Google really, really wants us to like Google+. Google is embedding Google+ into each of its products, making it increasingly difficult to use its services without embracing the Google+ borg, whether you want to or not.

Judging by Google+'s still stagnant market share, you generally do not want to use the social service, or whatever it is.

When prodded by complaints that Google is forcing Google+ into its disparate products, despite not necesssarily fitting very well, Vic Gundotra, Google's senior vice president over Google+, rejected the criticism at Google I/O:

I'm not sure that [the integration is] forced. I think there are some people who may have a misunderstanding of what we're trying to accomplish... One of the core insights we had when we started Google+ was that Google itself was deeply fragmented. 

So what did Google do? It invented Google+ as "a way for Google to get to know [its] users," according to David Glazer, director of engineering for the Google+ platform. This is fine, so far as it goes, but this speaks to Google+'s value for Google, not its users. 

For example, I use Zagat, a restaurant rating service that Google acquired in 2011, all the time. And each time that I use it now, I get this obnoxious prompt:

This wouldn't be a huge problem except that it pops up every single time I visit Zagat.com. Including when I'm on my mobile device. See that little X in the top right? That's much harder to see/find on an iPhone.

Even worse, if I click on "Start now" Google takes me away from Zagat entirely and into Google Local, orienting me into whichever city I'm currently sitting in, rather than letting me get back to the location I was actually interested in (often New York, as I experiment with new restaurants). 

Google, in short, is foisting Google+ on me for its good. Not mine.

As Forbes' Robert Hof highlights, Google can't seem to articulate why users should want to use Google+. They seem to have the party line down as to why it's good for Google (see above), but for users? Google draws a blank.

Which is surprising, given how good Google is at convincing us to use its different products. Maps? It's amazing, and much better than Apple's Maps application. Search? Been the gold standard for years. Now? Revolutionary, and is sorely tempting me to dump my iPhone. Even Google+ features like Hangouts are increasingly services that I turn to for quick collaboration with colleagues.

But Google+ as a forced integration between Google's products? It just gets in my way and slows me down. Until Google figures out why I should want to use it, rather than have to use it, Google+ will remain a social also-ran, however much Google tries to force it.

Guest author Derek Brown is a technology executive and analyst who blogs at One Blind Squirrel.

Jeff Jordan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz with the Midas touch, recently opined that Amazon’s e-commerce capabilities and successes represent a meaningful threat to Google’s product-search-related advertising business.

I will take Jeff’s thesis — with which I fundamentally agree — one step (maybe even more) further by saying that I believe Amazon is one of the few companies that has the ambition, permission, structure, and, maybe most important, data, to actually beat Google at its own game.

What Makes Amazon Different

As an Internet equity research analyst from 1996-2009 — go ahead... throw your drink on your screen and curse me loudly enough that the barista hears you — I had a front seat to The Show. I covered Amazon from its days as “just” a bookseller and Google when it was still a private company, in addition to eBay, Yahoo!, Excite, About.com, Netflix, Omniture, aQuantive, CNET, E*TRADE, and many other industry-defining companies.

(See also: The Epic Battle Between Apple And Google Is Over)

From the earliest days, it was clear to me (and a few others, obviously) that Amazon was no ordinary company, at any level. However, three attributes set it (far) apart in my mind:

1. Vision and ambition that were orders of magnitude beyond those of others team that I encountered (until, that is, I met Google);
2. A cult-like dedication to customer experience/satisfaction that permeated every decision made by every person at the company; and,
3. A business model that not only valued long-term cash flow and absolute profit potential, but also deemed near-term profits and profit margin largely irrelevant.

Individually, these characteristics have been powerful; in combination, they have been revolutionary. Jeff Bezos’ worldview gave his entire team permission — in fact, it gave them the mandate — to think Big, with a capital “B.” Customers’ pure delight with every Amazon interaction gave the company permission to sell (almost) anything to (almost) anyone.

And, finally, management’s clarity of financial intent (i.e., to perpetually focus on long-term potential) has, from day one, conditioned shareholders and Wall Street to expect a business that will forever be amorphous and unpredictable, with razor-thin margins.

The Yin To Google's Yang, Sort Of

Liberated from more typical corporate constraints, Amazon has evolved like few other companies in history — from its humble origins as an online bookstore into: Amazon Elastic Cloud Compute, Amazon Marketplace, Amazon Flexible Payments Service, state-of-the-art warehouses (~70) everywhere, Amazon Cloud Player, AmazonFresh, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Prime, A9, Amazon Simple Storage Service, Diapers.com, Silk, Amazon Cloud Drive, Zappos, Amazon CloudFront, Kindle, and so on.

Sound familiar? It should, because this transformation mirrors that of Google, itself, which began as “just” a search engine company focused on “organizing the world’s information,” and has now become: Gmail, Maps, Apps, Drive, Chrome, Android, Motorola, YouTube, Wallet, Voice, Google Cloud Storage, Shopping, Chromebook, Google App Engine, Google+, and so on.

(See also: How Google Is Kicking Sand In Apple's Face)

While not perfectly matching each other solution-for-solution, Amazon and Google now find themselves overlapping across, and competing within, most major categories of Internet-fueled technology and business. SaaS. Hardware. e-Commerce. IaaS. Enterprise. Media. Consumer. Applications. Browsers. Storage. Payments. Consumer. Tablets. And so on.

Amazon's Trump Card: Data

Despite all these evolutions and comparisons and similarities and overlaps, I actually think there’s one final aspect to Amazon’s business with which Google cannot (yet) directly compete, and which may prove to be the difference-maker in this faux-ish battle: Data.

With 17+ years of history and hundreds of millions of transactions across almost every category of goods, Amazon now has massive quantities of data about the actual buying habits of tens, if not hundreds, of millions of consumers around the globe. Not just what people are searching for (Google, though Amazon.com actually has it too). Not just what people “like” (“like” that, Facebook).

(See also: Will Facebook Go Out With A Bang?)

Not just what people want (Pinterest, though Amazon.com actually has it too). Not just what people tweet about (Twitter). But the items that people actually pay for with their own hard-earned dollars!

Armed with this unique transaction- and SKU-specific data, at scale, Amazon.com has the potential to become one of, if not the most signficant advertising platforms in the world, in my view — matching, if not besting, Google.

Look at it this way: if advertisers pay Google $44 billion per year for connecting them with consumers that it oftentimes thinks have interest in their product(s), what might those same advertisers be willing to pay Amazon for connecting them with people they know are interested in their products (or those of their competitors, or those in which they will soon have interest)?

What That Data Might Be Worth

For instance, do you think Volvo, Toyota, Lexus, Ford, et al., might be willing to pay a small fortune to be introduced to an individual in Huntington Beach, CA, who suddenly begins buying newborn diapers by the pallet? What about Gymboree? Gerbers? Whole Foods? Safeway? Fab? Gap? Pottery Barn? Ross? Home Depot?

Similarly, how much interest might be generated among home decor vendors, local service providers (e.g., physicians, athletic clubs, veterinarians), home maintenance vendors, etc., by a change in shipping and billing information for one of Amazon.com’s long-time customers? Say, someone whose pattern of purchases are highly suggestive — remember, Amazon.com has developed one of the best predictive commerce models in the world for its own e-commerce franchise — of a home with at least one child and one dog, an avid athlete/runner/yogini, with a taste for gourmet cooking and a passion for gardening, among other attributes?

And these hypotheticals say absolutely nothing of the extraodinary value Amazon could (theoretically) deliver to its customers/partners by sharing with them relevant online transaction activity that might follow said advertisements, effectively offering a closed loop marketing environment unlike any other.

By some accounts, Amazon has (finally) started focusing on the business potential of advertising. For years, it has run ads on its own sites. Then, in late 2010, the company also began serving advertisements on others’ sites, introducing what is, in effect, a full-fledged online advertising network. But these are just warm-ups in my mind — Amazon methodically experimenting (as is its custom) and purposefully tiptoeing around the edges of its potential.

I’m convinced the day will come — sooner rather than later — when Amazon unleashes its data and announces itself as an advertising powerhouse. And, when it does, I think the gloves officially come off and the real battle with Google commences.

Lead image via Flickr user Jorge Lascar, CC 2.0

A year ago, I left Google's annual I/O developers conference convinced it was making a major strategic shift into being a hardware company.

As this year's I/O wraps up, I'm left questioning that conclusion.

The message Google is putting forward in 2013 is very different: It's all about what developers can do with the software tools it provides, whether that means broad digital platforms like the Chrome Web browser and the Android mobile operating system, or fungible, ubiquitous services like Google+, YouTube and Google Maps.

A Retreat From Hardware

In 2012, the keynote offered a drumbeat of new hardware: The Nexus 7 tablet! Skydiving Google Glass stuntmen! The confounding, mysterious, ill-fated Nexus Q media device!

(See also: What Google Didn't Announce At I/O)

The overall effect was to show how Google was pushing the boundaries of industrial design and taking control of the complete user experience, from hardware and software to the services that run on top of them.

Call it a strategic retreat, but we heard almost nothing about hardware this year. The closest Google got was unveiling an unlocked Samsung Galaxy S4 running Google's preferred version of Android, which it plans to sell directly to consumers online. Contrast that to Google's past unveilings of Nexus devices, manufactured by partners but branded with the Google logo.

Even Glass, the face-mounted, Internet-connected headset now hitting the market, got sidelined in the keynote. While present at I/O, it wasn't the emphasis.

Learning A Hard Lesson

Perhaps the disastrous Q—never formally cancelled, merely "postponed"—was the comeuppance Google needed, the failure that brought Larry Page and company to their senses. There's also the ongoing agonies of Motorola Mobility, the handset manufacturer Google bought last year but continues to hold at arm's length. That, more than anything, may have taught Google just how hard it is to crack the hardware business.

(See also: The Epic Battle Between Apple And Google Is All But Over)

At recent Google I/O events, the company has handed out hardware to attendees (or units on loan for review to reporters). This year's giveaway, a Chromebook Pixel, was a little sad: It was hardly new, having been announced in February rather than at this year's show.

While the Pixel arguably showed off Google's ChromeOS, a stripped-down operating system focused on apps that run on the built-in Web browser, it's ultimately just a nicely built laptop—a very familiar category of gadget, hardly the kind of game-changing innovation Google CEO Larry Page talked up at this year's keynote.

I suspect that Google will retreat further from hardware—perhaps spinning off or selling Motorola, after stripping it of the most essential code and patents it needs for Android.

(See also: Now Google Wants To Kill The Mobile Web (Good Riddance))

Google won't hesitate to build tools that serve its business, like the custom-designed servers and switches that run its giant empire of data centers, or the Trekker backpack cameras it uses to capture the offroad world for Google Maps. And we'll likely see hardware from the Google[x] skunk works, like self-driving cars and Google Glass, where there's nothing off-the-shelf for Google to put its cutting-edge software into.

But smartphones? Tablets? Living-room gadgets? Those are no longer the future of Google. Silicon, Page pointed out, is cheap. It's software where Google will continue to seek its riches.

Google+ has never looked and felt as it good as it does right now. Alas, looks aren't everything.

A massive overhaul of the service, announced Wednesday during a keynote at Google's I/O conference for developers, has brought it in line with the most modern and functionally powerful Web design principles. It now has a multi-column layout, scrolling menu bars, and enormous images. Google also rolled out an umbrella messaging service called Hangouts, a standalone app for Web and mobile that neatens up the sloppy mess that was Voice, Talk, and Google+ messaging.  

All of this is great news for heavy users of Google+ who have been awaiting a design push that looks and feels like 2013. But there's still one giant problem plaguing the service and Google's entire social platform at large: the hub of your Google life is still an email address, and that's a nightmare for users with multiple Gmail accounts.

Since taking over as CEO in 2011, Larry Page has been talking up the notion of "One Google" to unify the search giant's disparate services. But the reality is that it's very hard as a user to experience a unified Google until Google realizes that a person is a person, not an email account.

At best, the complex process of trying to manage multiple Gmail accounts with Google+ and all the various apps involved slows users down. At worst, it could keep some users from adopting the beautiful new services altogether. 

Two Accounts, Twice The Pain

"For me personally, I have two Google accounts: I have a corporate and personal [account], and it is a pain," admitted Seth Sternberg, director of product management for Google+, in a roundtable discussion with reporters in San Francisco Thursday. And Sternberg is definitely not alone. Many people have two Google email accounts—a personal Gmail and a corporate Google Apps account. Those ought to be Google's best users. Instead, they're the most frustrated ones.

And many people set up multiple email accounts for other reasons. Social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn let them associate multiple email addresses with a single personal or professional identity. Google doesn't.

What that ends up doing is disrupting the entire process of laying the Google+ social net atop the Web. Every time a user tries to +1 a link, log into a website with Google+ sign-in, or personalize search, they're confronted with Google's fragmented view of online identity.

So for Google, the email-as-account concept disrupts users' ability to seamlessly use Google+, which in turn makes the network's constantly increasing integration with the rest of the company's apps and services more and more painful with every turn. And for users, it's just plain obnoxious having to use incognito browser windows and all sorts of other workarounds to try and simply manage their online identity.

No wonder Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr are the go-to networks for finding friends and sharing information.

Identity, If And When You Want It

Google says it's trying to get better.

"We sanded off all the rough edges," David Glazer, a director of engineering at Google, said in the recent roundtable event. Google, to its credit, has introduced an account chooser that makes it easier to stay logged into multiple accounts.

But those fixes don't address the core problem—Google's email-linked identity model.

What Google really needs is something above an email address that could be used as an identifier for all of a user's various accounts. This higher-level identifier could be something akin to a Twitter handle or a Facebook username.

This new Google login could have a registered primary email address—the way Apple and Amazon handle logins to their online accounts—but it should sync up your other Google+ accounts.

Separating personal and professional sharing could be simply handled with a strongly established Google+ concept: Circles, or lists of contacts.

(And, of course, you should still be able to establish a Gmail account for an unlinked, throwaway identity—for, say, a Craigslist posting or mailing lists.)

Umbrellas Are Good

Google showcased its ability to neatly fold up services with Hangouts, and the strategy is a no-brainer. It resolves so many problems users face when a company's products are all around them, yet they have no idea how to manage them all and end up just turning away from what they feel they don't need. 

An umbrella strategy to Google+ and Gmail is a much taller order, but it's one of the biggest impediments standing between the search giant and a more steady, fuller-scale adoption of its social network. So Google, please give us that umbrella, and you'll likely see more people standing underneath it if its done right. 

If you're visiting the Google I/O developers conference this week, you're a tiny part of a giant Google experiment to sniff out everything from your body heat to your breath. Google is even listening to your footfalls as part of its Data Sensing Lab I/O 2013.

Think that's a scary, Big-Brother invasion of privacy? The conference attendees I talked to didn't seem to mind. In fact, one wanted Google to collect even more data.

Google planted 525 powered sensors around the halls of San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, and began collecting data from them on Wednesday, according to Michael Manoochehri, a developer programs engineer at Google. The company began measuring temperature, humidity, light, pressure (including nearby footfalls), motion, air quality and both RF and ambient noise. All of the data is sent back at intervals of 20 seconds or so, collected by Google's App Engine, with analysis performed by its BigQuery Big Data analysis tool. You can see the results at the Lab's dedicated Web site. 

Among other things, Google's I/O developer conference has focused this year on improving developer tools and better integrating the services that it already owns via a more intelligent cloud. The unnamed sensor project, part of Google's Data Sensing Lab, encompasses a bit of all of that. By itself, knowing that the air quality diminished at 4a.m. might be intriguing, but not all that significant. But by correlating that information with a peak in another data stream - ambient noise, say - it becomes possible to guess what's going oin; in this case, perhaps, the arrival of the cleaning crew.

Manoochehri said that Google could build in queries against the sensor network into its Google I/O app, to identify the quietest spots on the floor for a phone call or a brief nap.

Crossing The Creepy Line?

Eric Schmidt, then the chief executive of Google, famously described Google's policy as "to get right up to the creepy line, but not cross it." When Google unified its privacy policy in March 2012, the company suggested that its unified services could anticipate an afternoon meeting and direct you to leave at a certain time. A year ago, that notion prompted righteous outrage from members of Congress, users and privacy advocates. A year later, that feature (now called Google Now) has been lauded as the herald of anticipatory search. (Six privacy advocates from the EU are still threatening action.)

Source: Google

It's probably fair to say that attendees of Google I/O give Google a bit more leeway than the general public. That certainly proved to be the case for those sitting near the sensors. Alan Holzman, a retired venture capitalist who last worked for Intel Capital, shrugged it off. "My life is tied to Google in much more significant ways," he noted.

Ditto for Sam Napolitano, who was covering Google I/O for the Huffington Post. Napolitano said he believed that the sensors were probably picking up on the NFC tag embedded within his name tag - something that Google employees said wasn't true. In any event, Napolitano said, he didn't care, as he had no expectations of privacy in a public space. "As long as it's not under my toilet seat, I don't care," Napolitano said of the sensors.

And "Rachid," an employee of Motorola Mobility who declined to give his last name, said he wanted to Google sample more data. More data and more correlation often derives more interesting results, he said, such as the various causes of depression. 

The Internet Of Things

Collecting data from sensors is increasingly seen as part of the rise of the so-called Internet of Things, and Google clearly wants to be a leader in this growing domain. Google already collects some location data via Android phones to better improve its knowledge of traffic, and provide better solutions via Google Maps. 

(See also How The Internet Of Things Will Revolutionize Search.)

We know that Google is very good at parsing user data - pulling keywords from emails, for example, and selling ads against them. (Selling ads against search terms is child's play.) Likewise, it can make recommendations for where to eat, where to go, the route to take and when to leave - building more comprehensive, personalized and valuable profiles along the way.

But the I/O conference project suggests that Google is prepared to take the same value proposition - collect data, analyze it, and provide and sell services against it - far beyond today's core businesses. Imagine sensors placed on Google Street View cars, and selling a comprehensive snapshot of air quality to the communities it maps. Or mounting similar sensors on the light poles from which it strings  it Google Fiber broadband connections.

It will be interesting to see how far Google takes this. Remember this is the company that attempted to track the spread of influenza via search terms. Google said that it wants attendees and other users to be able to interact with its new sensor data via the project's website. How soon will it be when we'll be able to do the same for, say, San Francisco?

Google's alternative to Microsoft Office, Google Apps, has always suffered from the fact that it offers a sort of "good enough" compatibility — fine for most basic document and spreadsheet tasks, but not enough to match certain Office features.

Now Google is preparing to use technology from a recent acquisition, QuickOffice, to close that gap.

In recent weeks, Google sources have told me that Google has been internally testing, or "dogfooding," QuickOffice, which began life as a standalone productivity app that offers better compatibility with Office than Google's own Apps. Now, however, Google is testing QuickOffice as a cloud-based service in its own Chrome browser.

(Google already provides QuickOffice as part of its Google Apps subscription, specifically as an app for customers with Android tablets or iPads.)

Why QuickOffice?

QuickOffice uses the same .DOCX file format that Office does, allowing users to quickly edit and share the same files as Office users. QuickOffice compatibility probably means that more businesses and users will see Google Apps as a viable alternative to Office, wounding Microsoft's Office cash cow. 

Google sources also say they're confident that Microsoft won't be able to block QuickOffice with licensing issues or other legal threats. Eventually, these individuals say, QuickOffice will become the foundation of Google Apps, although that's still a ways off.

The target, Google sources said, isn't the full PC-based version of Office itself - although that might be a bit of spin. Instead, Google claims to think of QuickOffice as a competitor to Microsoft's own Web-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel - which often deliberately fall short of full Office functionality. For now, that means running QuickOffice as a browser app, probably using Google's Native Client technology, until Google's engineers can integrate it directly with Apps.

It's another example of the growing tension between Microsoft and Google, evidenced by the Microsoft's "rule-breaking" YouTube Windows Phone app and its use of an open API to talk to Google+ users via its Outlook.com Web site.

Google chief executive Larry Page, for example, used his Google I/O keynote to call out Microsoft's behavior as "really sad," and said that Microsoft took advantage of the open API. "Being negative is not how we make progress," Page said. "And most important things are not zero-sum. There's a lot of opportunity out there."

Google Tipped QuickOffice Plans At Pixel Launch

Google acquired QuickOffice last year for an undisclosed sum, and the team went quiet. But we know that Google plans to add QuickOffice to the Pixel, because Google said so.

At the launch of the Pixel a few months ago, Google's Chrome chief, Sundar Pichai, said that it would take two to three months to add QuickOffice to the Pixel, but that it would be included with it. Since it wasn't available when Google handed out thousands of Pixels to developers Wednesday, it must be coming soon.

Looking back, Pichai actually spoke quite a bit about QuickOffice's role within Google at the Pixel launch- but the media (probably correctly) focused on the Pixel hardware itself. Pichai set the stage for the Pixel handout by emphasizing, again and again, that the Pixel represented the best Chromebook experience for developers and early adopters: "if you're living in the cloud, this is the best experience you can use," Pichai said then.

Microsoft Strikes... Too Soon

Microsoft clearly anticipated a QuickOffice launch at Google I/O. On May 10, it published a blog post that directly attacked the compatibility of Google Apps as well as QuickOffice. Jake Zborowski, a senior product manager at Microsoft, wrote:

Productivity software is built to help people communicate. It's more than just the words in a document or presentation; it's about the tone, style and format you use to convey an overall message. People often entrust important information in these documents -- from board presentations to financial analyses to book reports. You should be able to trust that what you intend to communicate is what is being seen.

Zborowski's post included several sample documents that users could download themselves for comparison's sake, as well as a funny YouTube video that included Rob Schenider and Pete Rose, poking fun at the "gamble" that is Google Apps. In a supporting comment, Zborowski pointed out that Google doesn't support the Open Document Format, suggesting that Microsoft is more open than Google.

Google representatives shrugged off the post, noting that the example documents relied on Office functions typical users rarely touch, such as watermarks and odd text spacing. 

However, Microsoft's post also noted that Office Web Apps can now be used within Android, leaving the Microsoft-Google competition within the Android tablet space as an app - Google's QuickOffice - versus a cloud solution, Microsoft's Office Web apps.

The whole point of the Pixel, according to Pichai, is to show off the power of the cloud. Microsoft, for its part, is still largely wedded to the desktop application, and the $23 billion or so that its Business Division pulls in on an annual basis. (Office 365 doesn't live in the cloud, although it has cloud hooks in SkyDrive and its subscription delivery system.) That's a target that Google has attacked for several years now, with dueling customer announcements from both sides marking the ebb and flow of the battle.

Micosoft may be right that Google Apps and QuickOffice don't offer the full capabilities of Office. But they come close - and "close" has been the selling point behind Apps all along. QuickOffice looks like it could close the gap.

Image Source: Google

Guest author Derek Brown is a technology executive and analyst who blogs at One Blind Squirrel.

Android, it seems, is the worm that eats away at Apple's core.

According to Gartner, Android-based handsets outsold iOS-based handsets 4-to-1 on a worldwide basis in the first quarter of 2013, up from a ratio of about 2.5-to-1 in the same period of 2012. As such, Android accounted for 74% of global smartphone sales last quarter, up from 57% in the first quarter of 2012, while iOS accounted for just 18%, down from approximately 23% last year.

Apple's Strengths Irrelevant Going Forward

Apple bulls/fans (and even some critics) will likely race to highlight such defenses as:

• Apple didn't have a major new release last quarter.
• Tablet sales should be weighed in this discussion.
• The installed base of iOS devices should be taken into account.
• Developers still generate more revenue through iOS than Android.
• Apple continues to generate the majority of the industry's profit.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Those points are all very true. Unfortunately for Apple, though, they're also largely irrelevant going forward, given the alarming rate at which consumers worldwide are speaking with their wallets and selecting Android handsets over iOS handsets. With just a few more quarters like this, coupled with the cumulative effect of similar sales data over the past 2-3 years and the likely coming wave of Android-based tablets, it is a given (to me, anyway) that Android will be soon be effectively ubiquitous around the globe.

In the world of technology platforms, ubiquity matters (a lot) when developers, manufacturers, etc., are considering future products/solutions.

The Mobile Battle Is Over - And Google Won

And, so, I will reiterate the view I've held for some time now: The mobile battle that Apple started, first with the launch of iPod in 2001 and then moved into hyperdrive with the introduction of iPhone and iPad in 2007 and 2010, respectively, is over (or, will be over shortly), and Google/Android is the victor.

Make no mistake, Apple will clearly continue to play a prominent role in the industry and maintain leadership in some respects. It will also continue to boast a large installed base and a substantial number of loyalists and devotees. But the company's days of dominance, let alone an effective monopolist, are behind it.

Apple's Success Was A Once-In-A-Generation Event

Pundits, analysts and investors need to wrap their heads around one simple notion: Apple's product cycle and performance between 2001-2012 was a once-in-a-generation event. In my view, no company in history has had (or, likely, will soon have agin) so many successive "grand slams" as did Apple with iPod, iTunes, Mac, iOS, iPhone and, finally, iPad. The company's hardware, software and "it-just-works" approach to integration absolutely annihilated existing competition and ignited massive new markets in which Apple had a multiyear near-monopoly and from which Apple was able to generate once-in-a-generation revenue growth and profitability.

As unfair as it may be, the inevitable comparisons to those days will not look good for Apple for some time. The hard reality is that the company's future — even under the best of circumstances — will likely reflect diminished influence and declining revenue (perhaps substantially so), with the prospect of shrinking margins to boot.

Apple Stuck At Square One In The Cloud

To make matters worse for Apple, I think the company is poorly positioned for the battleground of tomorrow: Web (or cloud) services that function like utilities — seamlessly, across all devices, across all operating systems, all the time — at low or no incremental cost.

As I discussed in a previous post, Welcome to Google’s Playground, Apple, the increasing importance of Web services substantially diminishes the value of Apple’s closed-loop hardware/software core, while simultaneously highlighting the strengths of Google’s business. Web services are Google's lifeblood, and the company prints money, either directly or indirectly, from use of many of these cloud-based services, even if those services are accessed via an Apple device (e.g., Maps or Gmail for iOS).

Apple, on the other hand, is almost at square one and, as a result, may be forced to spend big to acquire services that have proven themselves in the hands of consumers at scale.

Fun days for Apple, I know. But, hey, at least it’s not Dell!

I'm a devoted Pathhole—a hardcore user of mobile social network Path. For all that I make fun of Path's twee, artisanal, and bespoke nature—on a recent visit to its lovely office in San Francisco, I was tempted to ask CEO Dave Morin if his software engineers were cruelty-free—I have a soft spot for the service that brings me updates from a small circle of friends, which I then festoon with emoticons.

If anything might convert me into a Glasshole, the name I've adopted for the ostentatious neophiles who have started sporting Glass, Google's Internet-enabled camera-and-display headset, it might well be Path.

Path CTO Nathan Folkman demonstrates Google Glass.

Morin and Path CTO Nathan Folkman recently showed me a version of Path for Google Glass. (Google recently signaled that Path would be one of the first Glass apps available.) It turns out that two key features of Path make it perfectly suited for Glass—in a way that larger social networks like Google+ and Facebook may never catch up to.

I've formed this opinion based on brief experiences with both Glass and the Glass version of Path, so take them with a grain of salt. But even those glimpses suggest an uncanny fit between software and hardware.

Small Screen, Meet Tight Friends

The first advantage Path has is its insistence that you limit your friends to a tight list of 150. I find this kind of in-or-out listmaking agonizing. It reminds me of when my husband and I invited people to our wedding reception, which, now that I think about it, had a headcount of about 150. But now that I've put in the work, I find my Path friends really are the ones I like to hear from frequently throughout the day.

Contrast that to Google's built-in Glass sharing options, which require you to go to a website to set up a limited number of contacts in advance. 

This Android tablet is mirroring what Path CTO Nathan Folkman sees on his Google Glass heads-up display.

The second is Path's stripped-down simplicity. Originally designed for mobile, it's actually even more effective on Glass. In my experience, people typically share short updates about where they are or what they're doing—things that are too mundane for Twitter, too intimate for Facebook. In form, tone, and length, they're just right for Glass's screen, floating just above your right eye.

Google+ updates, which you can of course get on Glass, are often too long for the Glass interface. And the thought of getting my Facebook News Feed—an option now that Facebook has a Glass app—through Glass seems overwhelming.

But Where Is The Money?

There are perpetual questions about how Path will find enough users and make money. Glass will not answer those. Folkman, Path's CTO, estimates that some 300 Glass testers have downloaded the Glass version of Path. (Google hasn't given out numbers, but that's likely a large portion of the Glass population.)

For what it's worth, Morin tells me the company has been making progress on the business front. It has likely crossed 13 million registered users, and its main source of income—charging users for custom icons they can include in messages—has drawn both derision and dollars. Little-noticed deals with the likes of Sprint and Kyocera suggest that the company may find ways of making money from partnerships with wireless carriers and handset makers, too.

An update from a friend's check-in at Google I/O displays on Path CTO Nathan Folkman's Glass display.

Folkman says the Glass effort, on which he's spent about 20 percent of his time recently, has helped him think about constructing an application programming interface for partners, and also designing Path notifications for smart watches and other lightweight, small-screen devices.

So if we are at the brink of a revolution in mobile computing where we trade smartphones for wearable devices, Path's experimentation may pay off—if not for the San Francisco-based startup, then for others who take careful note of its innovations.

Photo by Owen Thomas for ReadWrite

With a whirlwind of announcements at its Google I/O developers conference this week, Google's vast suite of social products is finally starting to look like it was created by a single company and not cobbled together via a series of haphazard acquisitions. Here are the highlights of what's changed:

Hangouts: Google Messaging, Unmessy At Last

According to a statement from Nikhyl Singhal, Google's head honcho of real-time communications, Google Voice will be folded into Hangouts too (Yay!), though there's no word on when.

Google+ Gets A Lot Of Love

Messaging may have been the messiest area of Google's social services, but Google+ is the big umbrella that covers them all. Amidst the company's epic 3-hour-plus Google I/O keynote yesterday, Google+ guru Vic Gundotra announced approximately one million updates to Google+, the social network that the company launched two years ago. Okay, he pegged the number at 41… but that's almost a million.

The updates are extensive. As a regular Google+ user, it's actually difficult to get a sense for what changed, since the redesign looks and feels right in stride with Google's recent overall changes in user interfaces that runs from Google+ to Google Glass to Google Now and Android. So here's a list of some of the most notable of the 41 updates:

• A multi-column layout. This can be toggled off, if you're still into the Blogger single-column-era.
• Photos and videos get even bigger. Google is really into making media massive - and we would be too if the average person knew how to share properly high-res photos.
• New animations. Things are flipping and sliding all over the place in there.
• A third dimension. You can scroll up and down through your social stream, but Google wants you to be able to scroll in too. Now you can take a deeper dive on a given Google+ post -or is it a Card? I think we're suppose to call everything Cards now -- via related hashtags, which will lead you to more content of interest. It will also take you further down the Google+ rabbit hole, of course.
• Lots of treats for photographers. Google+ has a thriving community of awesome photogs, and Google is keen to do right by them. Photos in Google+ now have all sorts of cool bells and whistles. A few I'm particularly stoked about include "auto highlight," which de-emphasizes duplicate and blurry pics, automatically picking the best shot out of a batch. I've yet to test this extensively, but since I have a habit of bracketing (taking multiple shots at different exposures) - even on my phone - choosing the best photo of a set can be a major timesuck. This feature could help there. Another feature, "Auto Awesome," can stitch together shots in a series to make a playful Photobooth-esque picture or even a Vine-like animated gif.

For a full breakdown of Google's social updates, hit the company's official blog post or just cruise around in Google+ for a while. The  the social network has been the butt of many a joke over the last few years, and we're happy to see Google take the time to spruce things up a little.

 

Photos by Nick Statt for ReadWrite. 

Amazon's 1-Click arguably offers the best shopping experience on the Web—desktop and mobile.

But 1-Click has been slow to expand beyond Amazon's walls. While Amazon offers the convenient checkout service to retail-website builders, competitors are understandably loath to embrace the e-commerce giant's tools.

Now a wiser, bloodier Google has re-entered the fray, taking lessons learned from Amazon and applying them to its own "1-Click" solution for Google Wallet, Instant Buy.

But Google's road to riches won't lie through a button on a website. That's the route it took in traditional Web e-commerce, with its older Google Checkout service, which Wallet replaced after it failed to unseat PayPal and other, more traditional credit-card-processing services. Instead, Google's placing its bet on terrain where it has the upper ground: Android apps and Gmail.

Google announced Google Wallet Instant Buy on Wednesday at its annual I/O conference. Instant Buy, a set of tools for Android developers, is a complement to the Google Wallet API that the company announced last fall. Instant Buy should probably be thought of an evolution of the Wallet API - the older API filled in payment information, while the new version offers a button to "Buy with Google". Instant Buy serves to both authenticate the shopper and actually pay for the purchase, with an intermediary step to confirm. It's a two-click solution the first time a shopper logs in, but then it's down to one if they save their Google login information with the app.

Why is this important? Because buying products via a smartphone can be a brutal experience, requiring dozens of steps to enter payment and shipping information - and users aren't inclined to stick around if they get frustrated. More than 90 percent of mobile users leave a mobile site without buying anything, according to Mike Putnam, vice president of mobile at fashion site RueLala. 

For a merchant, a simple, painless buying experience is a virtual necessity, given the rising numbers of mobile shoppers. Last Cyber Monday, for example, about 11 percent of all purchases were made via smartphone, according to IBM, about 90 percent more than the year before. This year, about 15 percent of all online retail sales will take place via mobile, according to eMarketer. 

But payment buttons aren't exactly new. So how does Googl plan to get an edge? The familiarity and ubiquity of Gmail, for one. Google also added the ability Wednesday to pay by email, clicking a "$" sign to "attach" a few bucks, much like a document or picture. The funds simply go into the recipient's Google Wallet, where they can be redeemed for real money (via a connection with a bank account) or used to buy movies, games and apps from the Play Store.

PayPal and Dwolla, among others, have offered pay-by-email for years. But PayPal and Dwolla don't have one of the most popular email platforms in the world, tacitly encouraging users to send money at the push of a button. That's one of the more important hooks that the new Wallet offers, a Google spokeswoman said. Eventually, it's possible that Google could push Wallet back into the real world - where it first started out, of course. 

What Are The Secrets To Success? Lock-in And Context

In a horse race, a jockey's tools are the whip and blinders. So it is in mobile payments. The most effective way of retaining customers is to eliminate the possibility of going elsewhere. Within the mobile space, the most effective blinder is the app. If you click Amazon's mobile app to buy a router or garden hoe, chances are you're not going anywhere else. Amazon knows that you can shop elsewhere, pay a higher price, and enter your information across all of those dozens of fields - or you can simply stay and buy with one click.

Payments by Amazon, of course, is Amazon's one-click solution, ported to the Web. But check out Payments by Amazon's customer list: the biggest name is probably Ace Hardware. Payments by Amazon offers the same one-click payment that Amazon does, but for the consumer,  without the context of Amazon.com, it's just another provider. And for most merchants, Amazon is the enemy.

Google's hold over the customer is weaker. Within Gmail, users simply don't have the choice to send funds via any other provider, but they can simply use PayPal or Dwolla and send money to the same email address. But what Google offers is what Payments by Amazon can't: context. Within the Play Store, Google is building recommendations for movies, music, and apps, based on your own preferences and what your friends have recommended. 

Payment providers have a number of arrows in their quiver. PayPal offers the ability to pay via its service at retail locations. Dwolla users can pay via Facebook and Twitter. But attendees at Google I/O suspect that the next step is for Google to begin building profiles of real-world purchases, so that if the Gap adopts Google, visitors to its online store will know what their Google+ friends bought. Virtually every other payment provider lacks the social integration that Google includes. 

The idea behind products like Google Wallet—where you could leave your wallet at home and pay for everything by tapping your phone—never really took off. Why? Numerous technical reasons have been suggested—a lack of infrastructure, resistance from financial institutions—but the conversation so far has focused on the problem of paying for things. And paying for things isn't as important as the shopping experience itself, and providing the context for an informed decision that the customer is excited about.

"I’m not saying that there are no advantages to mobile payments," Nick Holland, a former Yankee Group payments analyst, recently wrote. "However, the opportunity for consumer/merchant value addition seems to be less around the transaction and far more around augmenting the retail experience. The mobile payments obsession is missing the point."

And that happy coincidence may well benefit Google.

Photo by Nick Statt for ReadWrite

“We are only at 1% of what is possible.” ~ Google CEO Larry Page

Page is right. Even though it seems like we get a breakthrough new technology every year, we are really just scratching the surface. But what does that really mean? If we have achieved only 1% of what is technologically possible, Google is setting itself up to be the company that fills in the other 99%.

Just look at the Google I/O keynote Wednesday morning in San Francisco. The company had so many aspects of its product portfolio to announce that it took three hours to work through it all. And that was before Page hit the stage and turned all philosophical:

I think we're all here because we share a deep sense of optimisim about the potential for technology to improve people's lives and the world.

Google Owns The Second Half Of The Chess Board

At a conference in Boston last week Andrew McAfee, a Principal Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, related a story about the pace of innovation that directly speaks to Page’s notion. McAfee recounted how the inventor of chess introduced the game to the emperor of India. The emperor was so impressed with the game's combination of simplicity and complexity, depth and vision, that he told the inventor he could have any gift he could imagine. 

The inventor asked for a grain of rice, doubled for each square on the chess board. On the first square he would get a single grain of rice, on the second square he would get two, on the third he would get four grains, and so on. The request seemed fairly humble to the emperor and he granted it.

What the emperor did not realize, of course, is that if you keep doubling a number, it doesn't take long for for the figures to get really, really big. If the emperor had delivered all the rice he agreed to, the pile would have been bigger than Mount Everest. 

McAfee linked this story to Moore’s Law (which holds that number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years) and the explosion of data created by humans, rapidly approaching the mind-numbingly large “yotta” byte. Between Big Data and Moore’s Law, McAfee said, we have entered the second half of the chessboard of innovation.

Google's Mountain Of Rice

In this case, though, Google is both the inventor and the emperor. Just like chess, Google’s portfolio of products is deceptively simple but utterly complex. And the company is well positioned to turn that portfolio into a truly epic mountain of rice. 

Rice, in this case, could mean data. Or money. Or better yet, innovation.

Who is going to challenge Google’s core products? Yahoo and Microsoft can't come close to what Google has done with the knowledge graph and voice search. Android is forging ahead of iOS around the world. Chrome is one of the simplest but most sophisticated browsers on the planet. And the company's search ad products just keep cranking out the profits that pay for the company's push in to new areas.

Larry Page Doesn't Think Competition Is Interesting

Yet the individual products seem almost incidental to Page's quest for innovation. Towards the end of the keynote, he harped on the technology industry for holding back the pace of innovation with lawsuits, data hoarding and stifling cross-platform integration:

You know we haven't seen this rate of change in computing for a long time. Probably not since the birth of personal computing... [but] despite the faster change in the industry, we're still moving slow relative to the opportunities we have.

If Page had his way, Google would not be playing chess against it competitors, but working with them to create even more rice:

You know every story I read about Google is sort of us vs. some other company, or some stupid thing, and I just don't find that very interesting. We should be building great things that don't exist. Most important things are not zero-sum. There's a lot of opportunity out there. We can use technology to make really new and really important things to make people's lives better. 

Business, of course, doesn’t typically work that way. Google has to exist within a whirlwind of quarterly earnings statements and antitrust lawsuits, litigation and corporate development. Given all that, it's amazing that Google is able to do all that it does, pushing the boundaries of technology every year. If Page is right, and we are truly just at 1% of what technology is capable of, someone has to lead the way into the remaining 99%. And despite Page's protestations, no one is better positioned than Google to do just that. 

Images by Nick Statt for ReadWrite.

Google has formally demanded that Microsoft yank its new YouTube app for Windows Phone, which allows users to skip ads and download YouTube videos — both of which violate YouTube's terms of service. The Verge has the full text of Google's cease-and-desist letter, which is dated today.

ReadWrite reported on the Microsoft app's apparent rule-breaking last week.

Updated 10:24am PT on May 16: A Microsoft PR representative emailed us a statement in response to Google's letter:

YouTube is consistently one of the top apps downloaded by smartphone users on all platforms, but Google has refused to work with us to develop an app on par with the apps for other platforms. Since we updated the YouTube app to ensure our mutual customers a similar YouTube experience, ratings and feedback have been overwhelmingly positive. We’d be more than happy to include advertising but need Google to provide us access to the necessary APIs. In light of Larry Page’s comments today calling for more interoperability and less negativity, we look forward to solving this matter together for our mutual customers.

Google bombarded thousands of attendees at its I/O 2013 Keynote with enough information to force that hi-res photo of Vic Gundotra's forehead into their dreams tonight. Here are the eight best moments:

Google Variant Of The Samsung Galaxy S4

One of the briefer announcements at I/O was the introduction of a variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 configured with the look and UI feel of a 4.2 Jelly Bean Nexus phone. In a sense, it strips all the Samsung bloatware from the phone to deliver a much purer Google/Android experence. The phone will hit the Play store June 26, with a no-contract price of $649. 

Google's Music Streaming Service

The news was out yesterday, so it wasn't a huge surprise when Google's Chris Yerga announced the company's plans to enter the music streaming service battleground with Google Play All Access. Despite the few missing details, ReadWrite's John Paul Titlow writes, "It's a crowded space with challenging economics, but if anybody is well-positioned to win this game, it's Google."

(See also: Google Just Launched A Grenade At Spotify — And It Just Might Work)

Free Chromebook Pixels

Google didn't disappoint with its Oprah moment. While a free Google Glass device was obviously the longshot giveaway in the back of everyone's mind, the company opted instead for a free Chromebook Pixel laptop for every attendee. Not bad. 

Linking Device Displays Into A Multiplayer Game

While the first attempt at demoing a live multiplayer game at the keynote failed, Google managed to get it right the second time in a more impressive setting. On a stripped down racing game, four players competed all using different devices that synced together to form the race track. 

Google Realizes Its Star Trek Dreams

Senior VP Amit Singhal opened by recalling childhood hopes of bringing his Star Trek-influenced dreams to life, and segued to how Google is bringing that to pass with devices that you can talk to. The goal is to make search a natural language conversation, and Google's examples were pretty convincing — both a Chromebook and Nexus were able to accept spoken commands and turn them into personalized search results without a single hiccup. 

(See also: Google Search Learns To Listen & Understand Context)

Google Delivers Impressive Photo-Editing Tools

After debuting a Google+ design overhaul, SVP of engineering and social Vic Gundotra also took keynote attendees through a demonstration of Google's new capabilities in photo editing. Some especially notable features include the ability to auto-edit an entire batch of photos to the best moments and to enhance photos automatically. 

Google Maps Escapes The Stratosphere

While the overhaul of Google Maps certainly wasn't the most exciting presentations of the keynote, the presentation ended with stunning scenes of the Earth from space — both daylit and at night. That view and others that used to be limited to the Google Earth service are now baked right into your browser as part of the new Maps refresh. Desktop users will see it first, with mobile users to follow soon after. 

Larry Page Ends His Speech With A Q&A Session

Larry Page's speech was notable both for its oddly vulnerable quality and for the hoarseness of Page's voice, which hovered slightly above a whisper — a consequence of what Page described yesterday as an unexplained case of vocal chord paralysis.

The big surprise here came when when Page turned the finale into a Q&A session. The highlight: Google's CEO telling Robert Scoble, who was first in line to ask a question, that he didn't appreciate his now-infamous Google Glass shower pic. 

Jon Hamm Of Mad Men Makes An Appearence (Not Really...)

Last but definitely not least is that guy who looked eerily like Jon Hamm (of Mad Men, you philistines) waiting in line to ask Larry Page a question... while wearing the greatest hat ever. Turns out it wasn't Jon Hamm (sigh), though from a distance (and over slightly grainy streaming video) the resemblance is truly uncanny.

Images by Nick Statt for ReadWrite

A few years ago, Google's cloud services focused on simply storing and managing objects: email, documents, music, and movies. The 2013 version of Google is now using the cloud to connect and build relationships between them, responding to and anticipating the desires of its users.

Google used its I/O keynote to describe how its vast array of servers is now applying intelligence from everything from music to maps. Google drew cheers when it launched a suite of photo-enhancement apps, including tools to automatically pull put the best pictures from a camera roll, enhance them, and feature them in a selected list of photos.

Google Maps will now automatically generate recommendations to preferred restaurants and destinations, and dynamically reroute users aroudn traffic. Google will even read your Google+ posts — if you allow it — and analyze their content, providing a hashtag for your readers to go deeper and explore the topic of your post even further.

Wow. All this makes Apple's Genius music recommendation engine look positively ancient.

The Next Step: Putting Your Data To Work For You

Google's currency has always been user data, and the transaction has always been a simple one: users contribute data, Google sells ads against it, and both sides prosper. Recent Google I/O conferences have placed a strong emphasis on devices as entry points for that data, especially photos and location.

This year, Google executives appeared to be ready to take the next step.

"We have almost every sensor we've every come up with" right in your smartphone, CEO Larry Page told attendees. Devices are used interchangeably, Page said, implying that data and how it's interpreted should do the same. 

"Technology should do the hard work, so people can get on with doing things that make them happiest in life," Page said.

Photos

Vic Gundotra, the senior vice president responsible for engineering at Google, introduced the new Photos experience. Google said earlier this week that it will now spread 15 GB of data among a user's Photos, Drive, and Gmail storage.  But the new Photos experience will make "Google's servers your new darkroom," Gundotra said.

Specifically, Photos will now intelligently scan your photos and pull out the best ones, supposedly eliminating blurry and duplicate images. Enhancements like skin softening aim to smooth out wrinkles, and red eye reduction and noise filters will help sharpen photos automatically. Google will hunt for and display images that include smiles, not frowns. And an "auto awesome" feature wil automatically pull out a few photos and stitch them together, essentially making them an animated GIF.

For years, Google's servers have only been used for storage. Now, the computing elements within them are being applied to the digital objects within them. Artists may dispute the results - shouldn't I be able to take pictures of scowling children? - but enhancing user photos boosts Google+ and gives users another reason to upload their photos to Google.

Search 

Google, Microsoft, and Wolfram Alpha have engaged in an ongoing war in search for years, with Google jumping out to an early, enormous lead. Wolfram shifted the struggle away from results to answers. Microsoft's point of attack is social. On Wednesday, Google called anticipatory search as the next frontier.

What is anticipatory search? It's the sort of back-end data processing that would allow Google to answer the question "What time does my flight leave?" because it knows what flight you're on based on your email, when the flight leaves thanks to the airline's flight-status API, and how long you'll need to get to the airport based on your location, traffic, real-time transit schedules and the like.

Google first introduced that capability with Google Now, the "cards" feature that shipped with Android 4.0. But the new Cards feature significantly broadens the scope of Google's vision, adding elements like music, games, and public transportation, but also drawing further connections between the two. Being able to command Google to "show mew all my photos from New York" also takes Facebook Graph Search and adds a personal, Google-esque twist. 

Pulling out a feature from Google Glass - voice-triggered actions - Google also announced that a future version of search will "listen" for you to say "OK, Google" and then automatically trigger a search. 

Music

Google's least important announcement of the day involved its new All Access subscriptions, where users will be able to stream milions of tracks from the Google Play library for $9.99 per month. Quite frankly, most of what Google announced has been done already by companies like Pandora, which auto-generates a stream of music based on a seed of a song or artist.

But Google Play's new Listen Now capability will auto-suggest music based on tracks the user already owns, and what it knows about the genre, artist, tempo, and other components. Yes, it seems like an afterthought - and that's sort of the point. 

Maps

Google also unveiled a rethinking of its Maps application, where Google now doesn't provide directions, it directs: to places that the user frequently visits, to restaurants and other destinations that other users or reviewers recommend, and to locations that Google attempts to personalize in other ways.

You might argue that offering directions itself applies intelligence, sorting through numerous routes to the best destination. But the new Maps experience takes it to another level. 

Basically, here's what it all means: data isn't necessarily being devalued in the new computing landscape, but drawing relationships between the disparate elements have become increasingly important. From a consumer perspective, users should expect Google to ask for more and more data, fusing it together and increasingly adding context to it all.

That, increasingly, is becoming the business model of today's Web. Google is just doing it as well or better than anyone else.

I am a pioneer (ahem, Explorer) tasked with testing the developer edition of Google Glass, arguably technology's biggest quantum leap forward since the advent of the tablet. The start of Google I/O today will no doubt bring a critical mass of Glass wearers into San Francisco, making its social implications more relevant than ever — especially come happy hour.

But since hardware benchmarks, unboxings and rigorous teardowns are so 2012, I to set out to review Google Glass with one noble (if amorous) goal. I wanted to wear the device on a full-fledged, real-life, real-stakes date and see what happened. 

This is that story.

Glasshole examined

Whose Idea Was This, Anyway?

Sure, a romantic evening on the town wearing a Star Trek-remixed smartphone on your face might ward off your average weirdo, but I like to live well beyond the doldrums of social custom. Which is to say that my editors suggested the idea and I blame them for everything. They may have been joking - I'm not actually sure. Everything began innocently enough on our weekly over-caffeinated Skype call. The rest is history, especially the bivalves. 

This is how it goes: I propose that a cute girl of interest (her name is Rebecca) accompany me to dinner and drinks... and mention my one wearable, Bluetooth-enabled caveat. As it turns out, she's game for the experiment, curious about Google Glass and accepts my invite. Cue nerd panic.

Google Glass On The Half-Shell

My frantic pre-date self pep-talk logic goes like this:

• Glass is more interesting than it is obnoxious.
• My natural charm, good looks and modesty will provide a diversion.
• Working theory: Glass will actually prove less obtrusive than a smartphone in a social setting.
• Okay maybe in a distinct minority, but I think Glass looks super rad. 
• Date has some warning and is partially familiar with Glass. Date has expressed positive possible romantic interest in prior social scenarios sans Glass.

Oysters, not through Glass

Pre-date risks, social, romantic and otherwise:

• I own the only Google Glass in Portland (at the time of shipping, anyway). Here, it makes for a lot of awkward, enthusiastic and inescapable extended social interactions.
• Date is a suspected technophobe.
• Date could take privacy concerns very seriously and literally flip table, walk out of restaurant.
• Date may think I am surreptitiously taking photographs of her (true) and get creeped out.
• Normal date risks (bad hair days, epic failure) amplified by social risk of full documentation via Internet.

A Date With A Glasshole, Documented In Realtime

For dinner, we agreed on an authentic cajun place/oyster bar in North Portland with stiff drinks and plenty of exits.

Paying really close attention

Taylor: Do you generally like technology? How do you use your mobile devices?
Rebecca: Sure, I like technology. That said, I'm not crazy in love with it. I do use my iPhone 5 almost constantly. I listen to podcasts and stream music all day at work. I text up a storm every 15 minutes... at least. I check my email, Instagram and Facebook every hour or so.

T: What's the first you heard about this whole Google Glass thing?
R: I first heard about it about five months ago. I thought it would be a great for people who need to be available all of the time for work. But I knew it [wasn't] for me.

T: So what do you do for work? 
R: I am a vintage dealer and leather craftsman.
T: That's pretty old school. You make like... non-virtual 3D objects? Whoa.

T: Were you nervous at all when I told you that we were going on a formal "date" with me wearing Glass and I was going to write a story about it?
R: I wouldn't say nervous. A little apprehensive, but overall excited and curious.
T: A lot of people probably would have been weirded out. If I wasn't already a major weirdo, I would have been weirded out. Cheers to that!

A toast #throughglass

#Glassgumbo

The Full-Disclosure Glasshole Date Debrief

A day after the date, I check in to see how she thinks things went. You know, for the story. At some point she called Glass a "breakup-inducing cyborg face device," so I was a little nervous about this part, I admit.

T: So, like, why did you agree to do that? Was it weird?
R: It was kind of weird. But the face that Glass was attached to is so damn charming. And it was promising oysters and tequila. Who could resist?

T: Fair enough. Flattery will get you everywhere.
R: I was also curious to see the general public's first reaction to it. People looked for any excuse to come up and talk to you about it. It was the first thing our server asked us, remember? "I've gotta ask: What's up with that glass visor thing?" Everyone sitting near us was staring. You might as well have been wearing a huge squirrel costume.
T: Next time I will wear my huge squirrel costume. That's more of a date 2.0 thing, I think.

T: Squirrels aside, do you think there are rules around technology and date etiquette?
R: There are most definitely unspoken rules around dating and phones. And, yes, I tend to obliviously violate them.
T: Okay so maybe I got mad at you for texting back and forth with a friend while we waited for our entree. Was that hypocritical?
R: Well, yeah... at least a little. You were also on your Android phone too. We were both on our phones on that date - not just on Glass. I have pictures to prove it.
T: Oh. Er... my bad.

Oystahhhs

R: There are rules. No phones on fancy date night. It's a time to connect with a person that's important to you.
T: Oh, so you're saying that I'm important to you? The truth comes out! Maybe this was all a ruse to get you to say that you liked me?
R: [Possibly creeped-out silence]

T: So, uh, let's get down to brass tacks. Do you think Google Glass is going to turn us all into zombie cyborgs who don't care about other humans? There are apps for virtual kissing, you know.
R: I think Google Glass is going to turn the people who are already predisposed to being zombie cyborgs into zombie cyborgs. I think it's easy to own and use Glass with respect and class to the people around you. It really depends on the person wearing them.

T: What about how I used Glass during our date? Was it distracting or rude?
R: I thought you were super classy. You only talked to it (to send texts) when you needed to. And I love that you could take candid pictures of our experience, that part was great. But in the back of my mind I worried I didn't have your full attention.
T: You did... I swear!
R: But the fact of the matter is there was a thing on your face that also had that attention. I had trouble seeing my way around it, literally. A phone in a bag wouldn't get checked [until] the date is over. Not that mine was in a bag...

T: How much did you enjoy our landmark social experiment on a scale of 1 (total catastrophe) to 10 (impromptu marriage in Vegas)?
R: I'd give the outing a 7. I definitely wouldn't want you to wear it to my birthday dinner or anything. But it was a fun to see other people react to a thing that they really didn't understand... especially during Happy Hour.

T: So how did you think the end of the date went? Did Glass affect that?
R: You mean when I lifted Glass from your face and with one careful motion slid it into its specialty Japanese microfiber case with a hardshell bottom?
T: You had me at "microfiber".

T: So, um, do you want to get drinks this weekend?
R: I would love to go on another date with you. But will Glass be coming?

That Wasn't So Bad, Now Was It?

I have to admit: The world beyond Glass does have its perks.

All photos by Rebecca Barron and Taylor Hatmaker.

Welcome to ReadWrite's live coverage of the Google I/O keynote. Below you'll see not only a live stream of the event, but live blogging from our on-the-spot team including editor-in-chief Owen Thomas, mobile editor Dan Rowinski, contributing writer Mark Hachman and our fearless editorial assistant Nick Statt.

Our stories so far:

• In Google's Future, We Will All Be Developers
• Now Google Wants To Kill The Mobile Web (Good Riddance)
• Google Just Launched A Grenade At Spotify — And It Just Might Work
• Google Is Turning Search Into The Planet's Biggest Anticipatory System
• The Future Of Google Maps: Social, Personalized And Way Smarter
• What Google Didn't Announce At I/O
• Google Search Learns To Listen & Understand Context
• Google Is Making Life Easier For Android Developers

For the rest of the live blog coverage, see our real-time posts on the ReadWrite Google+ page.

The Verge, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are all reporting that Google will launch a streaming-music service at its Google I/O developers conference on Wednesday. 

While Google hasn't commented, according to the reports Google has already struck licensing deals with Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment - it already has a deal with Warner Music Group. 

No word on pricing yet, but the Times said that there would be no "free" tier of service. The new service is expected to be accessed via the Google Play store for Android devices, but Google is also said to be working on a streaming-music product for its YouTube division. 

Details are expected to be announced at the Google I/O keynote on Wednesday. 

Last year, Google CEO Larry Page vanished from public view for several months, passing up major opportunities to speak to Wall Street, developers and the public (including last year's big I/O conference). Now we know why.

In a Google+ blog post on Tuesday, Page explained that he's long dealt with a partial paralysis of his left vocal cord — and that last summer, following a cold, he began to experience paralysis of his right cord as well. In neither case did doctors identify a cause, although they did diagnose Page with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, an inflammatory autoimmune condition of the thyroid gland, back in 2003.

Page says he's recovered to the point that he can "do all I need to do as CEO," although Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Page uses a microphone to speak, even to small staff meetings of a dozen people.

Nearly five years ago, a smartphone came out that few thought much of. Little did people know that the device would be a harbinger for the next half-decade of mobile innovation, pushing boundaries of technology and launching a fundamental shift in how people interact with computers.

That phone was the HTC G1, the original "Google Phone." It was a clunky, bug-ridden touchscreen device with a slide-out physical keyboard. The G1 did not sell particularly well. The buzz at the time was over Apple's still relatively young iPhone and varying BlackBerry devices, like the original Bold 9000.

Let's not say that the G1 was the beginning of the Mobile Revolution. There are neither beginnings nor endings in the turning of the wheel of technology. But it was a beginning.

The beginning of the Android Era.

It is amazing to look back at the last five years of Android and see just how far the devices that run Google's mobile operating system have come. From the G1 to the Nexus 10, the hardware, software and everything in between has gone from buggy, crash-prone phones to finely tuned devices that dominate mobile computing. Google and its manufacturing partners have done well in a half decade of innovation. What will the next five years bring?

Google is expected to announce a new version of its Android mobile operating system at its I/O developers conference, which runs Wednesday through Friday this week. Google refreshed its flagship Nexus line in November, and new Android chief Sundar Pichai recently downplayed expectations for major new products at I/O, a change from last year, which saw major launches like the Nexus 7 tablet.

Instead, in a sign of Android's maturation, Google will likely put the focus on devices from its hardware partners, like Samsung and HTC—a sign of Android's increasing maturity as a platform. Let's take a look back at the devices that brought Android to this pivotal point in its history.

HTC G1

Released: October 22, 2008

Hardware: 3.2-inch screen (320x480), 1150 mAh battery (removable), slide-out physical keyboard, 256 MB internal storage (expandable external storage), 192 RAM, 3.2 megapixel back camera.

Firmware: Android 1.0

The G1 (also known as the HTC Dream) was the first of Google's flagship smartphones. At the time it was a bit of a curiosity, mostly interesting for how it introduced Google properties (like Maps, Street View, Calendar and Search) to the smartphone market. The G1 was limited to T-Mobile in the United States.

Motorola Droid

Released: October 17, 2009

Hardware: 3.7-inch screen (480x854), 1400 mAh battery (removable), slide-out keyboard, 512 MB internal storage (expandable external storage), 256 MB RAM, 5 MP back camera.

Firmware: Android 2.0 (Eclair)

Boom goes the dynamite. The Motorola Droid was the first true Android smartphone to be popular with the masses. It was released to Verizon with heavy marketing targeted at what the Droid could do that an iPhone could not, like multi-tasking. The "Droid Does" slogan became a popular part of the geek lexicon and was Motorola's high water mark in the smartphone wars. The Droid shipped with the original Android 2.0 "Eclair" version but was quickly updated to a much more stable version in Android 2.1.

Nexus One

Released: January 5, 2009

Hardware: 3.7-inch screen (480x800), 1400 mAh battery (removable), 512 MB internal storage (expandable), 512 MB RAM, 5 MP back camera.

Firmware: Android 2.1 (Eclair)

The Nexus One was the first Android device commissioned directly from Google to serve as the flagship of the operating system. The One was built by HTC (an altered with HTC's "Sense" skin for its Incredible smartphone) and immediately became the sexiest Android smartphone on the market. The Nexus series has since become known as the "guide" device for new versions of the operating system. The Nexus One also marked an experiment by Google to bypass the carriers and sell directly to consumers through its website. The One was also one of the first Android smartphone to ship with Near Field Communication (NFC) functionality. This experiment did not take among consumers and most subsequent Nexus devices were offered through Google alongside subsidized versions from the likes of AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and Sprint. Google did not release a Nexus device for Android 2.2, with updated firmware for the Nexus One serving as the de facto flagship for Froyo.

Nexus S

Released: December 16, 2010.

Hardware: 4-inch screen (480x800), 1500 mAh battery (removable), 16 GB internal storage, 512 MB RAM, 5 MP back camera, VGA front camera.

Firmware: Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)

Samsung really started its rise to the top of the Android pyramid in 2010 with the release of its wide-ranging Galaxy S smartphones. Google tapped the Korean manufacturer for the next two Nexus devices, starting with the Nexus S. The device was the flagship for Android 2.3 Gingerbread, which is still the most-used version of the operating system years after its release.

Motorola Xoom

Released: February 24, 2011.

Hardware: 10.1-inch screen (800x1280), 6000 mAh battery (non-removable), 32 GB internal storage, 1 GB RAM, 5 MP back camera, 2 MP front camera.

Firmware: Android 3.2 (Honeycomb)

Google took a break from the Nexus line with Android 3.2 Honeycomb and went with Motorola for the flagship device of the operating system. Honeycomb and the Xoom turned out to be a complete albatross in the Android ecosystem, never gaining traction with consumers or developers. In fact, Honeycomb was so lampooned for being "half-finished" that Google never even released the normally open source Android kernel code and very few devices were ever made that used the operating system. Honeycomb was supposed to be Google's answer to the Android tablet conundrum. To this point, the only Android tablets that had been released ran some version of Froyo or Gingerbread, Android versions that were suboptimal for large screen devices. Honeycomb ultimately served as the stepping stone between Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich, which married the smartphone and tablet capabilities of Android and made it much easier for developers and manufacturers to create applications for a variety of screen sizes. 

Galaxy Nexus

Released: November 17, 2011.

Hardware: 4.65-inch screen (720x1280), 1750 mAh battery (removable), 16/32 GB internal storage (no external memory), 1 GB RAM, 5 MP back camera, 1.3 MP front camera.

Firmware: Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)

In many ways, Android phones made a giant leap at the end of 2011. Screens started to get bigger (eventually much bigger) and Android got a lot smarter, easy to use and out of its own way. This was epitomized with the Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich. Android can almost be categorized into two phases: Android 2.3 Gingerbread and everything that came before and Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and everything that came after. Starting with the Galaxy Nexus, Android smartphones have run smoother, been more secure, had bigger screens and hardware specifications that are all almost nearly double what came before.

Nexus 7

Released: July 13, 2012.

Hardware: 7-inch screen (800x1280), 4325 mAh battery (non-removable), 8/16/32 GB internal memory (no external memory), 1 GB RAM, 1.2 MP front camera.

Firmware: Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean)

The first Nexus tablet was announced at Google I/O in June 2012 and shipped a couple weeks later. The Nexus 7 cemented the market for lower priced tablets (next to the Kindle Fire at $199) with smaller screens in the 7-inch variety. From a hardware point of view, the Nexus 7 was not the most sophisticated tablet ever to be released, but it showed that Android has the ability to seamlessly run on tablet-sized screens while also highlighting the capabilities of Jelly Bean as a tablet operating system. Google refreshed the Nexus 7 later in the year to give it cellular connectivity. 

Nexus 4

Released: November 13, 2012.

Hardware: 4.7-inch screen (768x1280), 2100 mAh battery (non-removable), 8/16 GB internal memory, 2 GB RAM, 8 MP back camera, 1.3 MP front camera. 

Firmware: Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean)

The latest Android firmware is version 4.2, the second instance of Jelly Bean (much in the same way that Android 2.0/2.1 were both Eclair). The Nexus 4 from LG was released at the end of 2012 with two other devices -- the Nexus 10 from Samsung (below) and the upgraded Nexus 7. As yet, adoption of Android 4.2 has been minimal as it is an iterative update to what already existed in Android 4.1, with some minor feature upgrades. While many people consider the Nexus 4 to be a superb instance of an Android smartphone, it was criticized for its lack of 4G LTE, of which most new smartphones have included by default. The phone was made available through Google Play store (along with it tablet siblings) and on T-Mobile.

Nexus 10

Released: November 13, 2012.

Hardware: 10.05-inch screen (1600x2560), 9000 mAh battery (non-removable), 16/32 GB memory, 2 GB RAM, 5 MP back camera, 1.9 MP front camera.

Firmware: Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean)

Samsung came back to produce the first branded large-screen (8-inches or up) Nexus tablet with the Nexus 10. The tablet was the first large screen to roll out with a flagship Android update since Motorola released the Xoom tablet with the Honeycomb release in February 2011. 

What will this week bring at Google I/O 2013? Will we finally see Android 5.0? Or is there another update to Jelly Bean (Android 4.3)? We will be everywhere at I/O next week bringing you news of Google's latest gadgets, apps and developer news. Stay tuned.

Google announced Monday that it has combined its free storage options across multiple apps, making it easier to manage how much space you're using in Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+. Previously users had to separately track the 10GB of free space allotted for Gmail and the 5GB of free space allotted for Drive. Now, they have 15GB of unified space to use among all the Google apps, and any additional storage they purchase can be used wherever it is most needed. 

To put these changes in perspective, Google offered a clear example: 

Maybe you’re a heavy Gmail user but light on photos, or perhaps you were bumping up against your Drive storage limit but were only using 2 GB in Gmail. Now it doesn’t matter, because you can use your storage the way you want.

Check out a screenshot of the new storage management tool and soon-to-come storage option changes below: