The Offers app is free, of course, and users will be notified about all the offers available. Users will be able to make purchases within a few clicks and they will even be able to redeem the offers without the use of any paper forms, from certain selected outlets.

The app is based on four different screens.

• A “Featured” screen that’s the deal of the day.
• A daily deal notifier, which alerts you about the deals that are available.
• An archive screen, which shows the deals that the user has made use of or saved, as well as the deals that have expired.
• A screen for redeeming offers without printing them.

While the success of Groupon has led to the proliferation of several websites providing such deals, it is very likely that an app like this from Google will be more welcomed by users. The timing for the launch of this app is also commendable as it has come just at the time, when people would start their shopping for the upcoming holiday season.

Groupon already has a fairly successful Android app, with over 1 million downloads and an average rating of 4.6 stars out of 5. Google’s new Offers app has less than 50,000 downloads to date, with an average rating of 3.6 and quite a high percentage of pretty poor ratings

If Google expects to steal any market share from Groupon, it is obvious that they will have to do a lot more than just release a mobile app – for starters by getting more offers in all major US cities!

Reports from Asian technology blog, Penn Olson state that for the past 5 days, Gmail services are being affected on Android handsets. The Android Market has also been intermittently inaccessible during the same period.

While the Gmail website is working as normal in China, both the Gmail app for Android and the Android Market have completely stopped working in the country. The website Blocked In China confirms that the Android Market is inaccessible on both Android devices and via the wired Web.

Android Market shows as “Blocked” in China

Gmail was the battleground where Google’s exit from China was decided. It comes as no surprise, then, that the service should also be blocked on mobile phones. What is surprising is the fact that it took Chinese authorities so long to make this decision.

Google Plus, on the other hand, was blocked hardly a week after it was launched in China, and remains that way since.

If the sequence of events repeat themselves, Google might find itself exiting the Chinese Mobile market as well, which could be yet another major blow to the company’s East Asian operations.

Android developers will now be able to publish their apps on the Android market with the ability for users to purchase them directly when they wish to do so.

While this facility will give users the ability to try-and-buy the app and also get upgrades when required, developers will be able to better monetise their apps.

A good number of apps are already available with the In-app Billing facility. Some of them are Tap Tap Revenge by Disney Mobile, Comics by Comixology and WSOP3 by Glu Mobile.

Google had first announced this In-app Billing facility in January at the Inside Mobile conference in San Francisco and had allowed users to start developing and testing these apps. To begin with, developers will have to fill out a detailed documentation form and will then be provided with a sample app to demonstrate how the feature works.

It will be imperative for users to follow the prescribed security guidelines, in order to prevent the inadvertent purchase of unwanted apps and also to prevent misuse of the facility by miscreants, as this could result in excess billing.

In-app purchasing facilities have been available through Apple’s App Store and Blackberry’s App World for quite some time now.

Grindr is the largest all-male location based social networking app and was first launched about 2 years ago.

The app already has about 1.5 million users spread across 180 countries. Of this, about 56,000 are in the New York area itself and around 3,000 new users are joining the service every day. The average user spends about 1.3 hours on this app daily.

Grindr has been available on the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad for some time and was launched on Blackberry handsets recently. Now, Android users will be able to interact with users on the aforementioned devices. They will be able to view profiles and photos and also chat with each other.

New Android users will also get a a free trial run of Grindr Xtra for 7 days after they download and run the app for the first time. Grindr Xtra is 100% ad free, thus giving the user more browsing space, and users will be able to view up to 200 men in their area. They will also be able to add 50 favourites. Users will receive notifications even when Grindr is running in the background. To view multiple profiles the user just needs to swipe back and forth. The monthly cost of the service is $4.97, which is lower than most other dating services.

Compared to other dating service, gay or straight, Grindr is definitely far ahead of the pack. The service was built specifically for mobiles, which means that it is built to facilitate interaction between users on the go, who are typing on a small screen. The simplicity of the app is its greatest asset, and is likely to steer its growth further.

Blaise Aguera y Arcas of Bing Maps and Mobile said in an interview with Forbes, “The model of apps for everything is broken in a very fundamental way, a lot like the way the web was before there was a good search engine.” In the old days, people used to type the web address in the URL bar. Even now, this helps in deciding which app to use.

According to Arcas, some of the apps will become “baked-in” default options, depending on the circumstances and the search engine may also suggest some apps. Microsoft has previously talked about doing this by making use of the phone’s sensors such as its camera and location detection mechanism in order to anticipate some of the user’s queries and requirements in advance.

The success of the iPhone and Android have led to the availability of over 3,00,000 apps for mobile devices. To get ahead in this race, Microsoft will have to streamline the process of finding and using apps and make many of them a part of the Windows mobile operating system.

Windows Phone 7 already has 30,000 drivers, which is a good thing as far as providing options is concerned, but it slows down the speed with which the apps are available. Microsoft will, therefore, have to decide how best they can combine reliability with speed in order to improve usability.

As with search, Microsoft might be entering the market too late, with little new technology to make a significant impact. Microsoft’s mobile operating system has a fairly low market share of just 2%, compared to 8% for Google’s Android. The software giant would need to develop some really ground-breaking technology to break the current trend and make significant gains in the mobile market.

A similar service was made available by AdMob for the Apple iPhone platform almost a year ago.

Google’s mobile advertising blog explains that the addition of these rich media interstitial units to Android will be an exciting opportunity for mobile advertisers to reach a larger audience.

If this feature can just succeed in getting users to click on the ad more often, it could help in the development of more free apps. For instance, when the game Angry Birds was first introduced on the iPhone and iPad, it was a paid app. But later, when it was introduced on Android, it was free along with some ads, as its developers found that they could make more money through advertising rather than by just selling the game. Now, users get a free game that is paid for by ads.

Android video ad on Angry Birds game. Image courtesy of Google

So far, mobile ads have mostly been in the form of text and banners, which do not generate a lot of curiosity from users. However, the new interactive ads could be more interesting.

Google stated that 200,000 new Android connections are now activated on a daily basis, as compared to only 60,000 last February. The number of apps available has also doubled since last May and is now at 100,000.

It will now be possible for advertisers to reach users of the iPhone as well as Android devices through one single platform.

The Street reports that the deal is in the final stages of completion. Reliable sources have even revealed that the deal may be announced as soon as the 26th of October, when PayPal holds its developers conference in San Francisco.

So far, Google has only offered their own payment system, CheckOut, as a mode of payment for users who buy various applications from the Android Market. This system, which requires users who don’t already have an account to create one or enter their credit card number is a little cumbersome, and can dissuade potential buyers.

The mode of payment that Google has used so far has created difficulties not only for users, but also for the developers. The introduction of PayPal as a mode of payment, will not only simplify the payment procedure for those who buy apps from the Android Market, but this will also help Google to compete with Apple’s App Store and iTunes, which use a single click mode of payment.

Developers have also had several problems with Google’s payment system, including the fact that foreign currencies are not easily accepted. Google accepts paid apps in only about 13 countries, while Apple does so in about 90 countries.

A deal between Google and PayPal could help streamline all these hassles, and at the same time, give competitors such as Apple and BlackBerry a run for their money.

According to Borrell Associates, in the U.S. alone, the spend on advertising within mobile apps will be over $305 million this year and will more than double to an estimated $685 million in 2011.

Analysts at Borell predict that the figure will rise to over $8 billion by the year 2015, with local advertisers accounting for $1.2 billion of the total.

Since Apple opened their App store in 2008, about 5 million apps have been downloaded on mobiles. While the vast majority of these apps are for free, users have still ended up spending $1.5 billion on applications that are not free.

It is believed that only about one-fifth of the total number of computing devices in the U.S.A. can currently receive mobile ad messages, but by 2015 that figure should almost triple. This should encourage advertisers to pay more attention to mobile advertising.

Another interesting statistic revealed through research is the turnover rate of smartphone apps. Today, on average a single smart phone will have about 22 applications. However, it is estimated that within about 6 months time, only 5% of these apps will be retained. Since the turnover rate is very high, developers often do not even recover the amount invested in developing these apps.

Popular brands introduce new apps rapidly, but the offers they provide are not very attractive and hence their download rate tends to be very low.

Kip Cassino, Executive Vice President of Research at Borrell Associates says, “I think the app developers had better find out what is working for folks and what is most useful to people buying these apps. They need to concentrate their efforts and realise there is a bigger world out there than just Apple.”

Best Buy Mobile will install these apps on all compatible smartphones including BlackBerry, Windows Phones and S60 (Symbian OS)  phones for free in their stores at the time of purchase. This program has been branded ‘Walk Out Working’.

Google has even created a new micro-site to provide details of this new method by which users can get the Google Mobile App installed on their phones. The site includes a Google Maps application that allows visitors to find the nearest Best Buy stores.

While it is already possible for users to download the Google Mobile search application from the Google Mobile site, m.google.com, directly, it is expected that this new alliance will drive adoption of the application to more regular (non-technical) consumers.

The main features available on the mobile search app are:

• One-click access to Google search
• Voice querying – users can just speak their query into the phone
• ‘My Location’ – allows users to search for local businesses, without having to type in their location
• Google Suggest – provides suggestions for queries and local businesses even as the user types his query
• Links to other Google apps such as Gmail and Google Maps.

Users will also be shown a demo of these apps in action by a Best Buy Mobile representative.

Scott Moore, the Vice President of Best Buy Mobile says, “We know that consumers want smartphones and increasingly, they want to use applications. The challenge is that people still need help understanding what is available to them and how they can bring it to life on their device.”

The partnership between Google and Best Buy Mobile is obviously a step in that direction.

Considering the fact that Vodafone already has a subscriber base of 289 million, which is spread out in different corners of the world, this new project will be a huge undertaking.

A series of new network APIs will provide access to the billing system as well as information about customer location.

There are 3 main services being provided:

1. Access to global customer base – this will allow developers to develop an application only once and it will be made to all Vodafone users all over the world.
2. Billing – New services will allow customers to pay for various services which they use through heir prepaid or postpaid mobile phone accounts, instead of having to use their credit cards, thus ensuring their safety.
3. Location – Developers will be provided with certain capabilities which will give them location awareness, thus allowing them to create more innovative services and applications. Vodafone will however, allow its customers to decide and control how their personal information is to be accessed and used.

This project was conceived following the formation of the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL), which Vodafone established with China Mobile and Softbank.

Following the continued fall in voice to voice and data transport revenues, there has been a lot of speculation regarding the future prospects of the mobile operators business. The introduction of these new services could well be seen as a step in the right direction to improve the revenue generating possibilities for mobile operators.

According to CEO of Vodafone, Vittorio Colao, this step could kill two birds with one stone, as it will allow third parties to develop attractive new services, while billing and supporting customers through their network capabilities all over the world. This will help operators to make more money, while providing users with new and innovative services that they want.

Vodafone will release these API’s through the JIL in summer.

CNet reports that Skype and Nokia announced their partnership at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The software for Skype’s Internet calling service will now be integrated on some of Nokia’s high-end smart phones. The first model to have this facility will be the N97, which is slated for a June release. The Skype service, however, will only be started in the third quarter of the year.

Once the service is started it will be integrated into the address book and users will automatically be able to see which of their Skype contacts are online. They will also be able to use its instant messaging service. This facility will enable N97 users to make calls over the Internet irrespective of whether they are using a 3G cellular network or a Wi-Fi network. All Skype-to-Skype voice calls will be free, while Skype to landline or mobile calls will be at low rates.

Sony Ericsson also announced a deal with Skype. Sony will provide a Skype panel on the Windows Mobile Xperia1 handset.

While this is great news for consumers, especially those who need to make frequent international calls, mobile network operators are not likely to be thrilled with this development. Free and low cost international calls via Skype would mean lower revenue generation for their own networks.

It is not impossible that networks such as AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile may require the Skype service to be discontinued from handsets using their networks in the U.S.A. Three UK is one of the only major networks to have forged a relationship with Skype.
Skype’s chief operating Officer Scott Durchslag says that though they are starting this service with the high end phones, it will also be made available on mid-tier handsets in the future.

Latitude works with Google Maps on mobile handsets as well as on a desktop. Users who add this service on iGoogle or download the latest version of Google Maps on their mobile phones can join Latitude and then invite their friends to join. If the friends accept and share their location, they can see where they are, in real time, on the map.

The system makes use of a digital map, where the coordinates of the handset being used are plotted by triangulating the location of the nearest mobile communications towers. This is merely an extension of their My Location service that was launched in December 2007.

The service has its benefits above and beyond the obvious social aspect of knowing where one’s friends are. For example, people can keep track of each other in a very large gathering, or parents can keep an eye on their childrens’ whereabouts.

There are concerns that using such a service would allow Google to invade an individual’s privacy. As David Perez of Arete Consulting put the point across succinctly, “I do not want my mother to know where I am!”.

Users have the choice to accept or refuse an invitation to join the service. A user’s location is revealed only to those members whose invitation has been accepted. Moreover, one can also choose to change the privacy settings for individual contacts in their friends list. Users can also manually input a fake location if they wish to hide their true location from a particular contact.

While Latitude is free to use, Google will most likely start serving location-based advertising to monetise the service.

At present, the service is available on Android phones like the T-Mobile G1, iPhone and iPod touch devices, most colour BlackBerries, Windows Mobile 5.0+, Nokia Smartphones and Java-enabled mobile phones in 27 countries including the USA, most of Europe and India.

Traditionally the 700 MHz spectrum was used for television broadcasting. On 19 Feb 2009, the TV channels using this spectrum will be turned off and transmitted via set-top boxes, and usage of the spectrum will be handed over to Verizon. GigaOm provides a good explanation of the history of this part of the wireless spectrum

Increased coverage and better penetration through walls make the 700 MHz spectrum attractive for Verizon, who will use it to cut costs and achieve greater nationwide coverage in the United States. Verizon will now be able to reduce their roaming cost by having their own towers in rural areas, and they will also be able to provide DSL-like service to rural areas.

AT&T was another big spender, paying about $6 billion at the auction, in addition to their prior purchase of Aloha Partners’ 12MHz of spectrum, which covers 196 million people in the U.S.

Before the spectrum was auctioned Google convinced the FCC to set up openness standards for the winner of this block. Their lobbying efforts resulted in the FCC setting standards that allow users of the 700 MHz spectrum to attach any device and allow access to any applications that don’t harm the network.

The search giant’s interest in this auction was mainly to ensure open standards would be maintained, which will be very useful once their Android platform is in use.

Google had also shown a strong interest in the spectrum and had bid on it. They were possibly discouraged from heavier bidding due to investor concerns about their stock price and fears of Google moving away from search operations, which are the mainstay of the company.