Google continues to top the list, growing in value from $86 billion last year to $100 billion in 2009, which represents a growth of 16%. Google is followed by rival, Microsoft, which climbed up one position from last year with a current value of $76.2 billion – also up 8% over last year.

Yahoo! has fallen from number 62 last year to number 81 this year, and its value has also fallen, from $11.5 billion to $7.9 billion.

Other technology brands in the top 10 are IBM at number 4 with a value of $66.6 billion, Apple is at number 6 and is valued at $63.1 billion. China Mobile is placed at number 7, with a value of $61.2 billion, and Vodafone, which is a new entrant in the top 10 list, is at number 9, with a value of $53.7 billion.

Mobile operators have seen brand value rise, for the most part. O2 and AT&T have especially benefited from the launch of the iPhone, both seeing double-digit rises in brand value. The top 10 mobile operators by brand value are:

Among the non-technology-based companies, General Electric (GE) has taken quite a beating, as the brand’s value has fallen from the number two position last year, to number 8 this year.

Ten of the companies in the top 25 list are from the technology sector. Further down the list is Amazon at number 26, AT&T at number 28, Cisco at number 30 and eBay at number 54.

Quite surprisingly, the value of some of the brands has gone up substantially this year, in spite of the effects of the worldwide recession, which only goes to show that good companies can do well even in tough times.

In the UK, brand value for some of the brands in the list has fallen. Marks & Spencers, in particular, has seen a 48% fall in brand value over the past year.

The 10 most valuable brands in the UK are as follows:

Social implications of Google Latitude are obvious. The product sets the base for what could be an extensive geo-spatially aware mobile social network with the potential to deliver extremely targeted ads to users depending on their current location.
The latter application, MyTracks, does not have as far-reaching potential, though. However, it is  definitely highlighting what could become a pattern for forthcoming Google Mobile launches.

Outdoor sports enthusiasts such as bikers, skiers and runners should be particularly thrilled with the latest offering. The service, which works on Android powered phones such as T-Mobile’s G1, keeps track of a user’s path, by means of the mobile phone’s GPS.

It also provides details such as speed, elevation and distance covered. These details can then be downloaded to a spreadsheet using Google Docs or to Google Maps. Once that is done these details can be forwarded to friends through email or Twitter. The application is free to use.

Earlier, GPS devices required the user to plug in a separate device into the computer, install special; software and then transfer the track to the web by uploading it. All this cumbersome activity has been eliminated. Now, a user just needs to carry an Android phone when outdoors.
My Tracks will then offer details such as recording and visualising the track followed during any outdoor activities such as running, jogging, cycling and hiking. It will also give the total time taken, the average speed, distance covered, elevation and so on.
Users can forward these details to other members in their groups so that others can follow the same trail or avoid certain dangerous spots.

http://mytracks.appspot.com/

The potential for greatness definitely lies withing mobile social activity. If the user numbers are any indication, this is where the future of mobile might lie. And Google seems to be right on track to cash in on this growing market.

A few months ago, Google relocated some of their engineers from Phoenix-Arizona, to other places. Now another 70 employees from Austin-Texas, Trondheim in Norway and Lulea in Sweden are being asked to do the same. The reason behind this is to have fewer but better-coordinated engineering sites, which would help reduce overhead costs, while retaining the quality and efficiency of their services.

Another major step being taken by Google is to reduce the number of new recruits. Initially, they ended all the contracts they had with the outside sources that provided recruiting services to them. Now, however, they have gone a step further and decided to reduce the size of their recruiting department by as many as 100 people. The logic is, of course, that since they will be recruiting fewer people for quite some time, they will require less people to do so. However, the management is hopeful that most of these staff members will be reassigned to other appropriate jobs within the organisation itself.

While Google had laid off 300 employees of their subsidiary, DoubleClick, last year, the Times points out that this is the first time their own employees are being made redundant.

Google has also announced that they will discontinue some services that have not been doing too well or have been replaced by better apps. Amongst them are Jaiku, Dodgeball, Catalog Search, Google Notebook and uploads for Google Video.

Another indication of their cost cutting efforts is the fact that instead of the $1,000 bonus that employees get as a gift every year, this time they were just given a new T-Mobile G1 mobile phone.

Though these measures are relatively minor compared to the layoffs at Yahoo! and other tech companies in recent month, it is certainly bad news that the one company most experts thought would sail through the reecession unscathed is already trimming its workforce.

The worst is probably yet to come. Among other technology firms, Motorola has announced 4,000 job cuts, while there are unconfirmed rumors about the possibility of 15,000 layoffs at Microsoft.

T-Mobile + Yahoo!

T-Mobile’s deal with Google to provide search to their customers was one of the first of its kind when they launched their Web ‘n’ Walk service. Today that partnership has been terminated in favour of a new deal forged with Yahoo! Beginning in March, T-Mobile customers in 11 European countries will see Yahoo!’s mobile oneSearch by default on their phones.

Official press release: Yahoo! and T-Mobile Partnership

“T-Mobile’s decision to work with Yahoo! is a clear demonstration of the strength of our industry-leading mobile search service and our ability to work with partners to give consumers the best possible mobile Internet experience,” says Marco Boerries, executive vice president, Connected Life, Yahoo! Inc.

Nokia + Google

Nokia Search, the new facility powered by Google will be launched on Nokia’s N96, N78, Navigator 6210 and classic 6220 models in a few select countries. Eventually Nokia plans to make this service available in over 100 countries and it will run in 42 different languages.

Official press release: Google and Nokia team up on search

The Google search box is already available on Nokia Internet Tablets and Nokia also supports Google’s YouTube videos on their N95 8GB model. This latest deal between the two companies will enable written and oral search services with document and photo sharing facility through audio and video applications. It will also provide Internet navigation and online music. In other words, it will allow users to browse around, access maps, messages etc. through just a click on their mobile phones.

Google VP Vic Gundotra says, “Google search combined with the high quality applications on Nokia devices (will) help make information available to Nokia device users wherever they are and provide an excellent overall experience.”

Digging Deeper

On the surface this might seem like everyday business… winning some clients, and losing some to the competition. However, considering what’s at stake here, the ramifications are much, much deeper.

T-Mobile, like most UK operators considers Google to be a serious threat to their future revenue streams. All operators want a large slice of the mobile advertising pie. Google has played hard ball, and severed a few relationships along the way. T-Mobile’s decision to drop Google and partner with Yahoo! has likely little to do with Yahoo!’s superior mobile search product offering and more to do with a strategic move to decrease Google’s dominance in mobile.

Nokia has been debating about its mobile search strategy for a while now. They have considered launching their own search facility within their phones, partnering with Google, or using a white label mobile search provider. This announcement most likely indicates that in spite of the fact that the two companies are rivals in many ways (Nokia’s S60 software competes with Google’s Android platform), the world’s largest handset manufacturer has accepted the fact that they could never develop as good a search service as Google, and if they tried to compete with Google’s brand recognition in search, they would most likely lose.

Forging a relationship with Google allows Nokia to tap into the mobile search market rather than ending up being completely excluded from it.

In return, Google could potentially gain direct access to 40% of worldwide mobile users and 50% of the Smartphone users via their handsets.

This means that even the T-Mobile customers who would have otherwise no longer seen Google search, might once again see it in the near future on their Nokia phone itself without even having to access the operator portal. Nokia and Google’s deal could thereby cut off operators like T-Mobile and competitors like Yahoo! completely. Few tears are likely being shed at Google for the loss of the T-Mobile contract, in the face of this potentially huge new opportunity.

The UK is an important advertising market, and most of the big mobile providers operate there. The initial testing of this project will therefore be carried out in the UK. The aim is to set up a television-style rating system for mobile ads. The working group will set out a range of metrics to decipher exactly who the mobile audience is and what their areas of interest are. The group will also collect and deliver information from the UK operators to analyze the feasibility of the measurement system.

Advertisers will benefit from this project as it will help in judging the effectiveness of mobile ads. So far the lack of availability of concrete data backing mobile advertising has been a major stumbling block, as advertisers obviously want to know whether or not their ads are reaching their target audience.

Providing good quality data has been difficult so far because mobile advertising is a relatively new field, and operators still do not know exactly what data is required by the channels and how the relevant data can be collected and disbursed while maintaining client confidentiality.

Information collected as a result of this initiative will have to be made available across different operators. The data may also need to be audited by a centralized body to ensure client privacy is not breached. The GSMA, which represents over 700 companies across 218 countries, is ideally placed to lead such a project and should be capable of uniting the normally rival organisations.

Rob Conway, CEO of GSMA says, “The working group and the GSMA facilitate crucial engagement between mobile operators, advertisers and agencies, to help ensure that mobile advertising realizes its full potential for the benefit of all players in the ecosystem.”

While most see this as a positive step forward for the mobile telecoms industry, Julien Theys at Screen Digest thinks this is a “defensive strategy” by the telecom companies to one-up Google.

According to eMarketer the mobile advertising industry will rise from $i.5 billion in 2006 to $12 billion by 2011. Phil Chapman, director of marketing T-mobile UK, says “The power of the mobile as a marketing tool can only be realized if advertisers can clearly see and understand the benefits compared to traditional media.”

Read the official press release by the GSMA