabs a little (and it explains why the cable players weren’t interested in the 700MHz auction), but it’s questionable whether this rag-tag team of wild card players would seriously court the public’s eye. They say America loves an underdog — even if it’s a gigantic, super-rich, corporate underdog.

source:engadget

The 700MHz auction is over, but that doesn’t mean the days of high-stakes spectrum drama have come to a close — just like we’d heard, Google today began a renewed push for white space internet. Backed by Microsoft, Philips, Dell, HP and others, white space transmissions are designed to fit in between TV signals on channels 2-51, but there’s just one little problem — the stuff doesn’t really work yet. That’s all about to change, according to Google: the company says it’s done its own testing and will submit a proposal for an enhanced system to the FCC soon — hmm, that could explain that secret test 700MHz network on the Google campus we’ve been hearing about, no? What’s more, in an effort to open up the white space market and bring some competition to the broadband scene, Google says it’s willing to provide free technical assistance and reference designs to other would-be white space providers wanting to get in on the action — sort of like white space Android. Of course, all of this hinges on the FCC actually approving the tech, but if the 700MHz open-access drama showed us anything, it’s that Google is pretty adept at playing the system to get what it wants from Uncle Sam.

NEW YORK: Google Inc, whose shares have plunged more than 40 per cent since November and could fall almost another 20 per cent due to the US economic slowdown and aggressive spending by the Internet search engine company, according to the latest issue of Barron’s.

Google shares dropped to a new 52-week low of $435.78 Tuesday before bouncing back to close at $444.60, down $12.42.  Google shares closed on Friday at $433.35.