Web Development Live

Developers praised the programming experience and the potential of Google’s Android mobile platform at the Google I/O conference as the company emphasized its flexibility and showed cool new features.

There was a lot of buzz around Android at the conference, which covers all areas of Google development, and an “Introduction to Android” session was full. Google wants the technology to open up the mobile industry, where developers have faced hurdles getting applications ported to many different operating systems and approved by carriers. But Android will enter the fray as just one mobile platform among many, including the Apple iPhone SDK.

The latest prototype version of Android drew comparisons to the iPhone after it was demonstrated during a keynote session Wednesday morning. Google showed a home screen with colorful widgets similar to the Apple iPhone’s, plus a compass and a status bar that can be pulled down in any application to view messages. The compass, which could be built into a handset along with an accelerometer, would be able to orient maps according to which way the user was facing. As demonstrated with Google Maps Street View, it could show the exact view that a user was looking at, with street-name and address information built in to the map. Videos of the demonstrations were posted by the Android Community blog.

Aside from features on high-end phones, Android will reach far more people than the iPhone platform, if it meets its potential, said Atif Iqbal Chaudhry, a graduate student at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who attended the conference. The platform could be extended to inexpensive phones with a smaller set of capabilities for average consumers, he said.

Android is an easy way to begin developing a mobile application, because Google provides all the pieces required, unlike some other platforms, such as PalmOS, Chaudhry said. He has been developing location-based applications through the PC-based emulator software for Android and said he is looking forward to trying out the software in the field on a real handset.

Google and its partners in the Open Handset Alliance are pushing Android as more open than other mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Developers won’t need to get Android applications certified by anyone, Google Developer Advocate Jason Chen told the Android breakout session. In addition, there won’t be any hidden APIs accessible only to handset makers or mobile operators, he said.

Developers will also be able to modify core elements of the interface and come out with replacements for the basic building blocks that come with Android, such as the address book, Chen said. Even the look of the home-screen widgets will be customizable. For users, that will mean being able to control their own experience by downloading their favorite third-party versions, Chen said.

Google expects the first Android-based devices to hit the market in the second half of this year and will make the finished software platform available to developers after that, so anyone can create their own phone platform, Chen said. The core elements of it will be released under the Apache open-source license.

Until all parts of Android are complete, Google won’t start translating the platform and documentation into languages other than English, Chen said in response to a question. The team doesn’t want translations to lag behind the current information, he said. But he welcomed an attendee to help Spanish-speaking developers by translating materials or participating in message boards.

Developers praised the platform, in which applications are written in the Java programming language and then compiled for the Dalvik virtual machine.

“It’s sweet,” said Free Beachler, owner of Longevity Software, in Boulder, Colorado. Beachler wrote an entry for the Android Developer Challenge, a competition to find the 50 best Android applications. His software, designed to store itineraries, contacts, destinations and other travel information for users on their phones, didn’t make the top 50. But he’s working on two projects for Android Developer Challenge 2, which will take place after handsets are out and the platform are complete.

Beachler, a Web developer, said it took time to learn to use Android but once he did it was logically organized and easy to use. He compared it to languages such as PHP for Web development.

Enterprises are asking R Systems International, a software services company in El Dorado, California, to write applications that work on any mobile platform, said Harsh Verma, vice president for global innovative research at R Systems. One way to do this is on browsers, but there are problems with that, including differences among mobile browsers and the need for a network connection, he said. Verma hasn’t yet started working with Android but believes it could reach a broad range of devices.

With half the world’s population soon owning a mobile phone, the opportunity to reach more people on the web via a mobile device is huge. Research firm Gartner predicts that worldwide mobile advertising revenue will grow from less than $1bn last year to $11bn in 2011. Google has already been adapting its web search, mapping service, and advertising tools to work on mobile phones. And it’s even bidding in a US auction of wireless spectrum and developing software for mobile phones.

The company has also spearheaded the Open Handset Alliance ?which advocates open standards for mobile software ?in an effort to co-ordinate its work with that of handset makers, chip developers, application developers and mobile-phone operators.

Because Google has dominated search and advertising on the traditional internet, the expectation is that the company will also take the mobile market by storm using the same tools and the same strategies. But shoehorning its existing web tools and applications onto a tiny mobile phone isn’t going to be easy. If Google is not careful, it may find itself chasing some new, innovative start-up that figures out how to out-Google Google in mobile.

“In some ways Google is now the incumbent,” said Farhad Divecha, director of the search and mobile marketing firm AccuraCast. “Their search products and advertising tools aren’t the best right now, so there’s a good chance someone could come in and do it better.”

Back to basics with search Google first came on the scene a decade ago with a new search algorithm that could serve up better and more relevant content to users than had ever been done before. So while other companies, such as Alta Vista and Yahoo, had been in the search business for years before Google came along, it was this giant leap forward in the user experience that catapulted the company to success.

It is not surprising that search was one of the first tools Google adapted for mobile phones. And by most accounts the tool works fine. When used with the Google Maps application, mobile users can even search for local restaurants and get directions to each establishment.

But critics of Google’s mobile search tool say its results aren’t always as relevant as results from a desktop Google search. Another common complaint is that Google provides search results from regular web pages and tries to trans-code them for mobile phones. Often these sites don’t render well on certain phones.

Yahoo Go, a similar application, is considered more robust and more user-friendly than Google’s search tool.

Accenture’s head of research and development, Martin Illsley, on Monday advised businesses that mashups, web applications combined with more traditional business software, were becoming increasingly useful but have to be managed so as not to overwhelm IT departments.

“Systems can be integrated in a lightweight manner,” said Illsley. “But mashups and the like have to be managed very well or they drift out of the IT department into many departments. Most IT departments are aware of that and spend an awful lot of time trying to keep things together.”

While there are tangible business benefits to allowing employees to create their own combinations of applications, Illsley said,there has to be a balance between “stifling the process by making it go through 20 stages” and loss of control of the application.

“Today, if you want to build integrated back-end and front-end systems, you use technologies like Google Maps with lightweight APIs [application programming interfaces], whereas you used to buy several packages and integrate them into a framework,” said Illsley. “These days organisations can throw applications together quite quickly.”

Illsley said that businesses should be cautious of other Web 2.0 practices. While “crowd-sourcing” technologies ?used to formulate ideas among large groups ?could prove very fruitful for companies, businesses should be wary of such technologies until they mature, he said.

Accenture’s head of research and development, Martin Illsley, on Monday advised businesses that mashups, web applications combined with more traditional business software, were becoming increasingly useful but have to be managed so as not to overwhelm IT departments.

“Systems can be integrated in a lightweight manner,” said Illsley. “But mashups and the like have to be managed very well or they drift out of the IT department into many departments. Most IT departments are aware of that and spend an awful lot of time trying to keep things together.”

While there are tangible business benefits to allowing employees to create their own combinations of applications, Illsley said,there has to be a balance between “stifling the process by making it go through 20 stages” and loss of control of the application.

“Today, if you want to build integrated back-end and front-end systems, you use technologies like Google Maps with lightweight APIs [application programming interfaces], whereas you used to buy several packages and integrate them into a framework,” said Illsley. “These days organisations can throw applications together quite quickly.”

Illsley said that businesses should be cautious of other Web 2.0 practices. While “crowd-sourcing” technologies ?used to formulate ideas among large groups ?could prove very fruitful for companies, businesses should be wary of such technologies until they mature, he said.

Speaking at an event in Paris on Tuesday, Schmidt was questioned on whether, as Google’s boss and an Apple board member, he had any insights into future collaboration between the two companies. “What you are really asking is to see my iPhone,” he quipped before producing a handset from his pocket. “iPhone is a powerful new device and is going to be particularly good for the apps that Google is building. You should expect other announcements from the two companies over time,” he said.

The iPhone, which will be launched in the US on 29 June, but which will not be available in the UK until later this year, fully incorporates Google’s search and mapping services. Users can make phone calls directly from Google Maps.

Key to Google’s belief in the potential of the iPhone is Apple’s decision to integrate support for the Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) web-development technique.

Effectively the native language of interactive web technologies ?known as Web 2.0 ?Ajax combines the best elements of software as a service including thin-client computing, web standards and platform independence.

Google, which aims to replicate its success in desktop computer Web use on mobile phones, said the new application would make it easier to find, use and switch between its services on the iPhone.
The company is also working to develop new mobile technologies that are faster, easier to use, and available on more devices but Google did not give details.
Other efforts to expand in wireless include the announcement last week that Google would bid in an upcoming US wireless airwaves auction to launch a wireless network, pitting it against established providers Verizon Wireless and AT%26amp;T. AT%26amp;T is the exclusive U.S. carrier for iPhone.
In a separate project, Google is also developing an operating system for mobile phones known as Android and based on open source Linux technology. It has about 30 partners including carriers and phone makers supporting the project.
The iPhone, with its touch-screen and full Web browser, became the most talked about cell phone this year when it went on sale in the United States in late June. It has since launched in countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom.
Google Maps and YouTube were among the first applications available on iPhone. Apple said last month that it would allow outside developers to create software for iPhone and that it planned to make a developers kit available in February.

The top provider of Web searching has been testing Google Gadget Ads, as the new service is known, as a way to deliver

eye-catching ads that have the dynamism of television but also the Web interactivity that lets users choose what they see.

Some analysts and early advertisers who have tested the ads with consumers said the capacity to measure the effectiveness of

so-called rich media advertising is a technology breakthrough for the industry that bolsters Google’s push into the corporate

brand market.

“Gadget Ads is very far reaching,” said Andrew Frank, an online advertising analyst with market research firm Gartner.

“This is the platform that Google is going to build all their cross-media advertising services upon,” he said.

The new advertising service is designed for broad adoption across Google sites, including iGoogle personalized home pages that

tens of millions of consumers use for searching and to be notified of updated information on the Web at large.

The new format works across Google’s network of hundreds of thousands of affiliated sites and can be embedded in YouTube

videos.

Rivals like Yahoo and Microsoft and a host of ad start-ups offer various twists that help brand advertisers serve up rich

media ads such as video, but they lack the breadth of what Google is offering, Frank said.

Gadget Ads can incorporate instantly updating data feeds, images, video and even miniature, fully functioning Web sites in a

single advertising unit, using the latest mouthful of Web publishing technology terms, including Flash and AJAX.

Gadget Ads will allow advertisers to count not just whether the user clicked on a particular ad but how much consumers engage

with the features of a particular ad, said Christian Oestlien, a business product manager for Google Gadget Ads.

With Google’s help, advertisers can measure user behaviors like how much of a video ad was watched, whether it was viewed

more than once, if a user fast-forwarded or rewound the video, and whether the menu or other controls were used.

“It is unparalleled on the Web today,” Oestlien said.

RICHER ADVERTISING

The underlying technical platform lets advertisers combine different types of Web services from Google and elsewhere on the

Web.

Beyond delivering the ad itself, Google can also encourage customer feedback or handle on-the-spot transactions within the ad,

using Google Checkout or PayPal, for example.

In another case, an automobile advertiser could combine a video advertisement for its cars with links to Google Maps, live

traffic updates and a preliminary customer sign-up form.

Preliminary testers include PepsiCo’s Sierra Mist, Intel, Honda Motor, Six Flags and Viacom’s Paramount Vantage.

Bladimiar Norman, head of interactive marketing at Paramount Vantage, the independent film arm of Paramount Studios, said

Google Gadget Ads allows him to create interactive ads for upcoming films that fans can copy and feature on their own sites,

extending the ad’s audience reach.

Because Gadget Ads work across both Google owned properties, Google-affiliated Web sites and non-Google sites such as social

networks, Norman said he can reach a far wider audience with a single creative effort.

Instead of standard “click to play” video ads, “I am able to do things that are a little more challenging,” said Norman, who

promotes films like “The Kite Rider” and “Into the Wild.”

Separately, Google has hired Andy Berndt, co-president of the New York office of Ogilvy %26 Mather, a unit of WPP Group, in a

move that could prove controversial among ad agencies, who fear Google may increasingly compete with them.

Berndt will be joining Google later this year as the managing director of the Google Creative Lab, which develops Google’s

own advertising for business and consumer markets and works with other creative agencies in developing advertising using

Google advertising services.