By You don’t need Ms. Cleo to see what direction Android is going to take the Mobile industry. All you need is some common sense and a few interesting articles in your feed reader.
First off, The Official Google Blog announced KML as a newly accepted standard of the Open Geospatial Consortium. What started as a framework for organizing the content in Google Earth became an intricate and standard process of storing and viewing cuzomized locational points and maps. The way HTML allows you to view webpages, KML allows you to view geography.
The more exciting news of the day is reserved for Google Maps and YouTube integration that allows businesses to embed videos in their business listings.
Practically doing our work for us, the Google Blog made the connection to mobile for us: “There are tens of millions of KML files available online — a testament to just how much user-generated content is now map-based information.”
We know that geographical identifiers are becoming standard and commonplace on the web and mobile applications. We know that Google and YouTube are combining geographical locations with video for those businesses. But what about user generated content on the consumer side of things?
On to the next story… CBS has just announced their latest mobile initiative, called CBSiMobile. Yeah, the URL is “eye” mobile and and not “i” mobile – someone should tell their web team and their marketing team to communicate a little better.Regardless, the website is considered a citizen journalism site where users can, “upload photos and videos directly from their mobile phone.” They can also provide titles, descriptions and the like to explain the importance of their video which is entered into their system based on their location. Pretty cool, huh?
Kind of. Unfortunately, the submission process is uninteresting, unintuitive and annoying. : “Users upload content to the site by sending a MMS with the photo or video to the shortcode “85888,” or by email. Users can enter a short description into the body of the text or email to explain what’s going on in the photo or video. People can view content on the phone by going to the URL, or by texting “Go” to the same shortcode”
If you were to mashup the KML standards, Google Maps, YouTube for GoogleMaps, CBSiMobile and consumers… on could suggest that you have AndroidTube. AndroidTube would be an Android Based application where you tap a button on your phone, report your news, take your picture, take your video, etc… tap enter and voila! Story submitted!
Whereas CBS seems to piecing together a website around technology that “isn’t quite there”, Android will bring their exact concept to reality with a much more fluid, enjoyable experience. I don’t know it will be called AndroidTube and I don’t know when it will come out, but if there aren’t at least 5 to 10 different development teams focusing on a project like this now as we speak, I would be in complete shock.
Mobile applications like these are the future of the web. While well wishing wanderers like CBS Mobile hope to hit it big by putting together makeshift mobile solutions, Android will force them to either adapt or become extinct.
While companies are currently “stretching” to make cool mobile things happen, they might as well wait for Android. It’s not hard to see how Android could will take the above technologies and spin them into one coherent application that is amazingly powerful with the touch of one button.
Mark it down folks… THIS is the birth of AndroidTube.
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