Max Levchin leaves Google, Slide gets axed — blame Google+

Just one week after Slide’s Photovine photosharing app officially debuted, it appears that trouble is afoot for the Google-owned social app startup.

Slide founder Max Levchin (pictured right), who also cofounded PayPal, is leaving Slide and Google, All Things Digital reports. Slide itself will be shut down in the next few months, and remaining employees will be shuffled into Google proper. Meanwhile, the company’s apps, including the messaging app Disco and its other photo-sharing app Pool Party, are on track to be sunsetted — a fancy way of saying they’re going to be shut down.

For Google, a company that has typically made wise and forward-thinking acquisitions, the news comes as a surprise. Google purchased Slide last August for around $200 million, and it ran independently with the hopes that it would buoy Google’s flagging position with social apps and services. But that was before Larry Page reclaimed his CEO role at Google, restructured the company, and put an extraordinary emphasis on getting social right.

Now Google has Google+. Its fledgling social network is growing rapidly and has greatly reduced much of Slide’s initial value for the company. The gorgeous photo sharing in Google+, for example, competes directly with Photovine and Pool Party.

It’s also worth noting that many of Slide’s products, including Disco, Photovine and Pool Party, are iOS-only with no Android support. Indeed, Slide has seemed out of step with Google’s social moves for some time, something that can be attributed to the company being run autonomously.

The real question now is why did Google take so long to figure things out with Slide. The company could have saved a lot of wasted manpower and resources had it decided earlier that Slide’s apps weren’t necessary.

Slide has some 100 employees, some of which will land at YouTube (also run independently from Google), All Things Digital reports. Slide head of product Jared Fliesler is also jumping ship to Square, where he’ll join up with his former colleague Keith Rabois.

Next Story: Pandora beats analyst estimates, reports $67M record?revenue
Previous Story: Xbox Live Gold members get a nice ESPN?update

Tags: apps, Disco, Google Plus, Photovine, Pool Party

Companies: Google, Slide, Square

People: Jared Fliesler, Max Levchin

View the original article here

Vizibility wants to help you game Google

Potential employers are going to search for you, it happens. But Google can be a fickle mistress. That’s why Vizibility has raised $1.3 million in a follow-on seed round to give you the Googling power back.

Vizibility has created a “search me” button that displays personalized Google search results in a pop up window. These results are managed through the “PreSearch” wizard, which allows you to design and control what appears in your pop up window. From there you can embed the button on your site and direct curious friends, family and potential employers to the pre-approved you.

My first question was, will this skew actual search results? The answer is no. From that pop up, the searcher can access all of your Google results in their natural order on the Google site. The benefit of Vizibility, however, is the interception. It gives you the opportunity to quench the curiosity before digging begins. Furthermore, the pop up doesn’t actually look shaddy, or like you’re trying to hide something. It’s a direct list of links that look and feel like Google search results.

Vizibility’s price points vary based on whether you are an individual or a company. Company prices range from $30-$200 a year and individual prices range from free to $10 a month. Dependent on what level you purchase, you will receive the Vizibility button and wizard along with a personal QR code, Twitter and Facebook updates that appear when people search for you, a report when your search results change in Google, a “button report” showing who uses your button, and more.

The follow-on seed round was led by Launchpad Venture Group as well as Boston Harbor Angels, New York Angels, TiE Angels, and individual investors.

“We’ve got a great team in place and a business plan that is delivering compelling results. That, plus our two search innovation patents, is why we’ve been able to raise over $2 million in capital thus far,” James Alexander, Vizibility chief executive said in a statement.

Vizibility was founded in 2009 and is currently headquartered in New York City.

Next Story: Xbox Live Gold members get a nice ESPN?update
Previous Story: Gowalla trims feature set, eliminates virtual items and notes from?check-ins

Tags: button, pop up, search results

Companies: Google, Vizibility

People: James Alexander

View the original article here

Google Plus struggles to add women after mostly-male launch

Since the launch of Google Plus almost two months ago, Google’s social media network has grown faster than any other network, reaching over 20 million users in just a month. Google’s invite-only launch positioned Google Plus as a male-centric network, and early Google Plus adopters were quick to criticize the initial gender ratios.

Groups formed?to urge women to join the social network, adding significance to the female early adopter voice and rapidly spreading the word (and invitations).?Findpeopleonplus.com?currently? has almost 14.5 million users indexed and shows a gender ratio on it’s home page of approximately 32% female; about two men to every one woman. This is a small decrease since the previous?Paul Allen report?of 33% female over a month ago; however, Google has yet to release any official statistics.

A 2010 study by the Pew Research Center, The Social Impact of Technology, lists women as the predominate sex in most social media networks. In fact, the Pew Research Center found that from 2008 to 2010 the number of women using social media increased while the amount of men decreased. The study also indicated women more frequently update statuses, comment on posts and photos, and are more apt to click Facebook’s “like” button. Women, simply put, are the backbone for most social media sites.

Google indirectly acknowledged women have something “different” to offer, at least in product design, when they posted this Girls in a Tech World video.?I believe Google has approached Google+ with an “enlightened” perspective — where ideas and information have been given weight based on the merit of the idea. In theory it’s a lovely premise to strive towards. The truth is, however, men and women not only operate differently in real life, they operate differently online as well. “Women’s behavior online … is less transactional and more relationship-driven,” according to Businessweek. The subtle point-of-view shift between men and women is likely to create different feedback between the two groups — feedback that could alter the direction of Google Plus.

Maybe Google gets this argument. It certainly stepped up month at BlogHer’s 2011 conference, demonstrating Google Plus (and it’s popular hangouts). Google gave BlogHer’s founders 3000 G+ invites for conference goers. But I can’t help but wonder it this is too little too late.

Inviting 3000 bloggers after Google Plus has over 20 million users, over a month after it’s launch, feels a bit like men were sent an invitation to the party by mail while women were sent a text message after the party had started.

(Image by Undertow851)

Clearly G+ has some incredibly talented women working on the project. And, certainly, other social networks like Facebook and Twitter, that are heavily used by women, were developed by men. Twitter has the highest ratio of women to men with 64 percent female to 36 percent male (Pew Research Study).

Joseph Smarr, a Google Plus developer, states in this interview that once G+ was used outside of Google’s doors, it was used in ways surprising to Google Plus developers. Google Plus has organically evolved with its user base, whereas Twitter and Facebook’s evolutions were never shaped by users. Facebook kept a firm hand, while Google has constantly interacted with it’s users — in hangouts and chats, by commenting in streams and asking its followers for feedback.

Google Plus’s charm revolves around the user’s ability to communicate directly with developers — something other social networks haven’t done.

The service was presented to its audience for the past two months as an exclusive club — one where the users would help to mold and shape a new social media network through feedback.?This personal attention is what people love about Google Plus. It is also why female users feel frustrated Google didn’t take the time to consider who’s opinion they asked for first.

M.M. Faulkner recently abandoned her 5+ years as a vintage clothing dealer to return to writing. Her blog?www.payattentionpeople.com?focuses on social media, technology, communication and society. You can follow her @payattentionppl or at?gplus.to/polarizedconsumer.

Next Story: Zendesk opens new Denmark office, teams up with startup?incubators
Previous Story: Square who? Intuit brings its GoPayment mobile card reader to Verizon Wireless?stores

Tags: gender, Social networks, women

Companies: Google

View the original article here

Google brings voice search to Maps

Starting today, Google is letting users search Google Maps and get directions with just their voices — no typing required.

For now, this new feature relies on Chrome web browser functionality. From the browser, users can simply click the small, blue microphone icon in the search bar, begin speaking and see results accordingly.

The speak-to-search function has also been available in Google Maps mobile interfaces for a while, since hands-free directions are pretty important to on-the-go mobile users.

“Using voice search can make it easier to find hard-to-spell places (like Poughkeepsie or Liechtenstein) or simply get directions without typing (for example, say ‘Directions from Los Angeles to San Francisco’),” wrote Google engineer Jed Burgess on the company blog.

Here’s an overview of how Google voice search works:

Google’s voice search has been around for a while. The company first launched voice search for iPhone back in 2008.

Those mobile technologies made their way to the desktop earlier this summer at Google’s Inside Search event, where the company announced that people could use their computer’s microphone to accomplish the same search tasks with voice alone.

Last summer, the company launched voice actions for its Froyo-running Android phones. Also, at the end of last year, Google said it was making voice search smarter by bringing personalized voice profiles to its voice search app for Android.

Next Story: Insulin pump hacker says vendor Medtronic is ignoring security?risk
Previous Story: Diffbot launches APIs for monitoring web?pages

Tags: google maps, location, search, voice

Companies: Google

View the original article here

Facebook’s new in-line privacy tools sound a lot like Google+

Social networking site Facebook today announced that it is adding new tools to let users share content with specific groups of friends, rather than publicly with all of their friends.

The site is also moving most of its privacy settings so that they appear alongside what is actually going on in the site. For example, you can approve or reject a photo tag from the actual photo rather than having to open up privacy settings in your specific account settings page.

“A lot of the controls we are adding are not new, it’s all about making it more usable,”?Facebook product manager Kate O’Neil told VentureBeat.

The features sound a lot like those that appear in Google’s latest social network, Google+. Rather than sequester the privacy settings on a separate settings page away from the actual action on the site, Facebook is moving its privacy and sharing features straight to the main page. It removes a lot of the hassle of having to jump to different pages to tweak privacy controls.

“We’ve been working on this for over 6 months, working really closely with a bunch of privacy groups and users, and we’ve been building it for about six months or so,” O’Neil said. “When people feel comfortable with who they are sharing with, they share more and engage more with Facebook.”

Here are a few of the changes Facebook is making to its sharing and privacy controls. The company plans to roll the changes out over the next several days.

Specified content sharing — The site has added a drop-down menu on the window where you post a new piece of content. You can decide which friends or groups of friends can view the new content through that menu before you publish it. Those controls previously existed in a settings page that was a little more complicated to access.

Tagging approval — Facebook users will also get a chance to approve a new photo tag or publication tag before it goes live with the new privacy controls. You can send a notification to someone who has tagged you in a photo asking to take the photo down or manually remove the tag. Facebook also includes the option to block someone who has tagged a photo of you. Until you approve the tag, no one can view it on your profile.

Review mode — You can now also see how your profile looks as if it were viewed by a friend or a new user looking to add you as a friend. It’s a feature that has been available on business social networking site LinkedIn for some time — but that site treats your profile more like a resume.

Locations and editing — You can now add a location to any of your content posts, similar to what you can do in Google+. You can also edit content pieces and change who can view those posts after the post goes up, rather than having to delete the post and post it again under a smaller circle.

Next Story: Calling all developers and startups: Special pricing for Mobile 2.0?event
Previous Story: A guide to user experience job salaries, skills and hot hiring?locations

Tags: content sharing, Google, in-line privacy, privacy, social networking

Companies: Facebook, Google

View the original article here

Landmark cloud music ruling frees up Google and Amazon for streaming music services

In a significant court ruling Monday, a Manhattan judge ruled that cloud music services are in the clear to store a single copy of a song and allow users to listen to that copy — as long as it can be confirmed they own the song on their hard drives.

The ruling frees up “cloud music locker” services like Google Music and Amazon Cloud Drive to scan a user’s collection and give them access to a matching song immediately rather than forcing them to upload the track manually.

However, the track stored by the “cloud music locker” service must have the exact same tagging as the scanned track to get access to it. For example, let’s say Amazon Cloud Drive has an official ripped track of Kanye West’s “Dark Fantasy” from Amazon’s library on its hard drive. If a user wants to automatically listen to that track through Cloud Drive, the user must own an Amazon ripped copy. If the user ripped the song from a CD, which would have different tags from Amazon’s copy, they would have to upload it manually.

The complicated case centered around the early cloud music service MP3Tunes and the question of whether the service and its websites infringed on music licensing company EMI’s copyrights. Essentially, EMI was concerned that users were uploading illegally obtained music to MP3Tunes and were listening to those songs using the service. EMI sued MP3Tunes and founder Michael Robertson in 2007, and the fact that it is just wrapping up now shows the complexity of the case.

MP3Tunes’ service was found to be mostly legal under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act’s “safe harbor” provisions because it could not be held at fault for the actions of its users. That part of the ruling also helps all cloud locker services, because they want protection against investigators when their users upload and listen to music they don’t actually own.

However, MP3Tunes was also found to be partially at fault for another concern. It owned a site called Sideload.com that allowed users to listen to music from any link found on the web. MP3Tunes users could copy the files from those links to their music lockers. EMI and other music companies sent notices asking MP3Tunes to take the songs down from Sideload and to remove the violating songs from the music lockers. MP3Tunes removed the songs from Sideload but did not take out the tracks from music lockers.

Although the case and ruling are complicated, this is a win for any service that wants to let users listen to their own music from the cloud. Rest assured this will not be the end of this discussion, as the music industry continues to further fight for control of how users access their music.

Next Story: King of Code finalist: Sérgio Silva empowers small business owners to go?mobile
Previous Story: Appbackr’s crowdfunded apps reach $1M sold in app?markets

Tags: Amazon Cloud Locker, cloud music, cloud music player, Google Music, streaming music

Companies: Amazon, EMI, Google, MP3Tunes

People: Michael Robertson

View the original article here

Google+ begins verifying celebrity accounts

Google has started verifying celebrity accounts on its Google+ social network, the company announced Monday.

Once verified, celebrities, public figures and high-profile member profiles will display a check mark next to the account holder’s name.

“We’re starting to roll out verification badges on profiles so you can be sure the person you’re adding to a circle is who they claim to be,” said Google employee Wen-Ai Yu in a recent note. “For now, we’re focused on verifying public figures, celebrities, and people who have been added to a large number of Circles, but we’re working on expanding this to more folks.”

As VentureBeat reported in July, Google has been striving to increase the number of celebrity members on the social network to help push it into a more public spotlight the way both Facebook and Twitter are. The new verification strategy will help further that goal. Previously, celebrity accounts –? like William Shatner — were getting flagged as fakes, which might have hurt its early chances at gaining a celebrity user base.

And while high-profile members will initially get the verification treatment, the company said it plans to verify the identity of all Google+ accounts. Google has even gone as far as expelling all members that use a pseudonym or nickname instead of their real, legal name — something that has sparked outrage by many users.

Previous Story: Miramax launches app to watch movies on?Facebook

Tags: Google Plus

Companies: Google

People: Wen-Ai Yu

View the original article here

NPD: Android maintains US lead, Google buy could revive Motorola

Surprise surprise, Android is still the leading US smartphone platform, with a 52 percent second quarter share, according to the research firm NPD Group.

That’s to be expected, since not much has happened to displace Android’s lead in the last quarter. NPD also notes that Motorola’s market share has fallen in the quarter — down to 9 percent from 12 percent last year — but Google’s recent Motorola purchase could bring some new life to the phone manufacturer.

Motorola’s overall Android sales halved since last year — from 44 percent to 22 percent this quarter — in the face of Android competition from Samsung and LG. “Much as it did in the feature phone market in the RAZR era, Motorola is experiencing increased competition from Samsung and LG in the smartphone market,” NPD executive director of industry analysis Ross Rubin said in a statement today. “Closer ties to the heart of Android can help inspire new paths to differentiation.”

Motorola could also reclaim some ground in the prepaid smartphone field, according to NPD. Just 8 percent of prepaid phones were smartphones last year, but this year that figure jumped to 22 percent, buoyed by popular prepaid Android phones from the likes of Boost and Virgin Mobile. Rubin notes that prepaid phones were once a big segment for Motorola, and the company could become a significant player there again thanks to its close ties to Google.

As for the rest of the mobile market, Apple’s iOS also rose slightly in the quarter to 29 percent, while BlackBerry fell to 11 percent. WebOS, Windows Phone 7 , and Windows Mobile each held less than 5 percent of the market.

Image via Next Media Animation

Next Story: Lithium hires a new CEO for helping enterprises engage with?customers
Previous Story: Apple iOS 5 features earthquake warnings for Japanese iPhone?users

Tags: Android, Blackberry, iOS, iPhone, smartphones, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone

Companies: Apple, Google, Motorola, NPD

People: Ross Rubin

View the original article here

Can Google+ replace your company’s intranet?

(Editor’s note: Curtis Smolar is a partner at Ropers Majeski Kohn & Bentley. He submitted this column to VentureBeat.)

A reader asks:??With all of the buzz surrounding Google +, I’ve been contemplating using it to replace my company’s intranet. I realize there are likely some risks that go with the savings this will create, but are there any legal implications?

Answer:??Google+ introduces a paradigm shift from a walled garden to an open web in the social media space.??With it, Google users now have easy access to telephone, video conferencing, document creation, social networking, instant messaging, maps and search engine capabilities from any computer – whereas normally this collection of activities would require one to interface with multiple equipments and applications.

Coupled with Google’s Android strength, the company is really in a position that no company has been in since Microsoft in the 1990s in terms of owning operating systems for all computers – which today includes smartphones.??This means that instead of simply being a new cool social networking application, Google+ is changing the way we do business – period.

This shift creates a myriad of legal issues, most of which are not unique to Google+, but instead apply to cloud computing in general.??The legal implications associated with the use of cloud computing and social networking applications are fairly new and uncharted legal territory, but here are a few prominent legal issues to be aware of:

Security - Google, undoubtedly, is actively taking measures to prevent security breach or hackers from accessing cloud stored data.??But no third party can conclusively say how safe it is. We have to take Google’s word.

Your IT professional is critical here in ensuring that the latest security patches are downloaded and that you’re protected your hardware from malware, viruses, etc.?Any IT pro worth their salt should be able to guide you to more secure cloud computing these days.

To protect yourself from losing data – should you be the unfortunate victim of an account hacking – you can download your entire Google+ profile.??This is incredibly valuable.??Now, the user owns the content and Google is simply the channel on which it is broadcasted.??Fellow social network Facebook has zealously prevented users from doing this.

Privacy - Google has dealt with privacy issues many times with its older applications (Gmail, Google Docs, and Buzz, to name a few).??The company?mantra appears to be that if you want things to be private, make sure your account settings are configured correctly.??So, when using Google+, it’s imperative to double-check those settings. (That’s the only way to prevent unwanted users from seeing your information.)

Also, be sure to read updates from Google regarding any changes in privacy settings.??With Facebook’s ever-changing policies of the past few years, the clear lesson is “be vigilant about web privacy.”

Many users complain that the privacy-setting feature on Facebook is overly complex and cumbersome.??Google+ offers a couple fixes: The “Circles” function, allowing users to segregate their contacts into “Friends,” “Professional Contacts,” and more and users are allowed to edit their own contents.

Another Google+ distinction is that only the user knows which “circle” the contact is placed in.??Crucially, Circles allow you to create business only groups that keep employers/employees from seeing information about you.

Intellectual Property – For small businesses planning to use Google+, the intellectual property issue may be the most important. (Technically, companies aren’t allowed in Google+ right now, but employees of small companies?could, conceivably, use the service in the purpose you inquired about.)

The Google Terms of Service clearly spell out that the creator of the intellectual property owns it.??That said, there is also a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide license for Google to use it – but this is a bit misleading because it refers to the consumer Google information.

As for the enterprise versions of Google services, Google clearly states that it does not have any rights to the intellectual property of the other company. Assuming the individual user Terms of Service governs Google+, though, using it could pose a significant risk of granting an unintended “perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide license” of your company’s valuable intellectual property for Google to use.

Startup owners: Got a legal question about your business? Submit it in the comments below or email Curtis directly. It could end up in an upcoming “Ask the Attorney” column.

Disclaimer: This “Ask the Attorney” post discusses general legal issues, but it does not constitute legal advice in any respect.? No reader should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information presented herein without seeking the advice of counsel in the relevant jurisdiction.? VentureBeat, the author and the author’s firm expressly disclaim all liability in respect of any actions taken or not taken based on any contents of this post.

Next Story: Android could hit HP’s TouchPad thanks to Touchdroid?project
Previous Story: Annoyed by braggarts, hackers will vote on best security?hacks

Tags: Google, Google Plus

Companies: Google

View the original article here

Google must take the offensive with Motorola patent portfolio

Google’s plan to buy Motorola Mobility will likely win approval from the Department of Justice, just as Oracle earlier received approval to buy Sun. The acquisition will double Google’s workforce and increase the size of its patent portfolio to more than 17,000 patents. What should it do with all those patents?

Google is not an active patent plaintiff, but at the same time, Google has never owned this kind of patent portfolio before.

Larry Page wrote in a blog post that “Motorola will continue to be run as a separate business.” He also stated that the “acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio.” Well, surely Larry realizes these statements are to some degree incompatible.

At a minimum, the Motorola patents help Google defend its Android investment against Apple, Nokia, Microsoft and others. But Google needs more than defensive thinking to manage the Motorola patent portfolio.

Google must put the property to “its best and highest use,” as real estate people say. This means using patents offensively, depending on Google’s needs.

Google needs a patent strategy that people at Google and Motorola can understand and execute. The plan needs a degree of simplicity for successful implementation. Using a triangle as a model, Google can create a roadmap to guide internal decisions about how and when to use its newly acquired patent portfolio.

To implement the strategy, each patent in the Motorola portfolio should be assigned to one corner of the triangle. Patents might later move around depending on licensing, but this model establishes the initial priorities.

The first priority should go to patents that support Google’s core business. That means any Motorola patents related to search and advertising go to the top. Such patents apply towards protecting Google’s major revenue source, which is advertising.

Patents in this area would not be directly shared in support of the Android community. Rather, they would used to maintain Google’s advertising revenue stream, whether that revenue stream is derived from Android devices or not. Google would use these patents offensively to protect its core business.

The second priority is to apply Motorola patents to protect and grow Android-based products. Some might argue that this helps Motorola’s competitors. More objectively, a broadly supported Android platform creates momentum and competitive excellence for Motorola as well as for other Android manufacturers.

Solid platform support for the Android community increases hardware and software interoperability, and reduces the overall cost of Android as a solution. It also helps Android compete against Apple and Microsoft, providing more lift for Motorola.

History provides a guide here. The PCI bus created by Intel allowed the PC industry to achieve a high level of hardware and software compatibility. Because of that standard, all PC vendors could pass lower costs and better quality to consumers. The resulting greater volume provided an incentive for the industry to innovate much faster.

The same idea applies to using Motorola patents to grow and improve the market for Android devices. Google would use these patents defensively — a purpose acceptable to Android partners and developers.

The third corner of the triangle contains patents that provide unique product differentiation for Motorola. There are many areas where Motorola can enjoy a competitive advantage.

Likewise, all major Android device makers, including Samsung, HTC, and Huawei, have created patent portfolios in support of their devices and business objectives. Having patents to support Android-based products is an absolute business necessity for these vendors. These manufacturers took to heart what former Sun CEO Scott McNealy once said, that open source is “free, like a puppy is free“.

If the patent litigation history of these vendors is any example, Motorola will cautiously use such patents both offensively and defensively. Motorola should have no problem preserving and even enhancing its product differentiation using some, instead of all, of the 17,000 patents in the portfolio.

John Koenig is the founder of Compute Media and developer of “The Patent Studio”. You can follow him on Twitter at @johnkoenig.

Larry Page photo: Jakub Mosur

Next Story: The age of personal robots is at hand?(video)
Previous Story: US Best Buy stops selling TouchPad, HP gives refunds to?owners

Tags: acquisition, patent law, patents

Companies: Google, Motorola, oracle, Sun

People: John Koenig, Larry Page, Scott McNealy

View the original article here

Google must take the offensive with Motorola patent portfolio

Google’s plan to buy Motorola Mobility will likely win approval from the Department of Justice, just as Oracle earlier received approval to buy Sun. The acquisition will double Google’s workforce and increase the size of its patent portfolio to more than 17,000 patents. What should it do with all those patents?

Google is not an active patent plaintiff, but at the same time, Google has never owned this kind of patent portfolio before.

Larry Page wrote in a blog post that “Motorola will continue to be run as a separate business.” He also stated that the “acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio.” Well, surely Larry realizes these statements are to some degree incompatible.

At a minimum, the Motorola patents help Google defend its Android investment against Apple, Nokia, Microsoft and others. But Google needs more than defensive thinking to manage the Motorola patent portfolio.

Google must put the property to “its best and highest use,” as real estate people say. This means using patents offensively, depending on Google’s needs.

Google needs a patent strategy that people at Google and Motorola can understand and execute. The plan needs a degree of simplicity for successful implementation. Using a triangle as a model, Google can create roadmap to guide internal decisions about how and when to use its newly acquired patent portfolio.

To implement the strategy, each patent in the Motorola portfolio should be assigned to one corner of the triangle. Patents might later move around depending on licensing, but this model establishes the initial priorities.

The first priority should go to patents that support Google’s core business. That means any Motorola patents related to search and advertising go to the top. Such patents apply towards protecting Google’s major revenue source, which is advertising.

Patents in this area would not be directly shared in support of the Android community. Rather, they would used to maintain Google’s advertising revenue stream, whether that revenue stream is derived from Android devices or not. Google would use these patents offensively to protect its core business.

The second priority is to apply Motorola patents to protect and grow Android-based products. Some might argue that this helps Motorola’s competitors. More objectively, a broadly supported Android platform creates momentum and competitive excellence for Motorola as well as for other Android manufacturers.

Solid platform support for the Android community increases hardware and software interoperability, and reduces the overall cost of Android as a solution. It also helps Android compete against Apple and Microsoft, providing more lift for Motorola.

History provides a guide here. The PCI bus created by Intel allowed the PC industry to achieve a high level of hardware and software compatibility. Because of that standard, all PC vendors could pass lower costs and better quality to consumers. The resulting greater volume provided an incentive for the industry to innovate much faster.

The same idea applies to using Motorola patents to grow and improve the market for Android devices. Google would use these patents defensively — a purpose acceptable to Android partners and developers.

The third corner of the triangle contains patents that provide unique product differentiation for Motorola. There are many areas where Motorola can enjoy a competitive advantage.

Likewise, all major Android device makers, including Samsung, HTC, and Huawei, have created patent portfolios in support of their devices and business objectives. Having patents to support Android-based products is an absolute business necessity for these vendors. These manufacturers took to heart what former Sun CEO Scott McNealy once said, that open source is “free, like a puppy is free“.

If the patent litigation history of these vendors is any example, Motorola will cautiously use such patents both offensively and defensively. Motorola should have no problem preserving and even enhancing its product differentiation using some, instead of all, of the 17,000 patents in the portfolio.

John Koenig is the founder of Compute Media and developer of “The Patent Studio”. You can follow him on Twitter at @johnkoenig.

Larry Page photo: Jakub Mosur

Previous Story: US Best Buy stops selling TouchPad, HP gives refunds to?owners

Tags: acquisition, patent law, patents

Companies: Google, Motorola, oracle, Sun

People: John Koenig, Larry Page, Scott McNealy

View the original article here