Ten Things Google Should Do

Nathan WeinbergExpert Author Published: 2006-06-05

Mark Otuteye writes about ten products that Google should be developing, all based on existing technology that they could leverage to expand their reach (without copying their competitors).

There are some good ideas on the list, and others that we know might already be in development, like Google TV Search and free Google Storage. Google Genetics might be a little far-fetched (and likely to start a congressional inquiry), but most of them are solid and realistic.

I was particularly interested to see Scanbuy in the list of technologies Google should take advantage of. Scanbuy is a company that develops software that lets you take a picture of a barcode with your mobile phone, and then look up things like prices, share personal information (via a 2D barcode on the back of a business card) and develop barcode/camera applications using an SDK for all the major mobile platforms (Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm, Java, others).

I am an investor in Scanbuy, and have, on occasion, an advisor. The reason: I see so much untapped potential in this space, providing a cheaper, more secure and easier system than RFID, and I hope to see someone do some great things with it. Certainly, Google's the type of company to develop some powerful mobile applications that involve camera phone pattern recognition, and could at the very least use it to improve their current mobile offerings, like Froogle.