I have been watching the trends of Twitter Applications, Browsers and Platforms over the last couple of months and this type of segmentation and convergence had emerged.

First of all, what has excited me and what I have been waiting for over the last year has been an application that handles automatic translation.

Given the fact that I speak both Japanese and English and have business in both Asia and here in North America, I have wanted to build a consistent cross-border  following on twitter.  I found that with the existing Twitter platform, the only way to do this is with two-accounts.  With my existing account, when I tweet in Japanese, I loose followers.  When I tweet in English, I have a hard time growing Japanese followers.

I mentioned this concept to the Digital Garage folks last February when I was in Japan, but they all laughed.  About a year ago during a Breakfast in Vancouver, Jeff Pulver ( Founder of 140conf.com, serial entrepreneur and VOIP visionary)  and I had a lot of fun with this by cutting segments from Google translate into twitter to go back and forth between English and Twitter.  Even when Jeff started to Tweet in Hebrew, he saw how this took conversations to the next level and really touched individuals on the other end.  I can not stop thinking of the smile on his face when he said ” This is amazing”. So this is really the state of now when we see the auto-translation of different languages for different countries or multi-lingual translations.

When I saw the announcement in April by Hootsuite I felt like they were really listening to the customer; as there must had been lots others like me with the same predicament.  In my mind this is a big move by the Hootsuite folks in their attempt  at this and even though we have not yet seen this capability on Facebook,  MARK MY WORDS….. This is going to be one of the most important features for them with their 500M users in the coming months.  If they do not buy Hootsuite, then they will do this timeselves by the end of the year.

Given the fact I would like to Tweet in both English and Japanese simultaneously,  I really thought this would be a feature that Twitter would release to the market.  Given that Google is so strong in language tools, and Google has a terrific product ( Google Translate), I was pretty sure we would see this from our friends at Google first. Even thought this would get quickly integrated into Google Buzz so that it scaled.   English language schools  have grown from the cottage industry base to a core part of  Japanese society.  With the growth of iPhone and Android devices cross-border,  I am sure this type of feature is going to be more and more important.

What we have seen is that our friends in Vancouver ( Hootsuite) have really looked to market differentiation with these translation tools.  It only makes sense as Vancouver is one of those multilingual communities, and even here in Canada most people have adopted the two-language way ( English, French).

This is what the Hootsuite folks have to say:

Need more ways to socialize? Seeking zen-like efficiency? Start by updating HootSuite for iPhone to clear your mind and make your social media experience more enjoyable. This update adds full localization in four languages to go along with the recently-released translation tools. Both are designed to help marketers, socializers, and internationalists understand the vibe about their brand, industry, and interests from all over the globe. Additionally, the release includes a kit full of new tools to help you stay on top of multiple social streams — and share the best parts with remarkable efficiency.  All the features are available in both the Lite (no-cost) and Full ($2.99 USD) versions of HootSuite for iPhone.

This may be a risky strategy for Hootsuite as unless they can get clients on both sides of the pond ( meaning that in order to really use the multilingual features, but send and received need a Hootsuite client) Twitter will just copy and improve on this. When Twitter does release its interfaces to support multilingual capabilities, where will this leave Hootsuite?

Secondly, when it comes to integration we are seeing many companies bring in all the different feeds into there Applications. Fring just announced with much success their Video-Call capability for mobile, Seesmic continues to be “Switzerland” with all of the different Feed integrations.  I have just been waiting for them to make the product opensource or open API’s… as we have started to see more of with Tweetdeck and the Buzz API.

So where does this leave us?  As Twitter sits in the middle of it all, it makes me wonder if Twitter has just become a proprietary TCP/IP-like bit pipe?   They made the move to build there user experiences by buying the Application company Atebits most recently, but they are in a  good position being in the middle.

The wildcard in this evolution in my mind is now the Browser.   So lastly, I must say that the convergence that starts to get interesting is now what Plug-ins and what enablers we start to see in the browser as it also has become a standalone application in its own right. Opera released its application for the iPhone and in weeks we have seen Millions of downloads.  They have developed a widget framework that has been adapted by several of the carriers now to promote services, application and advertising revenue from the Widgets.  JIL ( Joint Innovation Lab – Softbank, Verizon, China Mobile and Vodafone) have actively been starting to promote the cross border opportunities with widgets through there entire network of devices as a core driver for developers, but the fact still remains that over 50% of developers are now focued on iPhone Applications.

Opera has positioned themselves very nicely in this Application game and it is going to be interesting what the next big moves are?  Will Opera be aquired as part of the JV of JIL? Will Facebook buy Opera? or will we see the integration of Twitter and all these applications into Opera?  or will we see Opera buy Hootsuite?

The fact remains that in the Application space there is a lot of convergence going on.  What we have not heard much of these days for advanced integrated apps is Google.  They did have their flagship Google I/O conference several weeks back and it is exciting to see that they are really driving HTML5.  As HTML5 expands this gets very interesting from the standpoint of Application convergence.  Where will this all go with HTML5 ( See my next post)

Based on the latest stats on the  market share published by Gartner of the different device manufacturers and platforms, it is clear that Nokia, Apple and Google all have similar momentum and are growing quite steadily.  Today about 20+% of the entire market is based on Smartphones and it has been published that by 2012 more then 50% of the US  Market will be Smart phones.     From all the media, one would think that iPhone and Android would be overtaking Nokia and that Android would be overtaking Apple.   From the extrapolated data, the growth along the same line for the last year shows this is not the case.  Nokia, Apple and Google all seem to have similar growth paths.  As we do know there are more and more devices choosing Android as the platform, there is some strong momentum in the Android camp that is positive accelloration of device penetration.

With this all said, one of the biggest problems Nokia has is in its Market Share in North America.  Nokia has almost become invisible to developers and users of smartphones, and there is a risk that if Nokia does not make some positive inroads here, the effects could be critical.

What is also interesting is that RIM does not seem to have the growth curve like Nokia, Apple and Google ( NAG).  Again through the extrapolation of the growth lines of the different companies,  Apple should pass RIM in Q1 2011, and Android should pass RIM in Q1 2013.  Given this is still 3 years away, it shows RIM strong position today and an opportunity to change this course.  Depending on how Apple releases product through other carriers and its iPhone 4.0 release in the next several weeks, we may even see Apple pass RIM by the end of the year.

During Q1 of this Year, Nokia maintained it leadership in position and scale. The Company added close to 13M new device sales since 1 year earlier.  That is ramping up over 1M new units to ship per month or increasing the volume shipped of 33,000 per day.  For Nokia this is the increase per day, where as Google is shipping in its entirety 100,ooo Units per day.  This is  quite a big change as well, since at CTIA in March they announced the 60,000 Units per day.

As for Smartphone sales,  Symbian still leads the pack as 2.5X greater then the next player- RIM, 3x greater then Apple (iPhone) and 5x greater then Google ( Android).  The volumes for Symbian continue to show phenomenal growth even though the total market share went from 49% down to 44%.

It seems like this week was a key milestone for the HTML5 world. Google opened our Friday morning with an example of HTML5 Game ( PacMan) being added to the Google logo of search.  With approx 2B searches a day, this shows the scalability of having an active game embedded just as there was once a static logo.  Did Google pay for the rights of Pacman for the day? My wife thought her PC was attacked by a Virus!  Today was a great day for the progress of the web.

The Google I/O ( Input/Output) or ( Innovation/Openness) Conference was a great success in bringing more transparency and openness to web standards, and with the announcement of opening VP8 to the world as a royalty free licence ( I did not see the word perpetual???).  They launched Google TV, Music Streaming for the Android platform, and a wide variety of new announcements surrounding the Chrome App Store.  As for Wave, it has now moved from the closed invite only option that makes it very difficult to have a social network to being officially launched.

Yahoo announced the launch of a new class of interactive mobile display ads leveraging HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript technologies.  Yahoo stated that traditional static banners across the top and bottom of the mobile device screen were not optimal  and with–the new format promises to solve those issues via rich media content optimized for next-generation HTML5-based browsers. Yahoo Mobile product marketing staffers Mandar Shinde and Calvin Hung stated that this will enable  ”creative executions of interactive advertisements” on the Y! Mobile Blog.

Yahoo will launch its first interactive display campaign  with Paramounts and DreamWorks Animation release Shrek Forever After. “Going forward you can expect to see more ads that are tailored to the way people use mobile or that take advantage of particular attributes of mobile devices,” Shinde and Hung add. ”For example, we know users like to ‘content snack’ on mobile and ads that offer video or creative interactivity can be very successful.”

Now Adobe…. With all the chatter back and forth between Apple, iPad and the release of Flash, you think that Flash was the lifeline of Adobe.  Looking at this revenue breakdown of the company, it is clear that Flash is only a small part of the overall revenue strategy of Adobe.  What was very assuring is that now with HTML5 being the next coding platform for the Web, everybody is working together…

HTML5 aims to eliminate the need for web plug-ins like Adobe Flash. Instead, the functionality of Adobe’s Flash platform will be available right in the code of the web.)

The gradual elimination of Flash sounds like a bad thing for Adobe, but it’s actually not a huge problem. From a revenue perspective, Flash only accounted for 7% of the company’s revenue in fiscal 2009, or $231.2 million, according to Citi analyst Walter Pritchard.

While losing a revenue source is never a good thing, the widespread adoption of HTML5 can actually be good for Adobe. The company is introducing a bunch of tools for web developers to make HTML5 sites. Its Dreamweaver software, in particular, is getting an update to help web designers. There’s no reason that Adobe couldn’t even built an “export to HTML5″ command in Flash. As HTML5 grows, Adobe can offer new tools, and thus drive revenue growth.

Both Flash and Dreamweaver are part of Adobe’s core business — “Creative Solutions” — which generated half of Adobe’s revenue last quarter.

It is amazing that couple of years ago, Google was a search engine company with a great business model around advertising.  As they grew, so did their products and services.   From the vision of ” organizing all of the worlds information to make it readily available” to now a Media company with their fingers on everything as they transformed into to a major media company with several hundreds of products all free powered by advertising.   In a funny video released recently by  Time.com’s Odd Todd , you can get a good laugh over all of the value of these products, that are free, but in Beta.  Google has been a key player in the foundation of the web as we know it.

Chris Anderson talks about the Free-Conomy in this session at the Commonwealth Club about how to leverage free to build and grow a business in the digital economy. Google clearly had the vision and prowess to leverage this philosophy and become the giant we all know and love.

….But now, Google is getting into the hardware business.  We all thought that they would enter the mobile space with Android only based the software model of opensource and free, but somewhere along the line their complete strategy and vision seemed to change dramatically with the launch of Nexus One.

Moving from free open source API’s and software to the pains of managing inventory ( PCB’s. LCD’s, Batteries, etc)  and building products is quite a different animal and business.   I originally thought that the purpose of Google’s journey surrounding the Nexus One was one of creating a reference platform for them to build and develop what they believed was the ultimate mobile device in order to better serve their efforts around the building the best Android platform possible, but now the gPad?

We all wonder that when something goes up, it must come down… and this Nexus One to the gPad example reminded  me of the old Jewish folktale from the Wise Men of Chelm called “Ruined by a pair of shoelaces”. Is entering the hardware business and chasing after Apple, Nokia and Rim the first step to getting to over abundant and completely getting out of control? It at least made me think about it, and even though there is a long way to go in the evolution of media, why now to become a hardware player?

Strangely, but lots of panic from all the app developers today, when @Ev on the corporate blog announced the acquisition of Tweetie’s owner Atebits.  To me this is clearly an obvious direction and it could only be predicted.  In reality it should not really affect app developers as it is a very similar model to Google and syndication.  Think of all those websites that are powered by Google-Search?  It is like Google having a search engine without all the different types of its own end-user experiences to build and test out their business?  They need to best understand and support the end-user first and foremost.  The Web2.0 world already established the model for syndication, and it would be the kiss of death if either Google or Twitter stopped offering api’s for developers and publishers to syndicate and let the vertical world evolve.

However, the differences between Google and Twitter is that Google is an advertising company and Twitter was just growing larger and larger as a bit-pipe. Google was once in the similar situation and added advertising as the balance to only building out a user-base in the beginning.  In order for Twitter to start to build up its advertising business ( which will probably be the next announcement) required them to have the ability to test and launch it first through their own properties…. hence Tweetie.   It is like Google not having a tool-bar strategy to test cookies, etc…  This is my reasoning why the Tweetie client will be free and just called Twitter.  They needed this kind of product to test and build the best user-experiences to surround their product and build out all the API’s for syndication.  Now especially advertising.

I am bullish on the fact this acquisition took place at this time, and it looks like Twitter is really coming together to potentially be  the next Real-Time Search and Real-time advertising engine that links to mobile.  They now have a platform to test and evolve as a free app…..

So in my mind the Twitter+Tweetie is basically Twoogle.

I saw this today and thought is was another fun example of Analog meet Digital. Published in Yanko Design about Google Envelopes, students from Syracuse University came up with this concept of automating your email to work with the main mail system in Envelopes that are actually maps that have the route of how the actual Envelop will travel.  We forget about 20 years ago we were sending letters to our friends instead of the real-time messaging of them. Just in one generation we have shifted from an analog experience to a digital one.  Going back to the analog one could be quite nostalgic for more meaningful delivery of messages in all the clutter of a crowded digital mailbox.

Here is a recent chart published by Silicon Valley Insider on the relative Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)/ Year in 2009 for some of the leading Internet players.  Google leads the pack with an ARPU of >$18 USD, where as the social media players are still much lower.  I think it is going to be interesting year in 2010 as Facebook/Twitter and others really build on there social advertising strategies.   I think what would be interesting to model is the time it took Google to reach this value as opposed to now both Facebook and Twitter.

I was once  told that the advertising business is “a distribution constrained business”;  based on the quality of segmentation and reach.  As Social channels do offer that deep insight, as they move from a Social utility business structure to more Social entertainment, I am interested to see how high they will go over the next 5 years and the major brands gravitation toward them.

There have been many charts that show Google’s search growth has been relatively flat, so  I would expect their first priority is definitely to move toward innovative location-based local advertising with a focus on mobile.  Even if we were to add up $18 per person for year for 2 years= $36 does not completely buy a mobile device.  There is still a long way to go for a free phone powered by advertising only by Google.

Since the release of Google Buzz, I have been thinking quite a bit about usage cases of public and private ( even without the mobile usage case as this goes even to a different level).  In our daily lives we touch many different products that serve this kind of public/private usage case and have been an established behavior associated with them.  Our emails have a certain privacy shroud wrapped around them even though we may have conversations with people on many different levels….

Here is my first pass thoughts on why Buzz has opened the debate around Privacy.   It is not that Buzz is any different from the status box on Facebook and twitter, or even the one that Linked-in has added.  I think the real debate is about around the social behavior around privacy and the tools we use to manage our conversations.  Twitter exists on its own with the tools surrounding it as a certain usage case for many-to-many public discussions.  I would not think that I would want to include these types of communications in the inbox of my email, but Twitter has in fact done so with SMS and Text messaging that has been private.

I am still trying to figure out in my mind the ethos of social behavior and the tools we use, but email and twitter seem to be on completely opposite sides of my social communication graph.

As we all waited patiently for the Third Quarter of the Super bowl on Sunday to see for the first time Google’s brand ad as part of their media strategy, it dawned on me an interesting thought about how Google really does marketing in this Web 2.0 world.

We all know that after the Superbowl on the following weekend starts the Vancouver2010 Olympics ( #VO2010, #Olympics, #Van2010). Even though there is a usage case  for people  to use search the web during the superbowl, it may not be as much high-density searching as we we are going to probably see globally during the Olympics.  Google’s ad campaign was considered Brand building, but given the fact that Google has over 70% of the search penetration in most countries around the world and on average more then 50%, most likely people at some point during the Olympics are most likely going to be coming to Google and searching for an event information, results, etc… anyway regardless of brand building. Why was it so important to start this now when Google has made a statement they do not believe in this form of advertising in the past?

Up until now, Google has not been spending money on traditional media. Moreover, for an event like the Olympics,  sponsors are dishing out 100’s of Millions of $$$ for brand building. Google has traditionally used search and its own assets in search results at the top of the page as their form of marketing.  As they have said, “We are not keen on tweaking the organic results, but always like to follow their regimented strategic algorithms for determining what gets on the top of the pages”.  Some of the best marketing during the Olympics is going to come through Search during the weeks the events are live.  What I found interesting was that Google has really built up  its own strategy as a method to get the maximum exposure to their own properties without spending money on traditional media.    Have you seen their initiative around Google Earth and the 3D creations of all the different venues as a form of sponsorship?  Google offered to do these 3D models of the venues as a service for the Olympics Events.  I find this a very interesting offer, but can only imagine that the real reason behind this is to give themselves good ranking if the Olympics puts these links on the pages of Olympics site.  They become the masters of their own game, a way to use their own algorithms to finesse the system to give Google assets high-ranking during the events; thus driving traffic to Google maps for visitors to find local information on the go during the events.  With the billions of Dollars spent by the sponsors during the events, Google may have just again gotten away with a kind-of-freebie for its own marketing efforts to potential spoof the traditional marketing system.  This is only my guess, but it somehow makes sense to me. Would love the gamet of SEO experts out there to comment on this if you can?

Back to the Superbowl…..so then why did they buy advertising the week before?  Again I am only thinking and guessing and I do not have facts to support this, but again it makes sense to me in the greater scheme of things this kind of thinking:

If Google is getting all this search traffic during the Olympics for somewhat free at the expense of the traditional sponsors by leveraging their own algorithms to their own advantage, it might just kick-up a stir amongst traditional media  in the effect that Google using its own engine to get marketing value and  not spending money on traditional media.  ” Oh No”, they can say….. did you see we do spend money on traditional media as well. Did you see our ads that ran last week?  So by spending money on traditional media from time and again makes for a good balanced media strategy when the pundits start to sniff…..Smart I would think.

Again, I am only thinking from the standpoint of business strategy and it makes perfect sense to master mind the shell game of spending money on different media.  In this case for them,  the pea is under all the shells?…… for us, maybe there never was a pea?

It was announced today that in the last Six Months Google has hit is 1M Android with T-Mobile.  Information Week Article.  The amazing thing here is that even though Apple has been widely successful >5M Units sold in North America, companies that follow directly behind with large volumes; such as Blackberry achieving the 1Mth quite quickly, etc…

Even though Nokia is shipping 1M units a day, there is no comparison when it comes to scale, but the US Market still seems a quite bit distance for the marketing prowess of Nokia….. I am sitting and waiting for that Nokia Beauty to emerge…