Well, I think it's finally going to happen.  What am I talking about?  I think Google is finally going to release a "Google" branded phone.  The "Nexus One" is confirmed to be in dogfooding stage within the walls of the GooglePlex. The picture to the right (and below) is a picture taken by professional blogger Cory O'Brien of a Google employee's phone.

Google is reported to have dictated every detail of the hardware to HTC.  Which led to the phone being described as slimmer than an iPhone, with a Snapdragon processor, high resolution OLED touchscreen, very thin trackball, two microphones, high resolution digital camera, and the yet-to-be-released Android 2.1 operating system.

Apparently Google is rumored to be independently marketing this HTC built device as an unlocked device capable of running on any GSM-based network.  This may upset other manufacturers that have adopted the Android operating system, Motorola in particular with its Droid and Cliq devices.  However, many consumers, and the FTC, will rejoice in finally not being locked into a contract and a carrier to get the phone of their choice.

  All indications point to an early 2010 release, but keep checking the yet-to-be-published Nexus One website for more details.  Here is the semi-announcement from Google's own mobile blog.

Google is working on another tool to help you reach your audience.  This tool, appropriately named "Google Insight", will give you insight into what potential customers in your area are searching for. 

"Insight" is currently in beta, but like most of the other products in Google's Beta program, this product is already an incredibly useful application.  Currently the program allows you to view the top searched terms on the internet.  Interesting? Yes.  Helpful?  Probably not.  However, add the fact that you can specify a timeframe and narrow the search to your region and category, and it all of a sudden becomes incredibly useful.

Imagine being a small business owner with a website.  Now imagine that you could tell what potential customers in your area are searching for that is related to your business.  You could use this powerful knowledge to reach more of these searchers by adjusting your Adwords campaigns, by modifying your website keywords, and by creating more content that focuses on those keywords. 

Don't have time to set up or manage an Adwords account, let alone monitor relevent keywords and search terms?  This is exactly the type of thing that Handy Marketing Solutions can do for your business.  Let us be your "outsourced", online marketing department.