I almost lost my phone today.

During that nebulous span of time spent worrying about connectivity I did a little poking around. I began worrying about the whole waiting for my insured replacement thing. Then I got to wondering if I should just upgrade from my Blackberry Curve (which I still love) to the lusty Droid I’m looking for (sorry bad and overtly obvious Star Wars reference). Then I started wondering about cel phone plans, data plans, minutes, extra features, etc.

So I perused the Verizon site, looked at some gadget sites and gleaned more information about the Droid, it’s features, and possible future iterations. During that time it became overwhelmingly clear to me that Google’s ultimate goal is free cel/data connectivity everywhere, and cel phone carriers should be worrying about it RIGHT NOW.

One indicator coincidentally is an area most of us in the tech field refer to when attempting to predict trends – the automobile industry.

The other day I was watching Antique Roadshow and someone brought in a set of third party armrests for a Model-T Ford. Third party armrests you say? Yeah. It turns out when the automobile industry exploded globally, a ton of third party companies sprang to life around it. Some of these became huge companies that are still around today, offering aftermarket parts and accessories. Other companies disappeared when the Goliath automotive industry began incorporating their third party accessories into their new automobiles at no additional charge.

What I think we will see in the future is many large companies being swallowed by Google offering competing services for free. They have already shown a propensity for doing such a thing with the free GPS functionality incorporated into the new Droid OS.

The free Google Voice, plus the recent Gizmo5 acquisition is another fine indicator. Gizmo5 and Google Voice have already worked closely over the last year to make completely free VoIP calls. Unfortunately it required a ridiculous amount of steps and processes to get it to work. I predict Google is going to make this process significantly easier in the short-term. In the long-term I predict it will be completely seamless.

How will Google finance something like this?

Do I even have to say?

With Google’s latest acquisition of AdMob I think the answer is pretty clear.

Advertising.

Some people are skeptical of this. They ask, “How often have you clicked on a mobile phone ad?”

But consider this:

• Apple, Kindle, and others are creating a perception that mobile access doesn’t necessarily have to be “phone only”.
  Many mid-sized and portable devices will continue to proliferate in the market. People will be connected all the time and it won’t just be cel phones.
• Cel phones are increasingly offering a more luxurious browser experience.
  As this continues to be refined and tweaked we will see more opportunities for mobile ad placement.
• The concept of ad placement and clickthru behavior is still evolving.
  I agree with the skeptics to an extent. I have NEVER clicked on a mobile ad. Hell, I’ve never even clicked on an RSS ad in my Google Newsreader. But one thing is clear. The battle for the mobile desktop is on. The computer desktop battle is pretty much over. With the exception of highly specialized programs (like audio workstations and rendering programs) everyone with an application worth having on a standard computer has developed, or is developing a web-based equivalent. And often even a mobile equivalent.

This is just a stream of conscious post with little in the way of supporting facts. It’s not a new thought, since it’s been posited many times before. It just seems so imminent now and I’m excited!

I’ll post more as expand my research.

Update:

Someone asked me how I thought Google could monetize voice phone calls.

As you may or may not know, Google already offers voice ads. As I poked around the web for more information on these ads, I came across this article in the Royal Gazette which posits something similar to what I think would work (and what I would deem acceptable advertising for a free service).

I would love to hear an ad on my free Android phone while placing an outbound call. As far as clickthrus, I would love to have the option of pressing a number for additional options.

“Press 1 to have more information sent to your GMAIL address.”

“Press 2 to have a SMS text message sent to you with more information.”

“Press 3 to have a sales representative from this company contact you during business hours today.”

I would LOVE this! I wouldn’t care if they served ads based my Google Profile, or based on my Google Voice message text matched up to the phone number I’m calling. Whatever.