Google Squares Up To Amazon And Facebook

In the battle for mobile web supremacy, Google has seen off Nokia (for now at least) and is making Apple squirm, but as one rival declines, another rises up. The firm is besieged by Facebook's moves to create a full mobile platform, and now it is facing a showdown with Amazon over content and apps. Both battles were highlighted by recent developments in Android Market.

Focal Points:

• There are signs that Google will turn Android Market into a full-blown content store, which would rival Amazon's various mobile shops, and particularly its upcoming Android apps store. Users can now buy ebooks from the Market, and music and movies are likely to be on the horizon.
• Just as Apple's App Store can now tap into content platforms like iTunes and iBookstore, so Amazon is expected to differentiate its Android shop in the same way via its Kindle and downloads offerings. Google is responding in kind, and Market users can now purchase titles from its eBookstore, viewing them in the browser or downloading to an Android device, to read using the free Google Books app.
• As various bloggers have pointed out, movies and music are likely to follow. SlashGear says that typing the URLs market.android.com/movies/ and market.android.com/music/ does not prompt an error message such as 'page not found', as it used to do, but instead directs the user to the Android Market home page.
• Google may be beefing up the content in its store, but it has been emulating Apple and Amazon in other ways too, notably taking a tighter grip on what it will allow developers to do. Like Apple, it has barred certain apps that bypass its new in-app purchasing system, and with the release of an update for the Nexus S smartphone, it is hinting at clipping Facebook's wings, divorcing the social app from the handset's contacts book.
• The Nexus S - made by Samsung but branded by Google - is an important Android device not for its sales volumes, but because it is a developer showcase and gets all OS updates first, making it a valuable indicator of software directions - and programmer reaction to them. With the release of the Android 2.3.3 update for Nexus S, Google is preventing the official Facebook app from integrating directly with the phone's Contacts app. Previously, Facebook for Android had a function that merged its stored contact data with that functionality on the handset, creating a synchronized contacts list, but now, users will only be able to access the Facebook directory through the app, not from the handset list.
• According to Google, the move brings Facebook in line with other companies offering Android services, which need to leverage the Android Contacts API. Facebook had been granted an exception that allowed its contact data to remain in the cloud.

"We believe it is very important that users are able to control their data," Google said in a statement. "So in the over-the-air update for Nexus S, we have a small change to how Facebook contacts appear on the device. For Nexus S users who downloaded the Facebook app from Android Market, Facebook contacts will no longer appear to be integrated with the Android Contacts app. Since Facebook contacts cannot be exported from the device, the appearance of integration created a false sense of data portability. Facebook contact data will continue to appear within the Facebook app." The social app is the second most popular on Android after Google Maps.