Gupta joined the company 18 months ago after Google acquired Jambool, a virtual goods payment platform where he was a founder and CEO. More recently, he’d been one of the leaders on the payments team, overseeing Google Wallet and reporting to Osama Bedier, Google’s VP of Payments.

“I can confirm that Vikas has left Google and we wish him all the best in his future endeavors,” a spokesman said.

Jambool’s product, Social Gold, was rolled into Google’s payment products and is being used for in-app purchases on both Android Market and Google+ Games.

According to Gupta’s LinkedIn page, he joined Google in August 2010 and held the title of head of consumer payments. Jambool reportedly was purchased for $55 million before any additional earn-outs. Prior to founding Jambool, Gupta worked at Amazon.

Gupta’s departure is the second management move made in the Google Wallet ranks over the past week.

A spokesperson declined to say if the division was undergoing a wider restructuring, but last week, I reported that Google’s VP of Commerce Stephanie Tilenius was moving into a more global position. And, as part of that, Bedier will be taking on a larger role within Google Wallet, though his title will not be changing.

The Wallet is Google’s mobile payments strategy that allows users to tap their phone at the register to pay using near field communication technology. The company has already successfully formed alliances with both banks and retailers, and is leveraging its vast install base of Android users.

Today, it is live with some merchants, although it does face some challenges.

Currently, it only works on one phone from Sprint, and both consumers and merchants will most likely have to upgrade their hardware for it to work. Additionally, some carriers, such as Verizon Wireless, have decided to disable Google Wallet on phones they are shipping. Other carriers, which are part of a mobile wallet joint venture called ISIS, are expected to follow suit, effectively limiting access for many U.S. consumers.

More than six months after hosting a flashy launch event, the business may be getting a lot harder than it originally looked.

Asa Mathat | AllThingsD.com

Stephanie Tilenius demonstrates Google Wallet at the D9 conference.

Over the past year, Tilenius has been visible for her role in Google Wallet, one of Google’s biggest bets in commerce to date.

In May, she was one of the main executives to unveil Google Wallet at an event in New York, and a week later, at our D event in California, demonstrated how easy it was to tap an Android phone at the register to check out.

In a statement, Google spokesman Nate Tyler said: “Stephanie is moving to a new role where she will oversee global strategy and work with key partners to expand our commerce efforts internationally.”

Tilenius will continue to report to Jeff Huber, SVP of Commerce & Local.

In her previous role, Tilenius was overseeing Google Checkout, which recently merged with Google Wallet so that users needed only one payment account to cover purchases across Android Market, YouTube, Google+ Games and other Google properties.

The former eBay executive also played a role in Google’s negotiations to buy Groupon, which ultimately failed. Instead, Google launched Google Offers to compete with Groupon head-on.

Presumably, Tilenius will continue to work on all of these products but in an international capacity.

Tilenius was also in the spotlight in May, on the same day as the New York Google Wallet launch, when PayPal filed suit against Google and two of its former executives – Tilenius and Osama Bedier, Google’s VP of payments and former PayPal executive. The lawsuit claimed that Google and the two employees misappropriated trade secrets and violated contracts involving recruiting agreements.

Okay … And?

This is a nice “+” in Google terms, but it’s not earthshaking. There are three players here — the artist, the middleman and Google.

The artist now has a chance to sell direct to fans on Google Music and keep 70 percent of retail. This would be unprecedented only if Amazon MP3 didn’t already offer this via their CreateSpace entity, and if TuneCore and about a dozen other services didn’t offer this already, via their own platforms for iTunes and other digital music retailers. All cost $25 or more upfront, which means an artist needs to sell between 37-75 songs at 99 cents retail to recoup — except for Amazon, which is free.

It’s important to distinguish here between signed and unsigned artists. Nothing about Google Music’s launch voids existing signed recording contracts. Lady Gaga or Adele can’t void their recording contracts and sell direct via Google Music; neither can your favorite indie band that has its own (indie) label deal, like Barsuk.

Lots of folks are going on about major label payouts ($0.08-$0.14 per download, vs. $0.70 direct from retailers), as if all artists will benefit. But signed artists have no out — on iTunes, Amazon or Google.

So what about the “unsigned”? They fall into two categories — the “unencumbered,” like NIN and Pomplamoose, who have demand, options and the ability to use their music as they choose. The other group are the “unsupported.” It doesn’t matter who I name, you won’t have heard of them. This artist has no presence, no support, no marketing and no financial backing. They can use the music however they choose, too, but they don’t have demand. The Artist Hub is another place they can spend 15 or 20 minutes and $25 online hoping to sell to fans.

So let’s say an “unsigned” DIY artist wants to generate revenue on the top six digital retailers. Here’s what they’d have to spend to get their stuff there:

1. iTunes, Amazon, Spotify: $50 via TuneCore
2. YouTube: No distributor offers this on a flat-fee basis, so let’s guesstimate this will cost $25 a year, based on average $1 RPM and 30,000 video views
3. Deezer (What? Never heard of them? Huuuge in France); CD Baby: $59 plus nine percent (it’s a given you’re gonna need a barcode)
4. Google Music: The aforementioned $25

Total: $159. Honestly, not that much money if you’re a professional artist. And if an artist isn’t recouping that in sales each year, then he is a hobbyist.

As Seinfeld said, “nothing wrong with that.” It’s just not a business. And if it’s not a business, why spend hours researching and debating distribution options to save a couple dollars? Spend that time making the music you love.

All artists need teams; all teams cost money. Today, there are just a lot more ways to manage that money: In the form of assigning copyrights via a traditional “deal,” by paying agency consulting fees, by hiring employees and by offering a distribution percentage.

One or many of those options can arise, and it is tricky to determine the most cost-effective one. Here’s a quick guide to determine whether a DIY distribution service is cost-effective for a music professional:

Do you or someone you know closely have a personal relationship with editors at the major digital retailers? Do you want to talk to them weekly?

• If yes, then DIY distribution is for you.
• If no, then consider the costs of hiring a sales team and employees, or of spending weeks of your life on marketing and promotion, compared to the relative advantages of a distribution percentage or label deal. Distributors and labels can leverage their catalog bulk in an artist’s favor when releasing new music.

So, what about the labels, the middlemen that sit between artists and retailers? Will Google Music’s Artist Hub impact them? No.

1. The middleman has already secured the rights, encoded the assets and prepped the metadata of millions of songs — these deals exist. Even if you are using TuneCore and are free and clear, it’s probably more economical to wait for them to offer delivery to Google Music, then pay again.
2. The middleman already incurs the customer support costs, the accounting costs and the marketing costs. Most artists want or need marketing and hands-on support. The Artist Hub will not likely provide that, certainly not in promoting, and artists will look to outside agencies, labels and distributors that offer access.
3. The middleman, presumably, represents that the rights are cleared and clean — no messy copyright claims to be filed against the retailer by aggrieved parties.
4. Artists could do this work themselves. But is an artist’s time best spent managing dozens of digital retail platforms, or making and performing music?

But let’s be clear: Google Music and the Artist Hub is a good move for Google. It helps them:

1. Build up Google+ using consumers and bands to build trust and engagement.
2. Build up Google checkout and card gateway. If you’ve paid $25 to Google to sign up, now maybe you’ll buy something from them. And they’re already used to paying out tons of small cash increments via AdSense — not an accounting hassle for them to assume.
3. Challenge their newest direct competitor — Amazon’s own entertainment marketplace, available online — on Kindle Fire, and presumably on next year’s locked-down, Android-powered smartphone.

Most important, Google Music is awesome for Android.

Ben Patterson is the founder and President of DashGo, Inc., www.dashgo.com, a digital content distribution and marketing engine for labels, podcasters and artists.

Last week, it made its first inroads after launching a pilot with T-Mobile USA that breaks the conventional revenue-sharing agreement first established by Apple.

Currently, a developer’s cut on Apple’s App Store, and most every other platform, is 70 percent. Apple — or in the case of Android, Google — gets the rest.

“We don’t agree on the concept of the 70-30 split,” said Julien Fourgeaud of Rovio, who wears a one-of-a-kind green pig hooded sweatshirt and holds the title of “bad piggy bank manager and magician.”

The arrangement “will not help drive the industry forward. It has so far, but it will have to change,” he added.

Fourgeaud would not say what rabbit he pulled out of his hat, but that the split was “better” than today’s standard. “Our goal is to drive it globally,” he said.

T-Mobile customers playing Angry Birds now will be able to purchase the Mighty Eagle for $1 and apply it to their carrier bill. See the video below for an explanation of what the Mighty Eagle is, but essentially it swoops in to help you when you’ve gotten stuck at a particular level.

It is the first time that carrier billing has been implemented by Rovio, even though it has previously announced deals with others.

Up until now, Rovio had been giving away the game for free on Android and monetizing it using advertising. And until now, Android users were not able to purchase the Mighty Eagle, and all of those not on T-Mobile still won’t be able to.

Rovio is an exception on Android. Other game developers are using Google’s own Checkout to charge for games, or are working with other third parties to enable carrier billing. Google is also signing up partnerships with carriers to enable charges to more seamlessly appear on monthly bills.

However, Fourgeaud says it’s unclear how many Android users have signed up for Checkout, which makes it difficult to justify implementing. That compares to Apple’s iPhone customers, who are required to input a credit card number when signing up for iTunes.

“I’m still looking for those numbers,” he said. “Google has a strategy that is taking more time to implement.”

Rovio’s next step will be to leverage the cost savings it was able to negotiate and create a payments platform that other mobile developers can use. The Bad Piggy Bank, as it is called, will handle in-app transactions using carrier billing.

Still, even with carrier billing, T-Mobile customers will have to take a few steps to play the version of Angry Birds with the Mighty Eagle. The quickest way is by texting “BIRDS” to 6255 to receive a link with instructions.

Dierks founded and developed Google Checkout, among other things, at the search giant. He has been there since 2004, based in New York.

The fast-growing media and news site has added a lot of content to its offerings since selling to AOL, including merging a variety of sections and overhauling others.

Here’s the official press release from HPMG, which is announcing the move today:

The AOL Huffington Post Media Group Names Google’s Tim Dierks Senior Vice President of Engineering

Noted Software Engineer Who Oversaw Multiple Teams and Founded and Developed “Google Checkout” to Oversee Group’s Expanding Engineering Team

New York, NY — September 7, 2011 – The AOL Huffington Post Media Group, a leading source of news, opinion, entertainment, community and digital information, announces today that Tim Dierks, Software Engineering Manager at Google, has been named Senior Vice President of Engineering. In this position, he will be responsible for overseeing the group’s expanding programming team. Dierks is an acclaimed software engineer who oversaw multiple engineering teams at Google and founded and developed the company’s innovative Google Checkout offering. The announcement was made by Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-Chief of the AOL Huffington Post Media Group; Paul Berry, Chief Technology Officer of the AOL Huffington Post Media Group; and Alexander Gounares, Chief Technology Officer of AOL.

“I’m delighted to welcome Tim to our team,” said Arianna Huffington. “In addition to having a track record of successfully leading large programming teams focused on work that’s complex, fast moving and diverse, he’s also a creative force adept at seeing his vision through to completion. Tim shares our passion for constantly improving the user experience, and I look forward to adding his ideas, insight, and knowledge to the AOL HPMG mix.”

Said Paul Berry: “We’re continuing to build a premier editorial, engineering and product group, and Tim Dierks — a rare combination of effective leader and innovative thinker –- is an incredible addition to oversee our talented and hard working team of programmers.”

Tim Dierks joined Google NYC in 2004. At the company, he has worked on internal security systems, used his “20%” time to found Google Checkout, an online payment processing service, and led engineering teams working on many different initiatives, including AdSense for Feeds, Television and Print, and FeedBurner.

In his position leading a team building internal-facing applications for the company, he managed his group’s existing software programs, oversaw the building of innovative new products, and introduced a broader set of engineering tools, including broader outsourcing and software purchasing. He also built and led a research and development team in New York that focused on TV advertising audiences, which led to the development of a “bid on and buy your audience” sales offering. Prior roles at the company included leading the newspaper ads and publisher content engineering teams.

Said Dierks: “The AOL Huffington Post Media Group offers a wide range of great content and compelling social engagement. I look forward to working with Paul Berry and the AOL Huffington Post Media Group team to continue building technology to enable and drive this terrific platform.”

Said Alexander Gounares: “Technology innovation is fundamental to AOL’s products and services, so it’s fabulous to have a noted technologist like Tim joining the team. Across the breadth of AOL technologies, we are building a world class organization of top notch talent using the latest state of the art tools. Tim brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, and leadership with him, and I am looking forward to working with him.”

The company’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt will also give the service a more thorough demo at the ninth D: All Things Digital conference in a week.

Yesterday, the Internet search giant invited AllThingsD and other press to join them at the event in New York, where it vaguely asked to come “join us at a Google partner event to experience our latest innovations.”

Well, it’s a digital wallet for mobile devices, centered around Google’s Android phones. The service has been developed within Google in a team led by Commerce VP Stephanie Tilenius.

In addition, Bloomberg is reporting that Google is partnering with Sprint Nextel.

The service will supposedly let consumers with certain Android devices pay for goods and redeem coupons with their handsets using near-field communication technology.

The first Google Android device to have NFC built in is the Nexus S, which Andy Rubin showed off at our D: Dive Into Mobile event in December.

Bloomberg also is reporting that Google is using hardware and software from other companies, including VeriFone Systems and ViVOtech.

In the past, Google has tried a number of payment offerings, none of which have been too successful. Google Checkout is used today by the Android Market to buy applications, but users have been slow to adopt it, forcing the search giant to ink direct billing relationships with carriers such as AT&T and T-Mobile USA.

Google has also made a number of acquisitions in the space, including in-app payment provider Jambool.

But a mobile payments or wallets service would be a different beast that would compete more directly with internal initiatives by eBay’s PayPal, Amazon, or traditional credit card companies, such as Visa, MasterCard and American Express.

And, just yesterday, San Francisco start-up Square unveiled a system that it thinks can replace the need for registers and wallets.

The difficulty of the mobile payments market is that it requires cooperation from so many parties, including the retailers, the handset manufacturers and the payment companies and banks.

Many companies, including Google, are trying to be the glue that brings them together, contributing to at least one part of that dynamic. So far, Google has not been a sticky solution in the online payments arena.

It’s unclear what Google would charge for the service on a per transaction basis, like other payment providers, or whether it would pursue some other business model, where it captures information about the user and provides more targeted advertising.

Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt will be appearing at D9 as the opening speaker Tuesday night, where the topic of mobile payments will definitely be up for discussion.

To get a bigger picture of the retailer’s plans, we caught up with Aaron Rubenson, category leader for Amazon Mobile Services, and Ameesh Paleja, general manager for the Engineering Division of Amazon Mobile Services.

The one message that was exceedingly clear was that Amazon’s app store efforts will lean heavily on its years of retailing experience in an effort to change the way applications are marketed and sold on phones today.

So far, the shopping experience on Google’s Android Market has been disappointing. Developers have had to deal with sub-par marketing techniques and inadequate payment methods. Likewise, customers have to wade through thousands of applications that are difficult to pay for.

The difference in the approaches of Google and Amazon are as easy to explain as saying that one was built by a search company and the other a retailer.

“We have a lot of infrastructure and technology to maximize revenue. At the end of the day, our hope and goal is to leverage the systems we have built and to bring it to the app world,” Rubenson said. We can have a broad array of merchandising and marketing tools available to get developers’ apps in front of the customers and make them really simple to buy.”

To break it down, there’s at least three ways Amazon can differentiate itself from Google’s own Android Market: pricing, recommendations and payments.

Pricing: This is by far and away the biggest differentiation between Amazon’s Appstore vs. the Android Market, or even Apple’s App Store. When it comes to price, Amazon will decide how much to sell a game or application for — not the developer (although he or she will have some influence).

Amazon will set a sales price for an app, and developers will set a list price. Developers will earn 20 percent of the original list price, or 70 percent of the sales price, whichever is greater. The benefit of this model is that Amazon has the resources to monitor sales across the board and come up with a strategy that will maximize sales much faster than a developer or publisher would normally be able to react.

Recommendations: Amazon will also be able to increase sales by making recommendations that are based on a consumer’s wide range of interests, spanning across all of Amazon, including books, music, movies and more — not just apps. Apple and Google don’t have that insight because they don’t have such a wide variety of inventory. “That tech and the recommendations right now are so-so, there’s a lot opportunity to improve,” Paleja said.

For instance, Amazon would know if you bought a fancy cooking utensil and could recommend a recipe app, or cooking game.

Payments: This is also a huge differentiator. While the app store will initially only be available to consumers in the U.S. that’s expected to change. It has “tens of millions of customers who have credit cards on file” in dozens of countries worldwide.

Google’s Checkout payments system, which is one of the only payments systems available on the Android Market, doesn’t have that scale or scope. It’s flawed to the point that in some countries users can only download free apps. Often times, consumers have also not gone through the trouble of signing up for Checkout. Amazon’s payments system is more comparable to how consumers have a credit card stored in their iTunes account.

Despite Amazon’s list of competitive advantages, it is not the only third-party trying to make better app stores. Other companies, such as PocketGear, which recently got funding from the investment arm of Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, and GetJar has a head start in working with developers. Carriers and handset-makers are also prepping developer programs.

It’s not clear when the store will be open to the public, other than that it will launch sometime this year. The store will support both free and paid apps and will be available both on Amazon’s homepage and both handsets and tablets.

Unlike Google, Amazon will have an approval process for apps, which has the goal of making sure apps work and don’t impair the device, but it won’t be selective based on content. “We are big believers in innovation, and that we’ll find a large range of innovation,” Rubenson said.

The two declined to comment on whether Amazon would share revenues with the carriers, handset makers or Google, although would confirm they are in discussions with a number of players in the space to get their app store on devices.

As the possible acquisition of Groupon by Google chugs along–sources tell me bankers are starting to swan around annoyingly, which could be a sign of fruition, but we shall see–BoomTown realized that I have been remiss in mentioning one likely key person in the deal strategy.

And, I am only guessing, that would be the Silicon Valley search giant’s relatively new head of commerce, Stephanie Tilenius (pictured above).

That’s because the unassuming former longtime eBay exec–you won’t see her all over the scene swanning, for sure–is one of the few at the company sharp enough to have seen Groupon’s copious local retail data from its social buying business as a strong fit into Google.

I met Tilenius a dog’s age ago when she co-founded PlanetRx.com, a very early online drugstore in Web 1.0.

In her long tenure at eBay, she ran eBay North America, global product management for eBay Marketplaces, merchant services at its PayPal unit, eBay Motors and eBay Asia Pacific and Latin America.

After she left eBay in late 2009, Tilenius came to Google early this year, in the newly created position of VP of commerce. In that job, she has purview over Google Checkout, payment system and e-commerce.

And, while Google’s former search experience and now new local head Marissa Mayer is often mentioned as benefiting from this Goopon deal, it seems to me that it is Tilenius who will be charged with taking Google in this pricey and risky new direction.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

But if Google (GOOG) does it right, it makes perfect sense for the search giant to jump in anyway.

As CNET reported last week (The Wall Street Journal followed up yesterday), Google has been talking to the big music labels about launching its own music service and has floated a 2010 launch date. But music sources I’ve talked to say the company has no deals with labels yet and that it’s still unclear exactly what kind of service the company would like to launch.

My suggestion: Start simple. Copy the iTunes pay-per-song model.

That’s not a revolutionary idea, and it’s not a super-lucrative one either, because most people don’t like to buy more than a few songs: Apple (AAPL) sells about two billion songs a year, and if Google launches a competing service, I doubt it’s going to grow the market by much. And given that about two-thirds of every digital download dollar gets passed back to the music labels/artists/publishers/etc., that’s a fairly modest market to fight over.

But a download store is a proven concept. And that may be a better one than trying to get people to pay the $5 to $10 a month fee that services like Napster and Rhapsody have tried with very limited success and that new entrants like Rdio, MOG and Spotify (one day) want to try again. And it’s a much better idea than trying to figure out how to sell enough advertising to pay for free music services (RIP, Imeem; good luck, MySpace Music).

Meanwhile, a viable music store gives Google the following:

• A value-add for Android and a wedge against one-time ally Apple
• An owned-and-operated destination for all the music search traffic Google currently sends out to MySpace Music (via iLike) and Rhapsody, Pandora, etc.
• And just maybe, a reason for consumers to finally sign up for a Google Checkout account, which has had little traction despite years of effort. If Google can get Google Checkout up and running and create the billing relationship with its users that Apple and Amazon (AMZN) already enjoy, then all sorts of other businesses, from YouTube movie rentals to Android app sales, become much more interesting.

So what about the notion of a cloud-based service, wherein Google hangs on to your tunes and streams them to you on demand? Cool. But not crucial.

Apple has expressed an interest in something similar, but from what I can tell, it isn’t close to launching anything like it. So perhaps the Google guys see this as their chance to leapfrog Steve Jobs and company.

But successfully copying them would a fine start, too.

YouTube, which announced the move in a blog post, also plans to allow people to begin renting videos in the health, education and fitness categories in the coming weeks.

A company spokesman said that content partners get to set the price they want to charge consumers and that customers must pay through Google’s payment service, Google Checkout.

Google and the content partner will split the revenue, with the partner getting the majority, he said.

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“Q: So if this is not the GPhone, when will we see the GPhone, and what will it be?

Eric Schmidt: We’re not announcing anything, but this is the platform for building a GPhone. It starts a whole wave of innovation…

Q: Does that mean there will be NO Google phone you can buy?

ES: Imagine not just one GPhone, but a thousand GPhones as a result of the partnerships…the many other people who will be joining the open initiative. We forgot to tell you that it’s available next week, and the terms are the broadest in the industry.

Q: …GPhone?

ES: We are not announcing a Google phone.

Q: Eric, I want to go back to the GPhone–what’s the deal?

ES: The deal is we don’t pre-announce products….If there were to be a Gphone, it would run Android.”

– Google CEO Eric Schmidt during a Nov. 2007 conference call on Android

During an Android demo in April 2008, Steve Horowitz, one of the original engineers working on Google’s Android platform, said “I’m here to tell you there is actually no GPhone,” echoing a similar point made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt when the operating system was announced. Now, not two years later, Google is telling us something different: There is a GPhone and its name is Nexus One.

At an event at Google’s (GOOG) Mountain View, Calif., headquarters this morning, a handful of company execs discussed the genesis of the Nexus One, tracing its evolution from the G1–the first Android phone–to the Verizon (VZ) Droid. In the short time since Android was launched, the number of devices running it has grown to 20, offered by 59 carriers in 48 countries.

“To help Android to adapt to the needs of users like you and me, our engineering department sometimes works with partners to speed innovation around Android,” Mario Queiroz, VP of Product Management, said during opening remarks. “But we want to do more. So we asked ourselves, ‘What if we worked even more closely with our partners to bring devices to market that will help us better showcase some of the technology we’ve developed?’”

The result: Nexus One. “The dictionary definition of Nexus One is a point of convergence. Its that point at which Web meets phone,” Queiroz explains. “The Nexus One belongs in an emerging category of devices we call superphones.”

Eric Tseng, a senior Google product manager, takes the stage to walk through Nexus One’s features, which we’re now all pretty familiar with: 3.7-inch active-matrix organic LED display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, five-megapixel camera with LED flash, a trackball with a multicolor notification LED, light and proximity sensors that save power.

The device is 11.5 millimeters thick and weighs about 130 grams, which Tseng notes is no heavier than a keychain-size Swiss Army knife. Nexus One runs on Android 2.1, a.k.a. “Eclair.” Oh, it also offers “support” for personalization–engrave your name or that of a loved one on the back.

That’s the baseline offering, but there are other enhancements. Among them: Five home-screen panels that allow users to add more widgets, like Google’s GPS weather widget, which is evidently very exciting and “Googley.”

Another enhancement: “Living wallpapers,” dynamic, animated home-screen images–leaves falling on water, for example; tap the screen and the water ripples. Neat feature, but not exactly a killer app.

Also onboard: A photo-gallery app developed with the folks at Cool Iris and tricked out with some pretty slick 3-D viewing. Tip the phone and the photos recede, etc.

Finally, Google has developed some significant voice enhancements. Evidently, the company has voice-enabled all text fields on the device. “Now, we can speak our tweets and Facebook status updates,” says Tseng.

All in all, an impressive device. Be sure to read Walt Mossberg’s review for a more in-depth look at Nexus One.

So how do you get your hands on a Google superphone? Through a “Google-hosted Web Store,” says Queiroz. You can buy a phone with service from a carrier partner, or without service.

A Nexus One without service goes for $529. For $179, you can buy it from T-Mobile with service. In the spring, you’ll be able to buy it from–surprise!–Verizon Wireless (VZ) and Vodafone (VOD).

Transactions will be handled by Google Checkout, so if you’re a Google Account holder, purchasing the device should be fairly simple.

One last point worth noting here: Queiroz stresses that the Nexus One is the first of a number of products developed via this new collaborative process with partners. “Our plan is to add more carriers and more devices in the future,” he says.

Ah. As Eric Schmidt said back in 2007, “Imagine not just one GPhone, but a thousand GPhones as a result of the partnerships.”

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE Q&A:

• Nexus Ones ordered from T-Mobile ship today.
• Google is the merchant of record. When you buy a Nexus One, you buy it from Google.
• Why was it necessary for Google to design the Nexus One? Google didn’t really design the phone. “HTC did, Google is just merchandising it.”
• Android 2.1 will be available for Droid and other Android devices soon.
• Google’s Web Store is “simply another distribution channel.” It is not designed to replace or disintermediate carriers or mobile phone retailers.
• Queiroz on the Google Web Store program: “If users are interested in a different form factor and our software supports it, we’ll pursue it. We’re going to look at different options of devices that can be added to the program. We will consider other mobile phones.”
• Andy Rubin, VP, Engineering: “Today’s superphone is tomorrow’s smartphone.”
• Question from Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land: “Where is the ad-supported mobile phone? Where’s the revolution?” Sadly, Rubin dodges. Gotta take a first step before you can change the world…blah lah blah.
• How do superphones differ from smartphones? Rubin: “It’s just the evolution of the platform….It’s the greater memory, the faster processors….The Nexus One is as powerful as your laptop was four years ago.”
• Question for Motorola’s (MOT) Sanjay Jha: Is Motorola worried that Nexus One will cannibalize Droid sales? Jha says no, and his presence here today supports that. Still it’s tough to believe him. Maybe Motorola and Google are already working on Nexus Two.

Schmidt added a bit of nuance to that message today, noting that the company had been surprised to see its European business bounce back as quickly as it has. Here’s my transcript of his opening statement.

We are clearly seeing aspects of recovery, and what is notable is that we’re seeing aspects of recovery not just in the United States but in Europe. I had been in error in assuming that there would be a lag, that it would the U.S. first and Europe second. Asia, of course, was never significantly hit in the first place.

So that means from a Google perspective that…we never stopped hiring, but we told our team internally and again, we’ve said to many other people that we are increasing our hiring rate and our investment rate in anticipation of a recovery.

Schmidt and Google co-founder Sergey Brin covered a lot of ground in the hour-plus press conference, and I’ll try to go back and break out out some of the other highlights. A few items worth noting in summary:

• Brin expressed contrition over recent Gmail outages and said the company was working both to prevent future failures and to react more quickly if and when they do happen. But he reiterated the argument, common among cloud-computing fans, that conventional email systems fail much more frequently.
• Schmidt repeatedly defended the proposed settlement Google had reached with authors and publishers regarding its book archive. Recurring theme: It’s not a perfect settlement, but it’s workable.
• Schmidt stressed the importance of porting Google’s Chrome browser to Apple’s Mac platform and said this would happen within months.
• Schmidt said Google was working on ways to help publishers sell their work on the Web (via one-offs or subscription). But he said he had no interest in promoting one publisher’s results over another, as Associated Press officials had recently suggested: “We have to be very very careful not to favor one media organization over another, with regard to speed or latency.”
• Schmidt, who’d previously noted that he expected Google to start making an acquisition per month, said that these would likely be small, five-to-ten-person companies. He added that it was unlikely the company would be in the market for something the size of a YouTube acquisition, which cost Google $1.65 billion. Translation: Don’t expect us to pony up billions for Twitter.

Earlier: My live coverage of the press conference:

Google (GOOG) co-founder Sergey Brin is sitting down with about a dozen reporters in Google’s New York City headquarters for a Q&A session. Tune in for live coverage. This should be a wide-ranging conversation, which I’ll attempt to cover live as well as I can. Please consider everything below to be a paraphrase unless it’s in quotes.

Brin is joined by Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Brin gives an unofficial intro.

Schmidt adds his own informal introduction.

Schmidt: We’re here because we have a global sales meeting in New York, and we’re winding that up right now. A series of internal talks, and the mood was “very, very positive.” We told them that “the worst is behind us” (which Schmidt has said before). We’re seeing recovery not just in the U.S., but in Europe as well. I had been in error in thinking it would be U.S. first, then Europe second. Asia is less important, obviously. We’re increasing our hiring rate and investment rate in an anticipation of a recovery.

Brin discusses some tweaks to search. Do you feel that Microsoft’s innovations with Bing will cause you to accelerate your innovations?

Brin: Competition is healthy. Microsoft (MSFT) has made its contributions. So has Cuill. Many of the tweaks in Bing we’d already seen from Microsoft Live earlier in the year.

Schmidt: I agree!

But do you think Bing is really different? Or just a rebranding.

Brin: [Demurs]

Schmidt: You guys should judge us and our competitors. We’ve been criticized for having a self-referential view of the world. But I’d argue that our success so far proves that’s been a good strategy.

Please talk about Android and other mobile plans.

Brin: We started with Android because it was a problem for us, as an end-user and a developer, that phones lacked powerful browsers and the ability to install powerful apps. I think Android has addressed this very well, but it has also pushed the market. It has pushed Apple (AAPL) with the iPhone and RIM (RIMM) and Windows Mobile. I’m pretty excited about the future; they’re getting increasingly capable browsers, and you can now write native applications across five platforms that will cover most smart phones. I think that having the software platform has freed the hardware makers from spending time on that, and they can rejuvenate their efforts on hardware.

Please talk about enterprise efforts.

Brin: We started in enterprise, like mobile, to address our own needs. When we started with mail in ’04, Web email was like a toy. We really focused on something that would work in an enterprise and then made it available to consumers. We feel we’re farther ahead (than competitors) both in email and in collaborative document-editing. We’re moving toward eventually having everything (all our applications) available everywhere. “I just think the cloud model is a better model….I do think this install-less model of a cloud is better….It’s definitely made me more productive.”

More on enterprise from Brin: We’ve been successful with both SMB [small and medium business] and increasingly with enterprise. We’ve got a big implementation with Genetech (DNA), and in Washington D.C. We’re specifically adding features for enterprise. That’s part of the Postini acquisition–to add some of those email features for enterprises. You’d be surprised to hear some of the things businesses ask for.

Please talk about recent Gmail outages.

Brin: Certainly we’re not happy with any outages. With those outages we’re at the “three nines” level, which is not where we want to be. Targeting “four nines” by end of quarter. We’ll let you know how we do. Focusing not only on outages, which we don’t like, but recovery time. Second outage could have been resolved in five or ten minutes, but we made errors in handling it, and it extended over an hour. But if you look at a typical enterprise today, those outages tend to add up to more than even these kinds of outages that we had in Q3. Also, we’re working on the number of people affected by outages. Trying to group people into pods so that if one goes down it doesn’t affect others.

You’re adding more complexity to search. It’s more confusing than it ever was. Same thing with site links. Is that an issue (it is for Danny Sullivan)?

Brin: I’d like to see all the options, available in all the corpuses. We don’t have all the same options in each offering. In terms of the links and snippets that we’re offering, we’re trying to experiment with that.

On Google book deal: If the judge asked you why he shouldn’t be concerned by the concentration of Google’s power, what would you say?

Schmidt: It’s an error to answer a theoretical question from a journalist. But anyway, we won’t get that kind of question. With respect to book search, we were doing something that we thought was appropriate. We were sued, and after three years of discussion, we’ve come to a settlement. This is perfectly normal. From our perspective, this is a settlement we like, it’s a settlement we think they’ll like, and we’ll hear what the court says, within minutes. Let me reframe your question: There’s nothing particularly exclusive about what we’re doing. The rights registry we’re doing is for the benefit of orphan works. “It’s not a particularly good business for us. We’re going it because we think it’s the right thing to do.” We don’t think the settlement is perfect, but we think it’s good.

What are plans to expand book search?

Schmidt: We’re already huge. There are millions of books that have never been read, and we’re going to deliver readers to those books.

Brin: We want as many works as possible in some form, because that’s of tremendous value.

Schmidt: This doesn’t cover all international books, all books in the world. [Some disagreement about this between Brin and Schmidt]. It will take time to get the registry up and running, so for the near future I think that’s all we can achieve.

Back to the economy, please.

Schmidt: We’ve tried for a while to figure out if Google is an accurate predictor of the economy, and we can’t prove it. If we could, we’d brag about it. Last early in the year we saw a decline in U.K., which surprised us. From our perspective, the low point was somewhere in the spring. Which is why I said worst was behind us in May, June. We noticed a recovery “June-ish.” The conventional wisdom is that U.S. recessions are 18-24 months. Bernanke sees a recovery too, which we agree with. Conventional wisdom was that Europe would lag by three-five months, which we’re not seeing. Europe is not one country, and it varies a great deal depending on which country we’re in. I won’t go in to specifics but it’s the obvious stuff–the countries that didn’t have a big bump did not have a big fall. More on being a leading indicator: Obviously we’re a leading indicator in advertising.

Brin: And we’re good indicator for consumer spending, and you can see for yourself by looking at Google trends.

It seems as if Chrome isn’t having the impact with consumers that you would like.

Brin: [Starts, then stopped by Schmidt]

Schmidt: Some of your premise about Chrome is incorrect, in terms of adoption, and we’re going to get that message out.

Brin: It’s actually exceeding our benchmarks.

Schmidt: I see a lot of Macs in this room, and a lot of very sophisticated people are using Macs now and we need to get a version of Chrome out for that, which we’ll have in a couple of months. Key to browser strength is speed. In general, we announced Chrome OS and Chromium product. Everything is linked together: Cloud, chrome, etc.

At one point do Android and the Chrome OS come together or not come together?

Schmidt: Current definition of use platforms has to do with use patterns. Android for mobile, delivered via telecom store, heavily integrated with telco offerings, like our Verizon (VZ) deal, which we’re enormously excited about. The analog for Chrome is that it’s designed for a 10, 12-inch form factor. They both use Linux, etc. But they’re designed for different uses. [Netbooks?] May be some overlap there.

Is Google being too nice? Is there a rethinking of relationships with aggrieved groups?

Schmidt: In many ways we’ve always wanted to be this Google as opposed to the way we were perceived a few years ago. We’re particularly proud of the way we’re working with advertising agencies, which is very important to us. With the media industry, we’re having success with YouTube and YouTube monetization, and we’ll have more on that coming forward….”We have always wanted to have these partnerships….We’re learning how to do them in a way that they win, too.”

Brin: People can now differentiate between us and the Internet.

Schmidt: Google is an innovator. The Internet is causing collisions. Innovation plus collisions equals opportunity. For instance, the fact that Verizon has embraced most of the open principles that we put forth five years ago is shocking. “It’s pretty amazing. This is Verizon. It’s not some itty-bitty telecom start-up.”

Are you uncomfortable with Google employees’ sense of entitlement? [Per new Ken Auletta book]

Brin: [Refers to layoffs--Schmidt corrects him: "We did not have layoffs."] [Addendum: Schmidt was talking about Google closing engineering offices in Phoenix and other locations; Google did have layoffs last winter.] You’re right:

What do you think about publishers requiring pay walls, and how will you help surface that.

Schmidt: We’re starting with that YouTube. Overall, “there’s clearly a market for free content, and that market is the size of the Internet.” Also a market for subscription/paid. The analogy I would offer is TV. We all grew up with “free” TV. Now almost everyone pays for cable, and some people pay for pay-per-view, “which is ridiculously expensive,” but people will pay for particular events, like boxing. I think all three of those uses will emerge. We’re working on payment models, subscriptions, to enable that.

But what about surfacing paid content in search [this comes from WSJ.com editor Alan Murray]? Will you factor the desire of someone to pay for content into results?

Schmidt: We’re not going to use the price you use as our ranking in results. That’s not going to be our signal. But we’ll incorporate the price people are paying for your content into results. But I’m not going to answer this precisely because I don’t want to discuss how we produce results. The most interesting improvement you could make is that to the degree that we have more of the marketplace data available, we could take that information and reflect some of that in our rankings.

The AP CEO said Google or Microsoft might be willing to pay a premium for an advance look at the news.

Schmidt: We have a deal with the AP, and I don’t want to talk about any specifics of any deal. I don’t think that’s proper. “We have to be very very careful not to favor one media organization over another, with regard to speed or latency.” We are staying out of the media business. “You guys are very good at it, and we’re not.”

[Apologies for tech error; I missed the specific question and part of the following exchange, but the subject is entitlement.]

Brin: We cut down on snacks, etc. to “reset expectations” regarding entitlement.

Schmidt: “Google pays very well. Google is clearly a growth company. People at Google don’t work for those reasons at Google. We don’t want them to come to work for Google for those reasons. We want people to come to Google to change the world. Life is short.” The tightening in the last year has been good for this, by the way, the controls put into place by Patrick Pichette, who is our hero, have been very helpful.

Please talk about M&A plans and goal of one acquisition per month.

Schmidt: That’s been our historic pattern. I think we will be buying small companies–five, ten people. That’s where some of our best stuff has been. One day Larry and Sergey bought Android, and I didn’t even notice. Think about the strategic opportunities that has created. Sergey found Google Earth one day while he was surfing on the Web. And then he walked into my office and told me he bought them. “And I said, ‘for how much, Sergey?’ And it turned out to be a few million.”

Would you buy a YouTube?

Schmidt: Is there another one to buy? The problem with that size of acquisition is that you have to make your money back. I think that DoubleClick and YouTube will be two of our best acquisitions. DoubleClick is already close to paying back, and YouTube will get there soon. But bear in mind that any major acquisition now will involve a regulatory review, because of our size and because our competitors will make sure of that.

[Sorry, missed another question]

Do you anticipate making large upfront commitments for new or renewed search deals [as you did with MySpace and AOL]?

Schmidt: I’d rather not comment on search deals. We are in discussions with both of those companies. “Some of our best friends are in those companies.”

[Missed yet another one]

What will new tablet machines [like Apple's] mean for you? And to content producers?

Brin: Hardware is getting amazing with regard to cost. Used to be that display was expensive. Now that’s cheap, and so are chips, etc. Now, the main cost is broadband connection, or cellular, or however you get to the Internet. That’s why wide broadband availability is important to us. Think about how much you spend on access costs compared to the amount you spend on your handset. The phone cost is negligible.

Schmidt: Not sure how to answer question. We provide the infrastructure below what you’re talking about [touch interfaces, etc.]. Kindle is a good example. Don’t think about current one, think about one two or three years out. I think there will be many kinds of things like Kindles, and that’s a material change in the way people will interact with hardware, media.

Brin: I think it’s better if hardware isn’t locked down to specific platforms.

[Long exchange between Schmidt and Danny Sullivan that I'll have to pick up later]

Should Google be required to lease servers and access to Google checkout numbers to deal with “lock-in” issues that broke up the telcos?

Schmidt: Google Checkout isn’t interesting. But I think your analogy is wrong and that there are no data to support your theses.

[I missed the next question on the book settlement about orphan works, etc.]

Schmidt: A lot of these complaints are being made by people who don’t want a solution.

What are the reasonable book settlement proposals you’ve seen?

Schmidt: Goal is to get all the books to everyone and to get all the authors compensated properly. Some of the proposals make sense to me, but I don’t want to characterize them. Not a perfect solution, but the best one we can do.

How will book settlement affect international users?

Brin: It won’t. We’d love settlements that work across a range of countries.

Why won’t you be like Microsoft with regard to antitrust?

Schmidt: Many reasons. Culture, for one. Another reason is that majority of users are one click away from moving away from us. Third: If we went into an “evil room” and had an “evil light” shined on us, and we then behaved in an “evil way” we would be destroyed….There is a fundamental trust between Google and its users.”

Schmidt walks through “ludicrous” thought experiment whereby Chrome takes 80 percent of market share and then tries to lock consumers in, noting that it wouldn’t work due to open source.

Do you think you’ll take another stab at moving into radio, print?

Brin: We are quite optimistic on the TV front. Radio and print didn’t pan out as well as we thought initially. One of the reasons is that those mediums are moving online and consumers are moving online and the publishers/producers want to work with us there. “We were kind of at the dock where the ship had already left.” But TV is quite similar to the Web in terms, potentially, of measurability, so we’re excited about those prospects.

Is page rank broken? People are gaming it, etc.

Brin: No. We have to continually develop. Part of the issue is span, but the main issue is that everything changes. We’re doing a much better job of ranking than we did a decade ago. If we just rested on our laurels with what we wrote in paper from 1998, we’d be in big trouble.

The search giant is planning to upgrade its existing Google Checkout payment service to handle a broad suite of billing and subscription services targeted at premium content creators like newspapers, according to a memo the company recently submitted to the Newspaper Association of America.

The memo, which went online this week, responds to the NAA’s open request for new “paid content” solutions earlier this summer. It was first spotted by the Nieman Journalism Lab.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

To keep you abreast of tech news while he’s away, we’re compiling a daily digest of 10 must-read tech stories. We’re calling it the Tech 10 and it appears below.

1. Retailing behemoth Wal-Mart will sell digital-music downloads on its Web site without copy protection, Reuters reports. The so-called digital-rights management software insisted on by some record labels can stymie where the average user plays the songs.
2. Taking on the juggernaut of iTunes, MTV and RealNetworks are forming an online digital music venture called Rhapsody America. According to The Wall Street Journal, Verizon Wireless has signed on as mobile distributor of the joint content.
3. Adobe Systems’ warhorse Flash Player is getting a makeover named “Moviestar.” The update, says InfoWorld’s Paul Krill, will bring high-definition video technology to downloads, affording clearer and smoother playback of images.
4. Increasingly popular online video site Metacafe got a shot in the arm in the form of $30 million in financing. VentureBeat reports that the latest cash infusion was led by new investors Highland Capital Partners and DAG Ventures.
5. Acknowledging it did bad (though not evil), Google announced last night that it would make credit-card refunds, rather than Google Checkout credits, to those owed after the company terminated its download-to-own/rent service of Google Videos. PC Magazine disclosed that the search giant will also allow users an additional six months to watch the videos they have already downloaded.
6. Fretting over security and productivity concerns, half of all companies in a recent survey are blocking employees’ access to Facebook. The poll of 600 workers by online security firm Sophos also found that two-thirds of all employees believe their colleagues are revealing too much information on the social-networking site, exposing them to cybercriminals bent on data theft and their companies to network hackers.
7. Bebo, the U.K.-centric social-networking site, has announced a partnership with Microsoft on a new instant-messaging service. According to Webware, the Windows Live Messenger hookup is only that–and not a signal of any impending acquisition.
8. Joining the social-networking parade, online business network CollectiveX has launched Groupsites. According to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, the new product opens up the buttoned-down service to allow users to create social profiles as well.
9. Upping the ante in the competition for giving laptop users more memory, Toshiba announced today that it will release a 320-gigabyte hard drive for its laptops by the end of the year. According to IDG News Service, for users of multimedia laptops–where storing video is paramount–the extra space will come as a welcome feature.



10. In a bow to color choice and the sexes, researchers have found that there’s truth in the the time-honored (if sexist) adage that girls like pink, boys like blue. Reporting on a study from two scientists at Newcastle University, the Independent did not confirm whether the findings were borne out in colors chosen by men and women for iPod skins.

–posted by Associate Editor John Sullivan

To keep you abreast of tech news while he’s away, we’re compiling a daily digest of 10 must-read tech stories. We’re calling it the Tech 10 and it appears below.

1. Retailing behemoth Wal-Mart will sell digital-music downloads on its Web site without copy protection, Reuters reports. The so-called digital-rights management software insisted on by some record labels can stymie where the average user plays the songs.
2. Taking on the juggernaut of iTunes, MTV and RealNetworks are forming an online digital music venture called Rhapsody America. According to The Wall Street Journal, Verizon Wireless has signed on as mobile distributor of the joint content.
3. Adobe Systems’ warhorse Flash Player is getting a makeover named “Moviestar.” The update, says InfoWorld’s Paul Krill, will bring high-definition video technology to downloads, affording clearer and smoother playback of images.
4. Increasingly popular online video site Metacafe got a shot in the arm in the form of $30 million in financing. VentureBeat reports that the latest cash infusion was led by new investors Highland Capital Partners and DAG Ventures.
5. Acknowledging it did bad (though not evil), Google announced last night that it would make credit-card refunds, rather than Google Checkout credits, to those owed after the company terminated its download-to-own/rent service of Google Videos. PC Magazine disclosed that the search giant will also allow users an additional six months to watch the videos they have already downloaded.
6. Fretting over security and productivity concerns, half of all companies in a recent survey are blocking employees’ access to Facebook. The poll of 600 workers by online security firm Sophos also found that two-thirds of all employees believe their colleagues are revealing too much information on the social-networking site, exposing them to cybercriminals bent on data theft and their companies to network hackers.
7. Bebo, the U.K.-centric social-networking site, has announced a partnership with Microsoft on a new instant-messaging service. According to Webware, the Windows Live Messenger hookup is only that–and not a signal of any impending acquisition.
8. Joining the social-networking parade, online business network CollectiveX has launched Groupsites. According to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, the new product opens up the buttoned-down service to allow users to create social profiles as well.
9. Upping the ante in the competition for giving laptop users more memory, Toshiba announced today that it will release a 320-gigabyte hard drive for its laptops by the end of the year. According to IDG News Service, for users of multimedia laptops–where storing video is paramount–the extra space will come as a welcome feature.



10. In a bow to color choice and the sexes, researchers have found that there’s truth in the the time-honored (if sexist) adage that girls like pink, boys like blue. Reporting on a study from two scientists at Newcastle University, the Independent did not confirm whether the findings were borne out in colors chosen by men and women for iPod skins.

–posted by Associate Editor John Sullivan