I guess the lesson learned here is: you have to advertise your products!  Apple and Motorola/Verizon inundated television with commercials for their phones.  Google’s marketing plan so far is to have text and image ads all over the web via Google AdWords/AdSense.  Combine the lack of television advertising with the fact that you can only purchase the Nexus One through Google.com, and you have a recipe for disaster.  You can go to any Apple or AT&T store and hold an iPhone in your hands, or you can visit the Verizon store for a demo of the Droid.  Being able to actually use an expensive product before purchase means a lot.  Not to mention that stores and salespeople have a vested interest in making you buy their phone.  When Verizon or AT&T gets you in their store, they can do the hard sell, and they can up-sell you service plans and accessories.  When you go to google.com/phone, you will see an awesome demo of the Nexus One, but all you have to do is close your browser when you've had enough.

Selling consumer electronics is not like launching Google Maps.  The Nexus One can’t be in ‘beta’ for 3 years.  If Google search goes down, so what?  Users will switch over to Yahoo! or Bing.  If a user’s Nexus One locks up, they are going to want immediate customer service.  When you shell out a couple hundred bucks for a phone and it doesn’t work, you’re not going to be too pleased with searching a support forum for answers.

Unless Google finds a partner to help them sell and service the Nexus One (T-Mobile is the Nexus One network, but they don’t provide customer sales or support), the Motorola Droid will continue to be the Android top dog (until the next big think comes along in about 10 minutes ).

Sony Vaio L-Series

Microsoft is making a big mistake.  They have a great deal of amazing technology, but they are keeping it all a secret from the public.  It's not just Microsoft.  Many tech companies are failing to market their products effectively.  It's not that they don't advertise, but they don't produce the right type of advertising, and in some cases, not enough.

Last week, two friends and I took a trip to the mall for lunch.  After a quick bite at the food court, we strolled the mall and hit the usual spots.  We stopped in the Apple store, browsed the over-priced gadget stores, and popped our heads into SonyStyle.  Among the huge and brilliant LCDs sat an all-in-one Sony Vaio desktop computer, similar in function to an iMac but with a industrial look.

The Sony Vaio L-Series computer is an all-in-one desktop computer with a multi-touch touchscreen display and Windows 7.  Prices range from $1200 to $2000, but the one we played with had these specs:

• 24 inch HD touchscreen monitor
• Quad-core processor
• 6 GBs of RAM
• Wireless Keyboard & Mouse
• 1/2 TB Hard drive
• BluRay
• Windows 7 64-bit
• TV Tuner with Remote

We explored the outstanding Windows 7 multi-touch features and admired the sleek hardware.  Then we happened upon an application called Microsoft Surface Globe.  We were blown away.  We carried on like kids in a candy store as we tilted and rotated the globe, zoomed down to street level, and viewed New York then Orlando then the Mall in which we were standing all in 3D and all without a mouse.  The multi-touch display and software worked effortlessly.  All the while, we kept asking each other why we didn't know about this.  Why didn't Sony and Microsoft produce a simple commercial demonstrating this computer and software?  And then one of said it.  "You know, sort of like Apple does."

Apple will someday release a multi-touch iMac and MacBook, and the world will gasp!  Apple will flood the airwaves with straight-forward advertising in which the super-cool iMac Touch is put through its paces.  The New York Times and CNN.com will run the story on their homepages.  The general public will assume that Apple invented the multi-touch computer.  And God bless them!  Why shouldn't they push their products?

The multi-touch computer is but one example.  Below is a very incomplete list of products that I almost never see advertised.  I guess I'll have to spread the word for Microsoft, et al., since they are too busy making high-concept "I'm a PC" adverts.

• Microsoft Surface
• SanDisk Sansa Clip
• Bing Maps Beta
• Photosynth
• HP TouchSmart PC

This is just a small sampling of products off the top of my head that deserve better marketing.  I have a passion for tech, so I will be on the tech blogs reading about these and other products, but why would major tech firms not want to be  in the public's mind with Apple?  Speaking of Apple, I can't wait for Apple to release its long-rumored 'slate' computer.  I hear they invented a new type of computer called the 'tablet'!  Why didn't Microsoft and the PC OEMs think of something like this years ago?  Kinda makes you wonder...

Advertising pays the bills, and I have little problem with it as long as the reader understands that the website has sponsors, and their sponsors can apply editorial pressure on the content.  The same can be said of BackingIn.com.

I use Google AdSense advertising service on BackingIn.com in the hopes of one day making a profit.  I try to stay true to my opinions when writing posts, but there may come a day when I face a dilemma.  For example, in the future, I may have car dealership as a sponsor. I begin to write a post bashing a product that they sell, but before publishing it I wonder if my post will cause me to lose that sponsor.  What do I do?  Do I push the 'publish' button?  I actually hope to face that problem in the future because it will mean that people are visiting my site and it is generating some revenue, but I will burn that bridge when I come to it.

Back to the animated ads dilemma.  Google recently pushed an animated ad to BackingIn.com.  It wasn't that annoying.  It animated once then stopped, but I now produce a product that contains a form of advertising that I despise.  What to do?  AdSense does not have an option to choose animated vs. static image ads.  I could go back to just allowing Google to push text ads to BackingIn, but the image ads pay much more per click.

I am very interested in what others think about advertising on the web.  I'm pretty sure we all hate 'pop up' ads and 'fly in' ads (ads that animate over the page that you're reading...you have to find the little 'x' to close it...), but what about the animated ads?  Am I the only one that can't stand them?