Watching Google's Mobile Progress First Hand
posted on: 2009-11-13 07:54:09 by Soo-Young
tags: technology, google

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I picked up an HTC Eris the other day after deciding it was high time for me to get internet on my phone. I was due for an upgrade on my Verizon plan and after all of the discounts and rebates, it became surprisingly affordable. Sure I'll be paying an extra $30/month for the data plan, but considering how much I use the internet, I think it's well worth the price.

I'll post a quick review for the phone after using it more, but I just wanted to write a little about how Google uses data volume to create products of unparalleled value. I've written before about how Google's free 411 service gathers voice data from its users to improve its voice search on its phones. Before getting the Eris, I was a frequent user of Goog-411 because my old phone wasn't able to do much beyond making and receiving calls/texts.

Anyway, since getting the Eris, I've been able to use the voice search and it actually works pretty well. I can see why Google would want good voice recognition on their phones because doing a voice search is far quicker than typing a search term on a mobile device. I'm not sure how Apple and other mobile technology leaders will compete in this area. Google Maps is already the go-to app for maps, and Google Voice Search might just be the go-to app for voice search. It's becoming very apparent that Google will be a very large presence in the mobile world as it is in the traditional internet world.

I also posted before about how Google Maps will now offer turn by turn directions for free on android phones. This sent a shock wave through the GPS market and caused Garmin's and TomTom's stock prices to drop significantly. By offering turn by turn directions for free, Google will be able to gather a huge amount of data that will only be used to improve the quality of the directions they give. Each time a person drives his/her car using Google's turn by turn directions, Google gets valuable information about the trip time of day, time of year, total time, and speed throughout the trip. I can't say for sure, but I'd be willing to bet Google is using all of this information, and probably more, to completely optimize their directions.

The other night I was stuck on a homework problem and turned to the internet for help. I was looking for some more information about eigenvalues and stumbled upon an article titled: "THE $25,000,000,000 EIGENVECTOR, THE LINEAR ALGEBRA BEHIND GOOGLE". It didn't contain the information I was looking for, but I bookmarked it to read later.

I've known about linear algebra for a while now, but I never knew any very meaningful real word uses for it. Linear algebra has always been about solving matrix problems without any real benefit (apart from getting homework credit). After reading through the article about the linear algebra behind Google, I learned a lot about how Google works, and how linear algebra is used in the real world. What Google does is create link matrices to judge the importance of a particular website, considering:

1. How many sites link to a particular website
2. How important the sites that link to a particular website are
3. How important sites that a particular website links to are

I can't believe this sort of thinking was applied to the web in the 1990's. If they were doing this over ten years ago, just imagine how complex their algorithms are now. The turn-by-turn directions algorithm must be insane. What I'm interested to learn more about is how Google will monetize all of these new free services. Google Search has been a huge cash cow for Google, but how are they going to make any money off of Google Maps or Google Voice Search? I'm sure Google Voice Search will be used to sell mobile advertising, but it is my personal belief that mobile advertising is less effective than traditional search advertising. Pay per click advertising is only effective if it converts, and I would say, mobile clicks convert less than traditional clicks. The reason why I say this is because people are much less willing to fill out order forms on a mobile device as compared to a computer (keyboards > keypads).



I can't say for sure if Google will be successful in growing their earnings from their mobile products, but it seems almost certain that they'll play an important role in the mobile world. Anyway, I think I've rambled on enough. The main purpose of this post was just to convey the excitement I have to be using an Android device with all of Google's powerful and free mobile tools.