When a good company starts going too many directions, when it starts to create too many new products, too many new services... the firm begins to lose it's focus. And so the Bartman predicts this may soon happen to Google sooner or later.

Al Ries is one of my favorite authors. He wrote a book that I still read (or listen to the audible version) every few months today.

Focus. The Future of Your Company Depends on it.  

Apparently, nobody at Google read this one and this book has been out for more than ten years.

If you haven't read this book or listened to the audible version of it. Get it. Read it. This should be a book on every REALTOR's bookshelf today. 

Google has Google Search. Why they're building a line extension and developing an iPhone me-too product with Verizon is a poor idea. 

It would have been wise for Google to have stayed with this just that one service including Google Paid Search (AdWords). But this is the problem when you get too much money. You want to spend it. You want to tinker. You want add things. 

Nobody told Google that less is more, and this is where I see the big problem for Google down the road.

Google's Search has pretty much replaced the Yellow Pages. I don't think a lot of you bother going to Yahoo or MSN anymore to search for anything today. Neither do millions of other people.

I have a few pounds around the middle I want to lose and I was impressed with the Bowflex Treadclimber.

I Google'd Treadclimber Best Price. Albuquerque.

Then I went to Yahoo and did the same search. Wow, talk about cluttered. Finding WHERE the search box was hard enough. Yahoo plasters so much crap on their home page these days you just can't help but be distracted every time you go there.  

 

1.) OK is a new word now. I've been using OK and Okay for most of my life. Thanks for letting me know now it's OKAY to think of OK as a word.

2.) Southwest can take me a lot of places, one way trip eh? $59 bucks. Nice to see them slashing prices. But no thanks. I'll drive, thank you. 

3.) (off the page) But I've got an ad for Scottrade. 

4.) Ashlee now has black hair. So what? My mom changed her hair color last week. It's easy to do. Does anybody care about that?

5.) Americans in Uproar about 911 Masterminds Being Tried in New York. Why bother? They're war criminals. Shoot them. Get it over with. Jeez. 

6.) Horoscope. Sports scores. Personals. Weather. Why is any of this important to me? I just want to find a TreadCimber please. 

7.) Popular Searches. Says who? One click to Sara Palin, Clint Eastwood. Okay, fine. More distractions for my eyes. 

8.) FINALLY! A Search Box! Yay, I found it. Hiding in plain sight. 

 

Google is really good at Search. They are also really good at Google Apps and a few other things that add value to your Internet user experience.

Okay -- if you've read this far by now, you're wondering where my point is if you based your interest on the subject of my title, right? Fine. Let me get back on topic here. The Google - Verizon ANDROID Phone.

The only thing good about Google's Android phone, is the TV commercial.

A bunch of Stealth fighters come streaking into the skies and the camera pans close up to the bomb bay doors and they drop their weapons. We then see a lot of people looking up at the sky, watching these bombs or missiles streak down from the heavens where they sort of whump into the ground.  

Curious looky-loos step cautiously to the meteor-like holes in the ground and then the commercial gets cheesy.

The dark bomb-like objects open up and reveal the Google Verizon Android phone just as some cowboy mutters "what in the world is that...?"

Nice commercial, but I feel cheated. I was hoping it was the sequel to 2012 or a movie sort of just like it. 

 

I was at the mall the other day, and I stopped into the Verizon store and picked up an Android Phone. It's black, and slick looking.  I immediately pulled out my iPhone 3GS and placed it next to the Android just as a Verizon sales representative came up behind me.

"Looking to upgrade or switch from iPhone to Android," the man smiled big like a Chesire Cat.

"Ha! Fat chance I said," I'm still pissed off about the crappy way Verizon baited me with that TV commercial. I thought was going to be a really kewl new movie and it's just an ad for the phone."

He quickly lost his smile and looked at me in disbelief, "So... how may I help you, sir?" he asked.

"I'm the electronics buyer for all of Sandia Labs, and I need to see if you can handle an order for 12,190 of these little puppies," I said.

"Wow? Really?" he said.

"No, I was just joking. I'm not buying a single one. I'm writing an article about this thing in ActiveRain. It's a Blog website that has about 150,000 REALTORS there and about 80 or so follow my blog pretty regularly."

By this time, he was getting frustrated by my teasing and insulting. After a few minutes of Quid pro quo he quickly realized I was only going to taunt him some more if he stayed around. So he meandered back to the other end of the store. 

Just as I was starting to become to play with some of the Android's phone applications, Britney Spears came up to me and smiled and asked if she could help. Okay it wasn't really Britney but she was a close ringer as far as looks and that Pepsi smile goes. 

"On my iPhone, I can pinch maps and the browser and zoom in and zoom out. The iPhone has this basic feature and so does the Palm Pre," I said to the Britney Spears look alike. 

"Oh, she says, Motorola or Android haven't turned that on yet," she smiles and beams at me. 

"So..... why are you selling the Android with that basic feature being crippled?  Pinch zooming in and out is a really basic feature here. Didn't anyone think that was sort of important to have before you rolled this out?" I ask.

 

Then Britney hands me a Droid ERIS. She said the phone is $99 bucks and it does allow you to zoom and pinch to enlarge your maps and for Website browsing. it was nice, compact. lightweight. The Android is bigger and bulkier. There's no waste here with a physical keyboard. It was sort of Apple like. And it was a fraction of the price of the much more expensive Android. 

Just as I was staring to smile, she blurts out the bad news. "Only a handful of applications are supported and the ERIS supports the older operating system. Not the newer, slicker one that Android has." 

Two phones. Same carrier. Two different feature sets and lots of inconsistencies. This is really stupid.

Truth be known, I was shopping to see if it was worth my time and money to develop a new IDX specifically for the iPhone and the Android.

Since we are developing a brand new IDX system with a ChirpIDX feature for Twitter, I can tell you that developing a similar application for Verizon starting to look like a complete waste of my time and money. I made the decision right there inside the store... isn't going to happen.

The two different Operating Systems and the problems with them not supporting pinch mapping are a real deal killer for any serious GPS developer. The day we'd release this for our Ohio client, they'd be bugging me when we'd be supporting pinch mapping. Motorola nor Google has turned that feature on. Okay, this idea alone makes the front page of Stupidity Illustrated. 

This might be fine for Verizon's 89 million subscribers, but for simplicity, my money is on Apple's iPhone to be the clear winner here.

Which is why the Bartman predicts more and more useful applications for the iPhone and REALTOR needs for GPS mapping and useful software will only continue to get better on the iPhone platform more so than Palm's Pre, Blackberry or the Google/Verizon Android or ERIS smart phones.

I only wish AT&T's service was better for coverage. More Bars in More Places? Ha!  Not where I live. LESS Bars in MORE Places is more like it.

But for use-ability, nobody beats the Apple iPhone user experience. 

 

Bart Wilson | Chief Marketing Officer | Real Estate Technology Coach

Voyager International. The Real Estate Marketing Company

Tel: (505) 466-2483  iPhone: (505) 204-8097