“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.

From Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land:

Google sent out notification to its AdWords advertisers that this month “your location-specific business phone number will display alongside your destination url in ads that appear on high-end mobile devices. Users will be able to click-to-call your business just as easily as they click to visit your website. You’ll be charged for clicks to call, same as you are for clicks to visit your website.”

Note that this offer doesn’t appear to be specific to phones running Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system. And it appears to be running in addition to Google’s practice of providing phone numbers in organic search results, which also essentially provide “click to call” options for smartphone users.

In Sterling’s words: “This is a version, effectively, of “pay-per-phone call” but the cost per call is the same as a click–a bargain (generally speaking) for the advertisers to receive a ‘warm lead.’”

Google first started playing around with “click to call” programs for conventional Web search four years ago. In that scenario, you gave Google your phone number (this was designed for landline use, really), and it connected calls to advertisers on your behalf.

Google eventually moved on, since no one seemed to use this option (though you can still see traces of the program here). But connecting mobile users with advertisers ought to be a very lucrative proposition, so no surprise that Google is still chasing after this.

If the journey was steady, though, the communication was anything but. Google (GOOG) has shifted its language along the way and even outright denied the smartphone project once or twice.

The Nexus One, news of which got out a few weeks ago, might not be the innovative free-to-all everyone was fantasizing about, but it represents the most significant mobile announcement from Google to date, using its Android operating system software.

More to the point, Nexus One, the Silicon Valley search giant’s most aggressive attack on the hegemony of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, will finally be unveiled today at an event that will be ably covered by Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski, starting at about 10 am PT.

But overall, it was a pretty sneaky journey from there to here.

So, here is the visual history, using our new All Things Digital slideshow format.

During an Android demo this past April, Google’s Steve Horowitz said specifically “I’m here to tell you there is actually no GPhone,” echoing a similar point that Google CEO Eric Schmidt had been forced to make over and over and over again during a conference call held to discuss the OS.

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…”

This time at the expense of the eminently mockable gPhone from Google–or lack thereof!

Click on the image to make it bigger:

Android, as Google’s calling it, is a complete “stack” of software for mobile phones, backed by a consortium of companies called the Open Handset Alliance. (Interestingly, Verizon, which was rumored to be interested in Google’s wireless efforts, isn’t yet a member.)

“Android is the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices,” Andy Rubin, Google’s director of mobile platforms, explained in a blog post this morning. “It includes an operating system, user interface and applications–all of the software to run a mobile phone, but without the proprietary obstacles that have hindered mobile innovation. … Through deep partnerships with carriers, device manufacturers, developers and others, we hope to enable an open ecosystem for the mobile world by creating a standard, open mobile software platform. We think the result will ultimately be a better and faster pace for innovation that will give mobile customers unforeseen applications and capabilities.”

The first phones based on Android are expected in the second half of 2008. And no, Google isn’t building one of them, as CEO Eric Schmidt pointed out over and over again during a conference call to discuss Android this morning.

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..

Previously:

• Report: Google May or May Not Reveal Phone Project Monday!
• The Mobile Apps Are Great, but the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ Dial Function Really Makes It
• First Gphone Line Forms in New York Times Newsroom
• We Believe in One Godphone, the Handset Almighty …
• ‘We’re Not Doing a Mobile Phone’ Added to Norton Anthology of False Denials
• The Gphone: Exclusively From Sprint Nextel and Google?

In the interest of time-saving, we will group them all here in one easy list that you can clip and save.

DEALS AFOOT?:

Yes, there is always a lot of sniffing around out there, especially given that a lot of Web 2.0 companies are more likely to be acquired than go public.

Do look for smaller ad networks to be bought up in the wake of a spate of bigger sales of late–DoubleClick to Google, aQuantive to Microsoft, Right Media and BlueLithium to Yahoo).

Now, it looks like AOL might get into the game again, after presciently grabbing Advertising.com way back in 2004 for $435 million. The new target, in a deal that a source close to the company said is “80% there,” is Quigo–the content-targeting ad network. The price? About $300 million.

Less likely for action are some other names being bandied about.

WordPress (the blogging software and hosting company AllThingsD.com uses), for example, has some suitors and is contemplating a sale after some offers. But don’t bet on it.

And RockYou is not being bought by, say, Yahoo–at least not this week. While rumors of wild valuations for the No. 2 maker of widgets on Facebook (Slide usually outranks it) have been bandied about, it has not had any significant talks with anyone.

GOOGLE GETS FRIENDLY (EXCEPT TO FACEBOOK):

As we wrote in a post yesterday, contrary to rumors, the Google project (codenamed Maka-Maka, doubtlessly by that wacky pair, Graham Spencer and Joe Kraus, pictured here, formerly of JotSpot and Excite, who worked on it) was imminent. As in now. Right now. This instant.

Officially named OpenSocial, it is a way to create a social graph over the Web that is open to third-party apps friendly and, as I wrote, is indeed both a “real attempted assault on the Facebook platform or more of a way to widely spread the gospel of social networking (and, thus, an assault on the Facebook platform).”

While Google has signed a bunch of prominent partners, it has yet to grab the No. 2 social-networking site Facebook (unlikely) and the No. 1 MySpace (much more likely, but don’t hold your breath). But it’s definitely a put-up-or-shut-up dare by the search giant, especially given Facebook’s professed love of openness.

Who knows if it will catch on, given that it is clear it is all in the hands of the apps developer community. If not, it will surely be a big black eye for Google, if it can’t motivate widely beyond search.

FACEBOOK IS A BIG BOY NOW:

It looks like former Yahoo Mike Murphy–who heads ad sales at Facebook (and is pictured here)–is finally getting his ducks in order with a new ad offering to be called SocialAds next week at its big confab in NYC.

Unlike the competition’s contextual ad programs, this will be squarely aimed at people’s self-expressed interests and demographics.

And, of course, Microsoft will be Facebook’s partner in serving the ads, for now at least. Good lord, it has bought and paid for this date many times over, so a fine time must be had by all!

I can’t tell you how thrilled we are that Facebook (and that nice boy Mark Zuckerberg) is finally putting some meat on its skinny little business model to take advantage of its fast-growing popularity.

But let’s keep in mind that it remains to be seen how lucrative this kind of ad network is and how scalable it is across the Web (and not just on Facebook).

It will also be interesting to see if the offering is truly innovative and different than existing solutions–or if it just serves up some dumb and useless ad for blood supplies, because you happen to be playing Vampire a little too much.

(We’re teasing, Mark, but not very much at all.)

OH, YES, THAT GPHONE:

More open verbiage from Google, which will roll out a mobile-phone operating system of software and services for a new kind of open cellphone sometime in this millennium (are you as sick of the speculation about the Gphone as I am?).

Since we’re talked out, here’s a much better Wall Street Journal Online video on the subject:

BOVINE UPDATE

Yahoo’s holy cows? Still sacred and going strong!

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

In a press conference following Google Analyst Day, company Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin confirmed Google’s plans to bid in the FCC’s upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction, but declined to discuss the mobile-phone strategy that might make use of it–apparently leaving that task to The Wall Street Journal.

According to a report in the publication today, Google will officially disclose its long-anticipated plans for Google-powered phones within the next two weeks. The devices will reportedly feature Google’s standard mobile applications (Maps, etc.) and more interestingly, a customized open-source operating system, which would allow third-party developers to build applications beyond those offered by Google. From the Journal:

The Google-powered phones are expected to wrap together several Google applications–among them, its search engine, Google Maps, YouTube and Gmail email–that have already made their way onto some mobile devices. The most radical element of the plan, though, is Google’s push to make the phones’ software ‘open’ right down to the operating system, the layer that controls applications and interacts with the hardware. That means independent software developers would get access to the tools they need to build additional phone features.

“Developers could, for instance, more easily create services that take advantage of users’ Global Positioning System location, contact lists and Web-browsing habits. They also would be able to interact with Google Maps and other Google applications. The idea is that a range of new social networking, mapping and other services would emerge, just as they have on the open, mostly unfettered Web. Google, meanwhile, could gather user data to show targeted ads to cellphone users.”

And don’t forget the mobile commerce element. Google-powered phones might even offer customers a way to pay for goods from vending machines and retailers via text message.

Anyway … The company has approached a number of handset makers and wireless operators about partnering in the effort, which it hopes to bring to market by the middle of 2008.

Previously:

• First Gphone Line Forms in New York Times Newsroom
• We Believe in One Godphone, the Handset Almighty …
• ‘We’re Not Doing a Mobile Phone’ Added to Norton Anthology of False Denials
• The Gphone: Exclusively From Sprint Nextel and Google?

In a press conference following Google Analyst Day, company Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin confirmed Google’s plans to bid in the FCC’s upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction, but declined to discuss the mobile-phone strategy that might make use of it–apparently leaving that task to The Wall Street Journal.

According to a report in the publication today, Google will officially disclose its long-anticipated plans for Google-powered phones within the next two weeks. The devices will reportedly feature Google’s standard mobile applications (Maps, etc.) and more interestingly, a customized open-source operating system, which would allow third-party developers to build applications beyond those offered by Google. From the Journal:

The Google-powered phones are expected to wrap together several Google applications–among them, its search engine, Google Maps, YouTube and Gmail email–that have already made their way onto some mobile devices. The most radical element of the plan, though, is Google’s push to make the phones’ software ‘open’ right down to the operating system, the layer that controls applications and interacts with the hardware. That means independent software developers would get access to the tools they need to build additional phone features.

“Developers could, for instance, more easily create services that take advantage of users’ Global Positioning System location, contact lists and Web-browsing habits. They also would be able to interact with Google Maps and other Google applications. The idea is that a range of new social networking, mapping and other services would emerge, just as they have on the open, mostly unfettered Web. Google, meanwhile, could gather user data to show targeted ads to cellphone users.”

And don’t forget the mobile commerce element. Google-powered phones might even offer customers a way to pay for goods from vending machines and retailers via text message.

Anyway … The company has approached a number of handset makers and wireless operators about partnering in the effort, which it hopes to bring to market by the middle of 2008.

Previously:

• First Gphone Line Forms in New York Times Newsroom
• We Believe in One Godphone, the Handset Almighty …
• ‘We’re Not Doing a Mobile Phone’ Added to Norton Anthology of False Denials
• The Gphone: Exclusively From Sprint Nextel and Google?

Because Google isn’t developing a cellphone, it’s developing a cellphone operating system. With it, the company hopes to replicate its online success in the mobile world and give Microsoft’s Windows Mobile OS a run for its money as part of the deal. “The essential point is that Google’s strategy is to lead the creation of an open-source competitor to Windows Mobile,” one industry executive told the New York Times. “They will put it in the open-source world and take the economics out of the Windows Mobile business.”

And that makes quite a bit more sense than the idea of Google suddenly leaping into the hardware business with a full-blown Google handset. Better to extend your services and advertising to the roughly two billion consumers world-wide who use mobile devices than try and sell them an entirely new mobile device, right?

So let’s just all agree to suspend the will-they-or-won’t-they speculation over the much rumored GPhone from Google.

The Wall Street Journal’s Kevin Delaney and Amol Sharma wrote a nice wrap-up yesterday of the plans by the search giant to create a mobile handset.

And why not, especially since a lot of growth in advertising is expected to come from the mobile market in the future, as more robust phones arrive and are used for even more computing by the average user. Now mobile ads sales are in the paltry $1.5 billion range annually, but it’s predicted to be going to almost $15 billion only a few years from now.

The GPhones, however they are made and sold, would also presumably carry all the various Google applications (like search and mail) that have been popping up on other handsets, the most recent example being Google mapping services on Apple’s iPhone.

As Google CEO Eric Schmidt said as much in secret business code to Walt Mossberg in an interview he did in May at the D5 conference (the video of the entire interview is embedded below): “What’s interesting about the ads in the mobile phone is that they are twice as profitable or more than the non-mobile phone ads because they’re more personal.”

Translated: We’re jumping in with our big feet asap!

And Google’s recent activity in the upcoming wireless-spectrum license auction by the government should pretty much put to rest any other doubts, given it could eventually allow it to turn into a phone company.

And, oh yeah, they hired phone guru and Sidekick creator Andy Rubin a while back. And you don’t have to be a psychic to know he–wait for it–is working on a phone.

Because he is.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Given Google’s well-documented efforts to set up a free Wi-Fi network in San Francisco, we believe the upcoming spectrum auctions could represent a rare opportunity for the company to acquire something resembling an exclusive (licensed) nationwide WiMax footprint, and largely eliminate any access dependency on third parties. As such, we believe Google’s potential involvement bears watching, especially in light of the fact the company has shown little hesitation in delving into the other aspects of networking. Google’s selection of equipment vendors, such as Force10 and Infinera, indicate to us a willingness to embrace leading-edge technologies, and we believe WiMax fits that description.”

–Joe Chiasson, Susquehanna Financial Group, February 2006

This morning Google announced an alliance with Sprint Nextel that will see the two companies working together to bring Google’s search, digital mapping technologies and GTalk chat service to Sprint’s WiMax network, which, once it’s completed, will theoretically allow wireless Web access at speeds and prices similar to cable connections.

The deal follows the announcement of Sprint’s plans to collaborate with Clearwire to build out a nationwide WiMax network by the end of 2008. It also follows Google’s conditional pledge to drop at least $4.6 billion on the Federal Communications Commission’s auction of the 700-megahertz spectrum, which has long been said to be the future of WiMax (with fewer line-of-sight issues and wider coverage and better building penetration).

Coincidence? Or part of a master plan in which Google wins the 700-megahertz spectrum, uses it to help complete the Sprint/Clearwire nationwide WiMax network effort and then announces the long-rumored Google Phone–upending the telco-cable duopoly in the process?

• Open applications: Consumers should be able to download and utilize any software applications, content or services they desire;

• Open devices: Consumers should be able to utilize a handheld communications device with whatever wireless network they prefer;
• Open services: Third parties (resellers) should be able to acquire wireless services from a 700 MHz licensee on a wholesale basis, based on reasonably nondiscriminatory commercial terms; and
• Open networks: Third parties (like Internet service providers) should be able to interconnect at any technically feasible point in a 700 MHz licensee’s wireless network.

As Chris Sacca, head of Google’s wireless initiatives, notes over at Google’s Policy Blog, “all four of these conditions adopted together would promote a spirit of openness and could spur additional forms of competition from Web-based entities, such as software-applications providers, content providers, handset-makers and ISPs. The big winners? Consumers.”

And don’t forget Google, which sure as Shinola will use that “spirit of openness” to make its applications and AdWords even more ubiquitous than they are now. And that’s the subtext here, isn’t it? Because what Google’s attempting to buy here isn’t necessarily a wireless network, but the assurance that it will be open regardless of who wins the FCC auction. And that’s sure to come in handy whenever the company gets around to finally launching the GPhone and whatever 3G home-base station technology that inspired its investment, rumored to be a significant one, in femtocell start-up Ubiquisys.

• Open applications: Consumers should be able to download and utilize any software applications, content or services they desire;

• Open devices: Consumers should be able to utilize a handheld communications device with whatever wireless network they prefer;
• Open services: Third parties (resellers) should be able to acquire wireless services from a 700 MHz licensee on a wholesale basis, based on reasonably nondiscriminatory commercial terms; and
• Open networks: Third parties (like Internet service providers) should be able to interconnect at any technically feasible point in a 700 MHz licensee’s wireless network.

As Chris Sacca, head of Google’s wireless initiatives, notes over at Google’s Policy Blog, “all four of these conditions adopted together would promote a spirit of openness and could spur additional forms of competition from Web-based entities, such as software-applications providers, content providers, handset-makers and ISPs. The big winners? Consumers.”

And don’t forget Google, which sure as Shinola will use that “spirit of openness” to make its applications and AdWords even more ubiquitous than they are now. And that’s the subtext here, isn’t it? Because what Google’s attempting to buy here isn’t necessarily a wireless network, but the assurance that it will be open regardless of who wins the FCC auction. And that’s sure to come in handy whenever the company gets around to finally launching the GPhone and whatever 3G home-base station technology that inspired its investment, rumored to be a significant one, in femtocell start-up Ubiquisys.