We Are All Fu***d

Posted on | February 9, 2009

Google did it again. In just a couple of days Google shook the mobile landscape more than a really huge earthquake. Google launched Latitude and Sync for mobile in quick sequence, just before the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. What are the implications of this two services?
There are already many blog posts on Latitude with which I mainly agree. I absolutely loved this one:
Latitude: Google’s Trojan Horse (or, Why Who’s Nearby Is Not A Business) by Andrew. I don’t have much to add to that.

I will focus on Sync for mobile. Since we have been active in this space for a couple of clients I know very well what can be done once you have all your web contacts on your mobile and more importantly what can be done if you have all your mobile contacts on the web. Google will now have the biggest repository of mobile numbers in the world. Beat that operators. Beat that Zyb, Soocial or any other sync service on the web, based on Funambol and some hacking…

Android’s phonebook is already in the cloud, but now Google is adding more address books, calendars, to-do lists and more in the cloud. All this lists contain a great deal of precious information which can be used in various ways. I will illustrate just an example with the address book…

Image you could call any contact directly from the web on his usual phone - identifying yourself with your usual phone number. Of course you could use Skype, but why use Skype if you can do the same from Google Talk or even better from your GMail inbox (with the voice & video plugin). I would bet that the next version of Grand Central will enable you to make calls from GMail with your Grand Central number. I know because we (Marand) can do this today. True, but you need an operator for the last mile you will say. My answer will be: “Not for long!” Truphone is a neat example of how you can do mobile voice over the data layer. Operators, be afraid.

Secondly - there is no better social graphing tool than your phonebook. Add some frequency of calling (from your phone), emailing (from your GMail account) and meetings from calendar (…GCal) and you have the perfect social graphing tool at your fingertips. If I know that, guys at Google probably know it even better.

In all this story there are almost no operators or startups involved. There is only the mighty Google. That is why we are all fu***d :)

p.s.: On the other hand this position looks great since operators and the Telco space should finally wake up and open their eyes … even though some of us have been explaining this for the last couple of years.

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