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The G1, a new mobile device from HTC available and featuring Google’s brand spankin’ new mobile platform Android, is now officially available at T-mobile.

But should you ditch your Blackberry, Palm, iPhone, etc to get one?

The G1 has a touch screen, similar to the iPhone, but it doesn’t have multitouch. It has a mobile application version of the Amazon mp3 store, which I love and use all the time for DRM-free music.

Unfortunately, you’ll need an adapter for that headphone jack to listen to all that music. Plus, you’ll have to purchase a memory card to store your music, and you can only do so up to 8GB.

The G1 does have a slider keypad, which I would love. I’ve had my iPhone for months, but typing on it is still a pain. Prior to that, I had the Samsung Glyde for a couple of weeks and loved the slider keypad. (It was just everything else that was a pain.)

So, should you or shouldn’t you? Here’s what the reviewers who have are saying:

Gizmodo

The G1 phone and the Android operating system are not finished products. There are only three working Google Apps here—Gmail, Maps and Calendar—while Google Docs, Google News, Google Reader, Google Shopping, Google Images, Google Video, Blogger and Picasa are nowhere to be found. What’s the deal?

We have high hopes for third-party coders to fill in gaps Google intentionally or unintentionally left in this OS. There’s already a video player, and we’re sure VLC will try and port some kind of version over. But your question is not whether the phone will be great down the line, it’s whether or not it’s good enough for you to buy it now.

The answer depends most on who you are. Despite all the UI quirks and bad design decisions, it’s still better than other smartphone OSes out there. It’s not perfect, but for people who like tinkering, its cons are outweighed by its pros such as Gmail and the Marketplace. Hopefully Android updates and more ports of Google apps will augment not just future phones but this one too. This isn’t something you’re going to give your mom for Christmas, but if you’re an adventuresome gadget guy with some money to spend ($179) on a totally new, pretty exciting venture, then why not?

CrunchGear

If you’ve been waiting for Android then I suggest you keep waiting. The overall OS seems to be held together by duct tape and needs a lot of work. Apple focuses on the minute details to enrich the overall experience for iPhone users and Android could learn a lesson or ten from it. The hardware design is dated and while the touch-screen and keyboard are great you can’t just forget about the wretched battery life, horrible GPS and the overall ergonomics of it. I wish the G1 were better in every respect because I don’t think the iPhone is that great, but I find myself wishing it were more like it. It’s the best alternative to the iPhone, but it’s just not there yet.

CNET

While we’re not in love with the design and would have liked some additional features, the real beauty of the T-Mobile G1 is the Google Android platform, as it has the potential to make smartphones more personal and powerful. That said, it’s not quite there yet, so for now, the G1 is best suited for early adopters and gadget hounds, rather than consumers and business users.

Engadget

When you put the G1 up against, say, a Sidekick LX, it seems like a no-brainer for T-Mobile customers looking for a powerful QWERTY device — especially at $20 less. You don’t need to be a cutting-edge mobile geek or a pundit to do that math. When facing off with platforms like the iPhone and Windows Mobile devices, it holds its own, but has a lot of ground to cover before it’s really making the competition sweat. Still, if you’re just excited to be a part of a platform that’s likely going to be around for a very, very long time, the G1’s a totally reasonable day-to-day device to make it happen, and we expect some pretty great things from this corner of the market down the road.

Walt Mossberg at All Things Digital

Overall, the G1 is a very good first effort, and a godsend for people who prefer physical keyboards or T-Mobile but want to be part of the new world of powerful pocket computers.

Yahoo announced today the general public availability of their SearchMonkey program. This is a program that has been in beta testing with limited partners. It allows the partner to provide Yahoo with structured data that provides advanced information about a web page. This information is then used by Yahoo to influence the presentation of organic search listing results for that page.

This is a very powerful concept in that a modified search listing can surely influence click through rates. Imagine your search listing with an image and several related links built in. Let’s look at a quick example:

You can see additional examples in my interview with Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins. The interview was published this past Monday and focuses on SearchMonkey.

The basic process for creating SearchMonkey applications is straightforward. SearchMonkey supports multiple formats, including microformats, RDFa, eRDF, XML feeds, and APIs such as OpenSearch, so publishers have many options for exposing the data.

In addition, developers can build sophisticated applications into the search results. An example of this is the notion of an InfoBar. With an InfoBar, you can actually put an active control in your search listing result. When users click on the control, you mini application will run and can present additional data that displays inline right on the Yahoo search results page.

Here is what it looks like:

The InfoBar provides a very powerful mechanism for managing complex interactions with users right on the Yahoo search results screen. This should have significant value from a branding and click through perspective.

Here is a summary of the development process:

1. Application Type – Decide what type of app you want to build (Enhanced Result or Infobar) and enter basic info such as application name, description, and icon.
2. Trigger URLs – Decide the URL patterns that will trigger your app.
3. Data Services – Data Services are the structured data on which SearchMonkey apps are based. They can be created using data available in the Yahoo! Search index (via data feeds or page mark-up such as microformats or RDF) or by using APIs or page extraction.
4. Appearance - Use PHP to configure how structured data should appear in the application.

Commentary

Note step 2, the one in which your application gets activated. A critical part of the program will be determining when and where you would like your enhanced result to show up.

One key element of the program is that creating an enhanced result, or an InfoBar, does not mean that all users will be exposed to them. Users need to enable the enhanced listings on a publisher by publisher basis. In addition, users can change their minds later and remove your SearchMonkey application from their results.

I spoke to Amit Kumar, Director of Product Management at Yahoo, this past Tuesday, and he indicated that in the future that select SearchMonkey applications may get exposed to all comers. Applications that are adopted by lots of users, and not remove by many at all would be more likely to make this leap to general availability. This however, is not a certainty.

Amit also told me that Yahoo is going to setup a Gallery of such applications for users. This will be a place where the user can go to select an application and enable it. It will be interesting to see how much exposure the Gallery gets. This will play a critical role in the rate of adoption of these types of results. The publisher can, of course, promote their own application, and try to drive people to sign up for it.

Another thing that Amit emphasized during our conversation was that the effort level for developers to engage with SearchMonkey is quite low. The platform makes it really easy for them to engage. This could play a critical role in broadening adoption.

One thing I learned in my interview with Andrew, and also from his presentation at SES New York, is that building SearchMonkey applications will not help you improve your rankings. The program is not intended to be used for that purpose.

Personally, I’d like to see a stronger move towards exposing some of the applications to all users. This maybe a difficult thing to implement at some level, and it makes it far more susceptible to spam. But it would certainly accelerate the exposure of these types of applications to the general public.

The early action (in terms of users) will likely be driven by early adopters. Then we will need to see how widely it penetrates the market, and how aggressively Yahoo pushes it forward.

That said, this is exciting stuff. I have long been a believer that search engines should get more information from the publishers, in a structured format. Yahoo has taken a big step in that direction with this program.

Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

• We May Not Want Standards But FTC May Give Us Some
  The standards debate may be in full swing in our industry - but the decisions may be soon taken out of our hands if the FTC continues to define allowable advertising practices.
• Yahoo Execs Bad Mouthing AOL!
  Guess Yahoo does not want to partner with anyone these days… well apart from their biggest competitor Google.
• AdWords Launches New Conversion Tracking Tool
  A new update to AdWords tracking has been reported by the guys over at AccuraCast. Seems they have improved the conversion tracking allowing users to separate different things to track to conversion.
• As Wifi expands, local and mobile search continue to emerge
  Lately, there have been a swarm of announcements regarding Wifi coming to some previously unconnected spots. So what does this mean for Search Engine Marketers?
• Microsoft Updates Live Maps and Virtual Earth 3D
  Microsoft has announced 11 major updates to their Live Maps and Virtual Earth 3D.
• Trellian Acquires Addme.com
  Trellian, the company behind SEO Toolkit and Keyword Discovery, has announced its acquisition of SEO tools provider Addme.com.
• SEW Experts: Standards? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Standards!
  We don’t need SEO standards to define our operation for us; we simply need to hold ourselves to a higher standard of business.
• SEW Experts: SEM Tools of the Experts
  There are a variety of SEM tools available to search marketers. You should be able to find something to fit every need, and every style.
• SEW Experts: Think Universal, Act Local
  Much of the discussion around Universal search, or blended search, focuses on video and images. But local search may be a more important factor; one that has the greatest impact in blended search results.

Click to read the rest of this post…

Much of the discussion around Universal search, or blended search, focuses on video and images. In today’s Vertical Search column, “Think Universal, Act Local,” local search expert Michael Boland explains why local search may be a more important factor; one that has the greatest impact in blended search results.

Calm down – I know your heart is probably pounding like crazy right now, especially if you are working on your own blog which focuses on SEO. I felt the same way when I started reading Lee Odden’s post about Wordpress labeling SEO blogs as “banned .” Reading on, however, it was made [...]

Almost two years ago, ChaCha launched a service that enabled users to conduct a live chat with a “search guide” to aid in search engine queries. That service flopped, but they believe that their mobile text service can still be a hit. Now, ChaCha is refocusing its business to center around its mobile business.

Users can conduct a search query using text or voice. A few minutes later, a text arrives with the answer. I decided to give it a try myself this morning. I texted to ask what ingredients are in a Java Chip Frappuccino. (I didn’t state that the coffee drink comes from Starucks.) Six minutes later, I got my text with the answer, though it did leave out the optional whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

At first, it might seem like a long time. But keep in mind that during those six minutes, I was able to get work done, instead of conducting the search, checking out the results, and finding the answer myself.

ChaCha is making a play for what search users are increasingly demonstrating they want, which is answers, not search results.

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Matt Bailey of SiteLogic found a way to work OSU into a discussion of SEO and SEM at SES London last month. Now, I don’t object when he gets feisty about topics like Search Engine Visibility and Site Crawlability, as he did at SES Chicago last December. But, he knows I’m a Wolverine from the University of Michigan. And, when he gets feisty about the Ohio State Buckeyes, I have to draw the line.

And redraw the line. And then wear a Buckeye sweatshirt whenever my team loses the annual Big 10 football showdown. Hey, people are starting to say I’m “sartorially challenged.”

So, ignore the part of the interview about what I’ll be wearing again this year. Instead, listen to what Matt has to say about the Search & Analytics Workshop that he’ll be teaching at SES New York next week. Despite the fact that he’s from Ohio, he actually does have a lot of interesting things to say about using analytics to Increase search effectiveness.

Matt Bailey, SiteLogic, at SES London 2008 on Networking

Matthew Bailey is president and founder of SiteLogic Marketing and an internationally-recognized authority on search engine marketing, website analytics, usability, and accessibility. As a consulting and training company, SiteLogic focuses on helping organizations take control of their websites and their web marketing plans.

Sought after worldwide as a seminar presenter and teacher, Matt speaks regularly for The Direct Marketing Association, Search Engine Strategies conferences and training classes, the American Advertising Federation, and many private training seminars. Matt is known for his conversational, entertaining speaking style and his ability to make technical topics both understandable and practical.

Matt oversees The Direct Marketing Association’s SEO training program and is the trainer for the DMA’s web marketing seminar. He has consulted with hundreds of companies, including Goodyear, Hilton International, JCrew, Gradall, Moen Faucets, American Greetings, and Samsonite.

And Matt may not even be a Buckeye. I think he just enjoys giving me a hard time. So, to keep our interview from becoming one of the most viewed on the SESConferenceExpo’s Channel on Youtube, let me encourage you to view the many other fine video interviews that you’ll find there — early and often.

Another health vertical, Mindsite, was quietly reported in the Seattle PI venture blog yesterday. Founder David Eraker explained that “information is often ridiculously watered down, locked up behind expensive subscriptions, editorially corrupted, biased, or not credible.”

Mindsite focuses on mental health, and has licensed American Psychiatric Association information that was previously unavailable on the open web. There’s a social dimension planned here as well, where people share treatments and what’s worked for them. This mental health vertical could become another useful, ad-based destination.

In this case, I think the odds are stacked against making this site a home run because it follows the “license and be found” model. You need traffic, stat. How will anyone find Mindsite among other specialized health sites, portals and search engines?

Click to read the rest of this post…

Search engine marketing technology firm SEMDirector today rebranded as Covario to reflect the depth and breadth of its performance management technologies. Covario’s platform enables global brands to manage not only search advertising but other interactive media, including display advertising. For the search industry, it’s a wakeup call that “SEM” as a specialized service faces increasing [...]