Google Comes Back

By Steve Pessah

The rise in social media platforms has been a big blow to Google. They tried starting their own social network, Google Buzz, but that was a disappointment. More and more people are using social sites like Facebook (even with all of the privacy concerns they’re poised to hit 500 million users by the end of June, 600 million by the end of the year) and Twitter on the web. Google used to be the leader in internet traffic, but now Facebook is king. With the world moving towards a more social web, Google needed to do something quick or else they might have been left in the dust.

Google’s I/O Conference this week could not have come at a better time for them. They announced a variety of different news, ranging from a new Android Marketplace to partnering with Intel, Sony, and Logitech for Google TV. With Google TV, which will eventually integrate with Sony Playstation, viewers will be able to use their television to search for and watch both content on TV and the web. Even though it won’t be available until the fall, developers already have the OK to work on Google TV projects.

While we’re waiting for that, we can already enjoy Google’s superb mobile OS, Android. After getting sick of waiting for the iPhone to come to Verizon, I went out and got the HTC Incredible, which runs on Android 2.1. I love it. My friends who play with it love it. The phone itself is great, and the operating system is even greater.

In Day 2 of Google’s conference, Android’s new 2.2 OS, named Froyo, was the big talk. Here are a couple of impressive points:

• More than 60 compatible devices for the Android OS.
• There are 100,000 daily activations of Android devices every day.
• 50,000 applications in the Android marketplace.
• Can go to Flash and HTML sites with Froyo.

As quoted from Mashable, “It makes the iPhone look like a clunky, locked-down piece of junk, in so many words.”

The continuous positive announcements coming from Google reminds us of how powerful they still are. Earlier today, the FTC approved Google’s $750 million acquisition of mobile advertising platform AdMob. This looks like another head on battle between Google and Apple for mobile advertising space (Apple acquired Quattro Wireless earlier in the year for $275 million).

But to top it all off, in celebration of Pacman’s 30th Anniversary, Google lets it’s users play a little Pacman right on the homepage. The board is in the shape of the Google logo, but everything else is the same, including the ghost’s individual personalities. Once again, Mashable sums it up perfectly: “And with that, the world’s collective productivity takes a sharp plunge on this Friday.”