Ultimately both services start to decentralize social networks by virtue of data portability. Basically you can start having a single login and friend’s list that use them across a myriad of sites that integrate their tech.

We started to tinker with Google Friend connect on this site, but held back as we didn’t want to have two commenting systems.  I think it will be better suited to community sites that aren’t blogs.

Google’s system appears to be easier to implement for a typical site user, but Facebook’s has launched with some very interesting uses of their technology. My particular favorite is Loopt. Loopt is one of those mobile social networks that allow you to see where your friends are at in proximity to you. I didn’t dive deep into the service, because I didn’t want to go through the process of adding a whole new series of friends. I can now leverage my Facebook friend’s list to connect through Loopt.

Evan Tana, the Director of Product Management & Marketing of Loopt, commented “Working with Facebook Connect widens the circle of friends Loopt users can interact with, combining the power of Loopt’s social-mapping service with an established network of Facebook friends.” “Loopt users will be able to receive an alert whenever Facebook friends are nearby, discover restaurants and bars recommended by their Facebook friends, and integrate their location into their Facebook feed,” he added.

I strongly suggest you do deeper research on both platforms. There is an opportunity for innovation and success here. I guarantee you it’s what I’ll be doing.

The most popular matrix code is a QR Code, created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. QR Codes are common in Japan, where they are currently the most popular type of two dimensional codes.

QR Codes are used in a broad context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (known as mobile tagging). QR Codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards or just about any object that users might need information about. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader software can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL. This act of linking from physical world objects is known as a hardlink or physical world hyperlinks. Users can also generate and print their own QR Code for others to scan and use by visiting one of several free QR Code generating sites.

I always thought that every Nike ID shoe should come with a Matrix Code for anyone to be able to scan it and launch the exact configuration to recreate it.

The latest addition to data mobility is the Audio Barcode: data embedded in sound waves that’s picked up by target devices with a microphone — mobile phones, for example –, analyzed by special software, and then extracted.

Data to be transmitted is superimposed (embedded) by Acoustic OFDM, the technology behind Audio Barcode, in such a way that it is not detected by listeners. With a transmission rate greater than 1kbps, a URL or simple text transmission takes a mere one to two seconds.

This technology has many uses… from being able to append artist urls to every song, dynamically embed DRM information, or even combine this with audio/visual such as movies to allow sending out product information on specific scenes without having to display or affect the video at all… Just think how much information can be embedded everywhere with all these techniques… I already use 2d Barcode applications on my iPhone and I can’t wait to install an Audio Bar reader.

For starters ARM devices will be able to view the same Flash sites that traditional Internet users do as opposed to the Flash Mobile only sites they see now. This is somewhat like what the iPhone browser did for regular website browsing.

Smart marketers will still offer experiences that are designed for a mobile experience (i.e. smaller screens, potentially slower bandwidth) but now they won’t be limited in terms of the complexity or media richness. Flash 10 will allow rich mobile experiences that will easily stream video (HD and regular) and integrate with systems like Flash Media Server 2 for collaborative multi-user experiences.

Kevin Lynch from Adobe shows a demo on a G1 after the jump. Now I just want to see it on a iPhone!

It’s free and definitely worth checking out. It’s particularly cool how it works with the GPS feature.

5 G1 Pros

1. Keyboard
As proficient as we’ve become with the iPhone’s virtual keypad, tapping touchscreen keys has its limits. Physical keyboards, like those on BlackBerrys and Treos, are much easier to use. The G1’s little keyboard will become especially important as smartphone manufacturers increasingly market their devices as pocket-based PCs, and may give the G1 a clear edge when it comes to gaming.

2. Expandable and Removable Parts
The iPhone’s sealed battery is more of a metaphoric problem than a functional one. Sure, it’s a pain not being able to swap in a new battery for long jaunts off the grid (thankfully, plenty of accessories are designed to fix this problem), and nobody likes having to ship his phone back to Apple if his battery begins to lose its charge. But this problem has drawn as much fire as it has because it is symbolic of the closed, unmodifiable nature of Apple products.

3. Integrated Compass
Not only does the G1 have GPS, it has an integrated compass that can determine which way you’re facing and give you Google Maps StreetView images of the buildings around you. It’s not that useful on its own; after all, you could just look up to see what’s around you, but we’re interested in seeing what third-party developers can do with this functionality.

4. Offline Integration with Google Apps
You can access mobile versions of most Google applications on an iPhone, but with a few exceptions (such as the Google Maps application) you’ll need to do it through the Web. The Android phone’s calendar is an offline version of the much-loved Google Calendar online application. Enter dates into your phone, and they automatically show up on your online calendar. And while you can easily set an iPhone to sync up with calendars such as Google’s there is a beautiful simplicity with the way Android replicates the online programs you are used to offline, in areas where you don’t have service.

5. Multitasking and Copy and Pasting
The iPhone can do a lot, but it can’t do a lot at once. With the exception of the iPod music-playing program, which can run in the background while you do just about anything. This does not mean that the iPhone does not multitask, it does, but Apple does not want 3rd party apps killing the battery. With Android, you can easily swipe between programs. However, it must be noted that it is still to be seen what sort of effect this will have on the phone’s memory and performance (point to Apple or Google?) It must be noted that we really do appreciate that Android allows you to copy and paste text. Perhaps it will motivate Apple to finally bring that feature to the iPhone.

5 iPhone pros

1. The G1 does not have a Real Media Player
The iPhone doesn’t just play back video—it’s one of the best (and best-looking) portable media players on the market. While we’ll certainly see developers making video playback programs for the G1, there are none built into it.

2. The iPhone is Thinner
The G1’s slide-out keyboard may be useful, but it comes at a price: The G1 takes us back to the pocket-bulging smartphones of yesteryear, while the iPhone is svelte enough to fit in the front pocket of your Levis.

3. No Multitouch
The G1 uses a capacitive touchscreen. This is the same highly sensitive type of screen found on the iPhone (most touchscreen phones use mostly inferior resistive touchscreens), and should allow the G1 to compete when it comes to touch sensitivity. But the G1 does not have the iPhone’s multitouch capability. While the G1 attempts to make up for it by utilizing “long-touches” to bring up deep menus, it loses out on the huge amount of functionality (and coolness) that comes from the iPhone’s ability to sense two fingers at once.

4. Terrible Headphone Jack
The iPhone proved that people were willing to listen to music on their cellphones. Still, most manufacturers are reluctant to put a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack on their phones, forcing customers instead to use bulky adaptors or subpar bundled headphones. The 3G iPhone bucked that trend (the original had an annoying recessed headphone jack that could only take specially made headphones), but the G1 relies on an irritating proprietary plug. To make things work, early indications are that adaptors won’t even be available when the phone first hits shelves, making the bundled headphones the only choice.

5. Internal Memory
The iPhone currently comes in 8 GB and 16 GB varieties, and we’ll likely see a 32 GB version before long. The G1 has just 192 MB of onboard memory, and comes with a 1 GB micro-SD card. That’s not really enough memory for a phone that’s supposed to be full of music and downloaded applications. If you want an 8 GB G1, you’ll have to purchase an 8 GB micro-SD card, which will push the price of the phone from $179 above the iPhone’s $199 price tag. If T-Mobile, Google and HTC really expect us to use the G1 as a mobile computer, they’ll need to give us more memory. [source]

The real reason the gPhone could take off

The main difference between the gPhone and the iPhone is that with Android, apps won’t be subjected to this (click to zoom in).

Android is Google’s attempt to dominate the mobile advertising market, just as it has dominated the online PC advertising market, said Craig Wigginton, industry leader for Deloitte’s telecommunications practice. “Their number-one driver for pushing this is the advertising model,” he said.

The G1, the first Android phone introduced by T-Mobile, Google, and HTC on Tuesday, comes loaded with Google applications, including Gmail, Gtalk, Maps, and YouTube. The home screen includes just one item: a Google search bar. Each of those applications is an opportunity for Google to deliver advertisements to users.

There are 3.5 billion mobile-phone users worldwide; many more than computers users. Google, with their success at delivering advertising to desktop computers are looking to monetize this enormous opportunity.
Mobile advertising so far is a small market, but some analysts have high hopes for growth in the future. M:Metrics found that mobile display advertising was an approximately $200 million industry last year, a figure analysts there expect to at least double this year. Analysts at Heavy Reading predict that the mobile advertising industry will exceed $10 billion in annual revenue in 2013.

AdMob is the world’s largest mobile advertising marketplace. Founded in 2006, AdMob allows advertisers to reach their customers on the mobile Web and publishers to increase the value of their mobile sites. AdMob offers both advertisers and publishers the ability to target and personalize advertising to their customers in 150 countries. AdMob has servers over 43 trillion impressions to date, and I’ve seen quite a few on my iPhone, on my sportacular app where I follow up to the minute football games and stats.
Researchers at Strategy Analytics predict that 400,000 people will buy the G1 by the end of the year, compared to 1,000,000 people who bought the 3G iPhone on its opening weekend.

Google and T-Mobile appear to be mainly hoping that mass-market consumers will buy the phone, even though smartphones have traditionally appealed most to business users. The G1 lacks some features that business users might want. For example, it doesn’t support Exchange mail, however Android is an open platform and developers can build applications that might interest enterprise users. I think the main difference between Android and the iPhone is the application publication model, since Android developers don’t have to go through Apple Store approval hell.

Once other Android phones start appearing, the platform could gain momentum. “There will be more to come in 2009 when manufacturers such as Samsung and LG will deliver their devices. Android has the potential to become the de facto operating system for Linux, and we expect sales to reach around 10 percent of the smartphone market in 2011,” said Gartner analyst Roberta Cozza.

The investment firm KPCB has created a new fund dedicated to investing in cutting edge iPhone applications that leverage the functionality that is available in Apple’s latest release. Shockingly it’s called the iFund - I know you could have seen that one coming…

Regardless, it’s a great idea and should further propel top quality developers and big idea people to dedicated time and resources to release even more cutting edge applications.

I know some gaming applications have had over 400,000 paid downloads establishing the iPhone as a legitimate gaming platform as well.

If you want to find out more about visit http://www.kpcb.com/initiatives/ifund/index.html

The two dominant methods are SMS and NFC. All of you are familiar with SMS as it is very common in the US and Europe, but chances are none of you even hear of NFC. NFC is a method to use your mobile device as an electronic payment method just by sliding it or approaching it to a sensor that can read and detect their RFID (Radio Frequency Identification). All mobile devices emit a frequency that identifies the device, and it is extremely common in Asia to have a reader that can detect the frequency and bill against it. So to make it extra clear, imagine walking in into a fast food chain, ordering your food, scanning you mobile device against a reader, and leave…

Let me give you an idea of how huge this is in Asia. In 2006, there were 9 thousand mobile payment users in Europe, 7 thousand in the US, and 6 million in Asia. Numbers grew this year to 1 million in the US and 28 million in Asia, and it’s projected for 2011 to be 7 million in the US and 68 million in Asia. By 2011, WAP will slowly disappear, being responsible for only about 27 million transactions, compared to 309 million NFC, and 567 million SMS transactions.

Impressive right? You want more numbers? The Philippines had around 3 million users for mobile money transfer by 2006, who were spending approximately $70 million per month. Vodafone launched m-pesa in March 2007 and within eight months over one million users registered and over 50 million euros transferred.
However, don’t think this is all just Japan… Sprint announced that they will introduce NFC in the San Francisco Bay Area by allowing certain test group to pay their BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) with their mobile phones.

The last market for mobile payments it’s what’s called A2A (Account to Account), which is mobile money transfer such as Paypal. To give you an idea, CashEdge’s A2A transfer volume grew 300% in 2007 to more than $38 billion.

Mobile usage is growing exponentially, and more and more people start to use their mobile for accounting, billing, and manager their money. I personally installed PayPal and PageOnce on my iPhone, and am really looking forward to a larger penetration of NFC in the US, as it really makes small payments so much easier.