OSNews

The interesting part will be exactly how Google chooses to integrate the ads. Remember, there were essentially two keys to Google's astonishing success as an advertising firm: targeted and unobtrusive.

First, the smartphone is a unique opportunity for data collection. People communicate their thoughts, emotions, preferences, intentions, and social ties through their phone. Especially with advanced voice recognition technology, a smartphone-based advertising platform could know almost all there is to know about the user. The privacy issues are obvious, but that's another comment.

Google does impressively well with targeted ads using predominantly your search query as input. Imagine how well they could do with all of your emails, messages, and conversations? The phone could come to know you as a personal (consumer) assistant, suggesting all manner of products and services appropriate for the time, place, and context. Oh, it's lunchtime and there's a new Mexican restaurant right around the corner. Perfect.

The targeting could be so accurate that the ads could be honestly claimed as a feature, and a valuable one at that. But they can't be annoying. So you won't get phone calls from algorithmic robot telemarketers. All ads will likely be non-blocking, in computer science terms. You'll never be made to wait while an ad is playing. This leaves a lot of room for targeted ads to generate a huge rate of high-yield impressions.

The key here is that while bandwidth costs money, the content that passes over it could be worth a lot more. Google could conceivably create an unprecedentedly effective advertising platform, driving revenue that dwarfs bandwidth costs. As long as the ads are targeted and unobtrusive, Google could provide no-charge wireless service, a slick smartphone platform, and a remarkably insightful ad system.

But there's those privacy issues...