tuesdayDeveloper;

Google intends to launch a surprise attack on all grocery stores, kitchen pantries, and child lunch boxes in an effort to seise control of every last Twinkie in the world. The purpose? Because the snack food helps Google’s developers concentrate and because Hostess (the maker of Twinkies) recently announced they’re filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy; Google has no choice if they are to remain on top.

“We must have all Twinkies, help us think,” said one Twinkie-deprived Google team member with glossy eyes and an inability to concentrate.

Of course Google hasn’t come out and announced this to the world. The Twinkie plot is cleverly hidden within its new simplified privacy policy.

Of course, you won’t find anything if you search for the words Twinkie, Hostess, or even

Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour [Flour, Reduced Iron, B Vitamins (Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate (B1), Riboflavin (B2), Folic Acid)], Corn Syrup, Sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Water, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable and/or Animal Shortening (Soybean, Cottonseed and/or Canola Oil, Beef Fat), Whole Eggs, Dextrose. Contains 2% or Less of: Modified Corn Starch, Glucose, Leavenings (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Baking Soda, Monocalcium Phosphate), Sweet Dairy Whey, Soy Protein Isolate, Calcium and Sodium Caseinate, Salt, Mono and Diglycerides, Polysorbate 60, Soy Lecithin, Soy Flour, Cornstarch, Cellulose Gum, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Sorbic Acid (to Retain Freshness), Yellow 5, Red 40. (source)

Google lawyers are way to clever, but their’s no doubt about it, Google’s up to something.

Of course Google says that they are simplifying their policies to better serve everyone. Everyone else on the Internet seems to believe that Google wants to control the combined aggregate user information to serve more targeted ads and thus destroy the free world as we know it, but now you know the truth. Think about it though, what is the most simple explanation? It’s obvious that Google isn’t trying to make things simpler for its end use or provide more relevant ads. It’s very clear that Google is trying to take all the Twinkies for themselves in order to lose the trust of its users to get out of the search business and to stop providing revenue generating services to its users because they don’t like money!

The last Google CEO said if user’s don’t trust us, they’ll go somewhere else. That very telling. They want out. And they want Twinkies!

Or maybe…

Maybe when Google is releasing a new privacy policy to make things easier on the user and to provide more relevant ads. Wait a minute, doesn’t everyone do this? Facebook, Pandora, New York Times: they’ve all advertised to me something that wasn’t relevant to the page, but something that I’d recently been researching on the web. Maybe Google is just trying to catch up.

What are your thoughts on Google new Privacy Policy changes? Is Google going to intentionally make a move to scare its users over to Bing and Yahoo (who likely have very similar practices)? What is the world going to do when Twikies are harder to come by?

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Google’s Android OS is doing very well, on phones at least, but according to some surveys people would rather have an iPhone. It seems that a lot of people have only joined the Android ranks because it was available on their network and the iPhone wasn’t. This could be a problem for Android since all three of largest mobile phone providers may be offering the iPhone soon since AT&T and Verizon have it already and Sprint may soon join the party.

When it comes to tablets, Android tablet sales are still lagging quite a bit compared to the iPad. There are several possible reasons, some say that iPads are better, perhaps its due to the large number of apps Apple has to offer compare to their competition. No matter what the reason, however, Google has a great OS and it should be doing better than it is.

So what can Google do with a stagnant tablet market and a phone market that may not be so successful in the future? Well, the whole $99 fire sale HP just had could give us one hint. If Android phones and tablets where significantly lower priced than their iOS rivals, that could win over the masses. Of course, Google is subject to the manufacturers choices of hardware and prices, and they don’t control the pricing of the products that hit the market—but the could. Here are two ways that Google can make their platform more successful.

1. Subsidize

The United States Government has subsidized corn production in the US so much that you can find corn byproducts in just about every food you pick up in the grocery store. (Of course this only hurts the farmers and its not good for us either, but that is beside the point of this article.) Why can’t Google subsidize its products?

What if Google started paying manufacturers to produce the hardware of systems running a certified version of Google Android. This would have some big advantages. First, it would limit the customization that OEMs can do to the system and provide a more seamless experience for users moving from one device to another (something I know Google wants). Second, the price savings would go to the customers, meaning that more Androids will be running around than ever before because people love inexpensive toys. (The OEMs wouldn’t suffer like farmers do with corn production, since there isn’t really a middle-man.) Third, it may even bring some Android OEMs back into the fold of consistent experience (Amazon has completely overhauled Android, changing the UI and removing the marketplace…that’s not good for Google.)

If Google subsidized the purchase of certain types of hardware for systems that had the Android Marketplace, Google as the default search engine, and respectable hardware, customers would get a great deal and would flock to Android the way people flocked to the HP TouchPad (even though the thing has no perceivable future).

2. Make the Marketplace More Enticing

There are a couple things Google really needs to with their Marketplace, including making discovery easier, but I’m going to focus on something else.

Amazon has the right idea of offering a free app everyday. When I do finally get my own Android device, I will surely install Amazon’s App Store, simply so I can reap the benefits. If Google did this, or perhaps a “buy ten paid apps get the next one free” kind of deal, the Marketplace would surly be more successful attracting more developers. Google doesn’t really care if they make money on their Marketplace, they really just want people to make more Google searches, so this Marketplace strategy is really intended to attract more users to attract more developers to get higher app numbers to attract more users (who will then make more Google searches when they use their device).

Conclusion

Google is certainly one of the big mobile OS powers, but the game is still new enough that things can change quickly. Google better start acting with some strategy before, say Microsoft, gets ahold of these ideas and makes their platform more enticing for the users.

What ideas do you have to make the Android platform better?

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A new way to receive information is on the horizon, and it’s pretty cool!

When you type a query into Qwiki don’t expect a list of results to choose from. In fact, once you’ve pressed the search button all you have to do is sit back and watch and listen. Qwiki is a new way to receive information; rather than being bombarded by pages and pages of results a computer gets relavent information and then reads it to you as you watch a slide show. Learn about cheetahs, The Beach Boys, or the iPad. These (and more) are created completely automatically.

Qwiki defining "Coral Reef".

Now, Qwiki is still in alpha release and it is still rocky, but I would say that it is an excellent start. What does it mean? Well, I’m no fortune teller, but I’m guessing that we’ll be asking our computers:

• What is antrax?
• Where is Timbuktu?
• Who was Martin Luther King Jr.?

And the computer will tell us with words and pictures.

So you may be wondering, like I did, whether Google is interested in this technology. Is Google going to buy Qwiki? Will Qwiki replace Google? Well, I’m sure that Google is interested (it does fit in with their “organize the information of the world” moto, but I don’t think that they’ll be aquiring Qwiki, since it is funded by Eduardo Saverin, a Facebook cofounder. But that doesn’t mean that Google won’t build their own Gwiki. As for replacing Google, I don’t think so, though at first I though so. The reason why is because the questions above are simple, they have well defined answers. They can’t tell you:

• What is the difference between a dolphin and a porpoise? (though they can tell you what a dolphin is and a porpoise is)
• I have gnats all over in my house and I have no idea where they’re coming from, what should I do? (ammonia on the window sill)
• Where is the best place for me to apply to graduate school? (err… I’ll get back to you on that one)

These question are more complex (they also happen to be questions I’ve asked recently) there’s no real formula to define the difference between two things, or a posible solution to a problem or corse of action. Really, Qwiki seems to be targeting wikipedia more than Google; wikipedia defines information, Google helps you find it. If I were to guess though, I’d guess that Google will release something like this in a few years, it seems to be right up Google’s alley. I’m sure we’ll see other copycats as well.

What are you’re predictions for Qwiki? Is this a service you would use? What would you like to ask?

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As soon as I saw the preview for Android 3.0, optimized for tablets, I was in awe just like everyone else.

The preview is amazing, right? I agree, but previews can be misleading. There are a couple unanswered questions: How is the battery life? How big of a tablet are we looking at? I may have mentioned that I don’t want another 7 inch tablet, I’d say that’s pretty important to me.

The answers to these questions will determine how they do against Apple’s iPad. I’ll explore a few key features that will be important if Google (or anyone else really) want to take on Apple.

Multi-touch
I know that Android has multi-touch, but it’s still not on par with iOS devices. It looks like transitions are smoother and more responsive, but then again I didn’t see any fingers either. If multi-touch isn’t improved based on what Android devices has now,people will continue to eye other options.

Battery
One of the best things about the iPad is that it will last a long time. Specs say that it will roam the internet for 9 hours without a charge. One of the ways they accomplish such great battery life is by dumbing down multi-tasking—but people love it. I for one would be willing to give a little battery time for more processing, but I wouldn’t bet that everyone is. If the battery doesn’t last long (I’d say at least 5 hours) … well, just don’t count your chickens… or baby bots.

Apps
Yes, Google, I know that you’ve got every possible version of every possible app on the internet from word processing to photo editing, but people are still a bit wary of that concept. To many, an internet app is a slow app, not everyone has lightning fast internet. The people I’ve talked to about their iPads say they can do more than 90% of their work on their tablets. They also all have Pages and Numbers installed. So, Google, you might want to think of a mobile version of Google Docs that syncs to a users account.

Screen Size
There’s not much you can do on a phone in way of real work. You can check your email, you can play a few games, but when you want to do real work you pull out a bigger screen. It does look like there will be a lot of variety (I’ve seen anything from 7-10 in screens) so there should be something to make everyone happy.

The advantage Google has over Apple is that Google has other’s developing the hardware for them (which leads to lots of diversity), the disadvantage Google has that Apple doesn’t have is that Google has other’s developing hardware for them. They don’t have as much say as Apple does. Googe doesn’t have one hundred percent control of multi-touch, battery life, apps, or screen size—so lets hope that the hardware vendors are listening too. I will say that if Google can live up to their preview of Honeycomb, they’ve got an awesome start when it comes to tablets.

Did I leave anything out? Let me know in the comments.

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So you may have read 20 Things I learned About Browsers and the Web and noticed the push from Google to bring users using outdated browsers and other old technology into the 21st century. This online “book” which describes the Internet, web application, browsers and the like in a very simple and easy to understand maner is using some of the advanced technologies it explains. There are noticeable javascript and HTML5 animations that make us feel that we are really reading a book. I absolutely agree that users should upgrade to the latest versions of their browsers and that IE6 should die, but I do have a question: Is anyone who is using an outdated browser (and therefor not technologically up-to-date) going to even read the book?

First of all, there’s the obvious: the people this marketing campaign is targeting don’t care. If they did, they would be using an up-to-date browser already.

Second, if they do care and they were just ignorant of the facts, are they going to read it? It’s pretty long. They don’t really get to the important stuff (their message) until your almost a quarter the way through the book or so.

If they do read it there’s the third question (since I’m using the latest version of my favorite browser I don’t know) how does this even look on an outdated browser? I’m assuming that Google took the precautions to make it viewable, but will the pages flip in IE6 like the do in Chrome? I’m guessing not, but maybe that is Google’s point in this stunt. Perhaps when a user tries out a new browser and sees the difference they compair the two experiences and decide never to go back.

Please don’t misunderstand. I want all web users to follow the counsel found in The 20 Things Book, I just don’t know if anyone will read it. As a developer I do want to try to educate the users of my products to ensure they are following basic safe practices, perhaps Google is hoping that developers will advice their web users to read the book. I guess we’ll see.

So what do you think? Is there something I overlooked? It this move brilliant, or is it done in an attempt to persuade people to make smartter choices and done hoping it will get read?

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