From the press release:
Select LG handsets, pre-installed with Google products and services will be shipped globally including North America, Europe and Asia starting in the second quarter of 2007. These handsets will create a more dynamic user experience, including one click access to Google search through an icon in the application menu. More features of LG-Google handsets include:
- Google Maps for mobile, an application that enables users to view maps and satellite imagery, find local businesses, and get driving directions
- Gmail for mobile, a Java-based application that brings more speed, convenience and functionality to the mobile Gmail experience
- Blogger Mobile, an application to upload/download images and text to blog from mobile devices (www.blogger.com), keeps avid bloggers upwardly mobile.
Here’s Danny Sullivan’s earlier post that has a “deal chart” comparing Google and Yahoo! and lists their OEM relationships.
This LG deal and other, similar deals being done by Google and Yahoo! indicate how important mobile is becoming. It’s something of a land grab to build consumer awareness of their mobile products.
Whether any of this translates into actual usage will literally have to be seen later as these units ship and consumers buy them. We may not know for a year whether this strategy is smart or marginal in its impact. On balance, however, it’s something of an insurance policy.
