Week of September 22, 2008

Motorola Builds Up Android Team

Friday, September 26, 2008

We predicted that 2008 would close with significant excitement and some new handset catching the excitement and attention of mobile phone consumers. With the announcement of the HTC/Google G1 on T-Mobile it looks like that prediction is coming true as we head into the Christmas buying season. While the iPhone is a revolutionary device and incredibly elegant, there are increasing signs that the Google operating system (Android) will be picking up significant steam. The latest indicator? Troubled handset maker Motorola has announced plans to hire a team of Android developers that may be as large as 350 people. With HTC, Motorola, and perhaps even other handset makers developing around the open source Android OS, you can expect significant growth and feature development in a short amount of time.

One thing is certain, 2009 will be an exciting year in the mobile handset space.

MySpace Music Launches, Disappoints

Thursday, September 25, 2008

MySpace Music's high profile launch has taken place, and a look at the service shows that it is an improvement over the existing service, but far from a new source for finding and enjoying your music. It's shortcomings include a limit of only 100 songs able to be stored, a small catalog that excludes quite a few songs from before 1990, and contemporary songs that are only available in 90 second samples. As a MySpace tool, it's a nice improvement. As a central place to discover and listen to music it is a disappointment.

Google T-Mobile Phone Introduced

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

T-Mobile and Google, along with handset maker HTC, announced the release of the first Android phone with a comprehensive overview of features. Early reviews are very promising based on the presentation, with the phrase "almost an iPhone killer" often seen. One of the key differences in the phone are its use of a full keyboard under the slide-out screen, and that it is only single-touch interface, not multi-touch. It will be released to consumers in late October.

Yahoo to allow full song playback in search results

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

A few days ago we outlined that Rhapsody had partnered with iLike to allow on demand streaming via a website widget, now comes word that songs searched for via Yahoo will be able to be streamed directly from the search results, again due to a partnership with Rhapsody. The same limitations apply: Only 25 streams per month for free, but the convenience of integrating a song player within Yahoo song search results is definitely cool and convenient.

Now, how long before some hacker comes up with a way to rip them into MP3s on your hard drive?

Google Announces Audio Search

Monday, September 22, 2008

Several companies provide it as a custom solution for content providers and now Google has announced an interesting foray in video search-searching the audio track for phrases spoken. So far Google is just indexing political speeches via Youtube, but they plan on expanding the service. This is just another indication that the future of on demand is truly personal: People who want to find who, what, where, and when will, be able to do so no matter whether the source is text, audio, or video.