Also: Flickr to introduce video | NetVibes launches Facebook application | Country Life's podcast | Gratuitous karaoke-related story of the day
Rumours of a Google mobile phone have been rumbling around for an age, but speculation picked up this week following a Wall Street Journal report on what Google is doing behind the scenes.
Conventional wisdom has been that Google would concentrate on software for a mobile phone, pitching it against Windows Mobile and, of course, Apple's iPhone. Up to now, Google has only appeared on mobiles through search or map applications.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in mobile and is already talking to European mobile operators.
One Anian analyst said Google is working with Taiwan's HTC - whose new-ish touch-screen thing I'm playing with at the moment - to develop the handset. HTC currently uses Windows Mobile, but Google is developing a Linux-based handset.
The idea is to make it mass-market, rather than high-end like the iPhone, and to tap the massive potential market for mobile advertising: Google chief executive Eric Schmidt recently described mobile advertising as twice as profitable because it can be so personalised.
The gPhone would have the familiar search and email services as well as a new mobile web browser, with the operating systems and specifications adaptable for multiple devices and operators. At the earliest, the phones would come to market in early 2008. Prototypes so far have looked like the BlackBerry or a Nokia with a keyboard.
To add to all that, Google recently announced it may bid for wireless spectrum licences in the US - which would mean becoming a mobile operator in its own right. That would take years and billions of dollars, but would mean Google would not have to negotiate (and share ad revenues) with other operators.
As for my iPhone-killing HTC Touch, I dunno. It has this neat function where you scrawl words on the screen and it neatly translates those into words on screen (it's about 70% accurate, which is pretty good considering my handwriting) and also has this swivelling cube navigation thing when t=you swipe you thumb across the screen. But all my contacts and calendars are on my Macs and my iPod, so there's no compatibility.
HTC regularly manufactures and rebrands its devices for other firms, so this all fits. But let's wait and see. (Wall Street Journal)
Flickr to introduce video
Yahoo is stepping up its competition against Google by expanding photo-sharing site Flickr to include video, and boosting the amount of professional and user-generated content on Yahoo Video. YouTube accounts for more than a fifth of all video viewed online, and Yahoo plans to add more film trailers, music videos, TV shows and sports highlights to compete. The firm already has deals with several music companies and film studios including Universal and EMI. (Bloomberg)
NetVibes launches Facebook application
NetVibes has introduced a Facebook widget that pulls details of friends, birthdays and status updates into a user's NetVibes homepage. NetVibes is a web aggregator which allows users to customise their page using hundreds of widgets and feeds.
Most of the fuss around Facebook widgets has been focused around developers bringing their sites into Facebook through widgets, rather than taking content out, although Facebook has offered several desktop and site widgets even before the big platform launch.
There's a whole world of Facebook applications to take your content out - like Fonebook, which copies your contacts details out of Facebook to Outlook- and a photos plugin that allows you to blog your Facebook photos. It does not, however, allow developers access to the Facebook newsfeed - the list of everything your friends have done of Facebook recently - because that's one of the most interestingly features. (NetVibes)
Country Life's podcast
You know multimedia is really heading for the mainstream when Country Life jumps on the bandwagon. The Radio 4 play "Gite a la Mer" is being made available as a podcast on the Country Life website, bless them.
Gratuitous karaoke-related story of the day
I can't help it. Sony has revealed the playlist for the latest Sing Star game - and it's rock ballads-tastic. (Eurogamer)
