In case you’ve been too wrapped up with the World Series or the presidential campaigns to follow the latest developments on the mobile-phone front, Android is an operating system developed from scratch by search power Google and aimed specifically at Web-equipped smartphones . The thinking from Mountain View CA is that actually designing and building the software that makes 3G mobile handsets work might just pay off for the search giant.

With its own operating system in-house, Google gets a couple of things. First, it gets to make sure that the system rolling out into a lot of non-Apple 3G phones is optimized for Google’s mobile search, and just as importantly, for any mobile ads Google hopes to sell. CEO Eric Schmidt famously said a few years ago that the future for his company is going to be in mobile. If the time does come when large masses of us trade our PCs and laptops for the mobile Web, that third screen is going to become pretty valuable real estate—and Google wants to make sure of having a prime corner lot, with lots of foot traffic and easy parking.

Last year the company said it expects that “hundreds of millions’ of android phones will someday be sold annually. And one way it offered to make that happen was by opening up the application development process to third-party developers. Google’s Open Handset Alliance, formed about a year ago, brought together a handful of the companies that make phone hardware, including Intel and Motorola, with the developers large and small that build the games and functions you and I want to run on our phones.

Notice that this is very different from the way applications are crafted for the Apple iPhone. That‘s a walled garden, where developers have to apply to get their software vetted by apple and included for sale at the iPhone store. (Some developers who tried but failed to get Apple approval for their projects became so irate that the company had to institute a non-disclosure policy about rejections.)

Instead, Google is going open-source, supplying software makers with the tools they need to make sure their apps fit the Android system and then selling their programs in the Android Store. Developers get the exposure; phone manufacturers get a slightly cheaper operating system for their new high-end phones. And if Google’s right, users will get the 3G mobile applications they really want, rather than the much smaller subset of apps apple thinks they should have.

The first Android device debuted in late September: the T-Mobile G1 phone, produced by phone maker HTC. It went on sale in late September at T-Mobile stores in the U.S. and the U.K. for $179.99, plus a two-year service contract.

So why should marketers be watching this mobile development? Because Google may be, like Apple, a brand that can push tech adoption simply by name association. Users who have been resisting the charms of the iPhone 3G—and there are some, even though Apple announced on Oct. 22 that it had sold a staggering 6.9 million of the devices during its fourth quarter—may be persuaded to latch on to one of the dozens of Google-powered handsets expected to come on the market within the year.

The G1 from T-Mobile carries a small “Google” logo on the back, but it’s not certain other phones using the Android system will also be branded.

After all, mobile phones are confusing and even a bit scary to the consumers below the early-adopter tiers. Just using a touch screen on a phone can be daunting if you’re not used to it.

So was search back in the early days of the Internet. But helping people simplify the complex tasks of finding something on the Web is what elevated Google from just another dot-com to the status of a verb. Schmidt and company are betting they can offer the same kind of guidance to mobile phone users, easing them into checking e-mail over their phones, editing documents, and making full use of the walking-around Web by accessing location-specific news and information via the Android’s built-in GPS tracker.

In other words, Android could take the good work that Apple has already done in growing the market for enhanced smartphones and push that line even deeper into the buying public. That’s especially true because Android-powered phones will be available from a broader range of retailers than Apple’s select vendors and may actually see some discounting. Wal-Mart has announced plans to start selling the T-Mobile G1 phone today in many of its stores, and it will do so for $148.88, about $30 less than the standard retail price.

Android is also taking a different approach in the Android Market, where users go to download applications for their phones: Unlike Apple, it’s talking about what people are downloading. Right now there are more than 60 apps available, all free; paid downloads won’t be available until Q1 2009. According to Medialets, an ad network for mobile phone applications, there were somewhere between 206,00 and 770,000 application downloads from the Android Market during its first 24 hours of operation after its launch on Oct. 23.

Granted, that’s a big range. But nine applications reached the 10,000-50,000 download mark in that first day, including ShopSavvy, a program that lets users scan a product barcode and compare an in-store price with prices online and at other stores in their location. Another, T-Mobile Hotspot Connect, lets users log onto T-Mobile WiFi networks and work on the Web. And with the Wikitude app, users can use the phone’s camera to take pictures of their surroundings and get local information from Wikipedia displayed on-screen.

Of course, there are no guarantees that Google’s brand will sell phones. Certainly, there were no long lines around the block at T-Mobile stores the night before the G1’s launch. And working in an open-source environment increases the odds that some programs may not work across all Android phones; that could hurt the product’s reliability rep.

But a successful operating system that is robust and dynamic enough to fit a wide range of handsets from a broad swath of makers can only help increase the mobile Web population, and that’s got to be good for mobile marketing as an industry. A recent survey conducted by mobile software maker Mformation found that 68% of mobile phone customers find it frustrating to be locked into using just the apps they have when they take their phones out of the box.

“Services are very locked down,” Mformation marketing director Rob Dalgety said in a press interview. “You get a device, and that’s what you have until you upgrade. People would use services more if there was more flexibility in provisioning. If you target services to customers and segment needs, you get more usage.”

More customization, of the type the Android OS hopes to provide, could mean more usage. And that means more time spent looking at that small third screen—and more opportunities to market through it.

In case you’ve been too wrapped up with the World Series or the presidential campaigns to follow the latest developments on the mobile-phone front, Android is an operating system developed from scratch by search power Google and aimed specifically at Web-equipped smartphones . The thinking from Mountain View CA is that actually designing and building the software that makes 3G mobile handsets work might just pay off for the search giant.

With its own operating system in-house, Google gets a couple of things. First, it gets to make sure that the system rolling out into a lot of non-Apple 3G phones is optimized for Google’s mobile search, and just as importantly, for any mobile ads Google hopes to sell. CEO Eric Schmidt famously said a few years ago that the future for his company is going to be in mobile. If the time does come when large masses of us trade our PCs and laptops for the mobile Web, that third screen is going to become pretty valuable real estate—and Google wants to make sure of having a prime corner lot, with lots of foot traffic and easy parking.

Last year the company said it expects that “hundreds of millions’ of android phones will someday be sold annually. And one way it offered to make that happen was by opening up the application development process to third-party developers. Google’s Open Handset Alliance, formed about a year ago, brought together a handful of the companies that make phone hardware, including Intel and Motorola, with the developers large and small that build the games and functions you and I want to run on our phones.

Notice that this is very different from the way applications are crafted for the Apple iPhone. That‘s a walled garden, where developers have to apply to get their software vetted by apple and included for sale at the iPhone store. (Some developers who tried but failed to get Apple approval for their projects became so irate that the company had to institute a non-disclosure policy about rejections.)

Instead, Google is going open-source, supplying software makers with the tools they need to make sure their apps fit the Android system and then selling their programs in the Android Store. Developers get the exposure; phone manufacturers get a slightly cheaper operating system for their new high-end phones. And if Google’s right, users will get the 3G mobile applications they really want, rather than the much smaller subset of apps apple thinks they should have.

The first Android device debuted in late September: the T-Mobile G1 phone, produced by phone maker HTC. It went on sale in late September at T-Mobile stores in the U.S. and the U.K. for $179.99, plus a two-year service contract.

So why should marketers be watching this mobile development? Because Google may be, like Apple, a brand that can push tech adoption simply by name association. Users who have been resisting the charms of the iPhone 3G—and there are some, even though Apple announced on Oct. 22 that it had sold a staggering 6.9 million of the devices during its fourth quarter—may be persuaded to latch on to one of the dozens of Google-powered handsets expected to come on the market within the year.

The G1 from T-Mobile carries a small “Google” logo on the back, but it’s not certain other phones using the Android system will also be branded.

After all, mobile phones are confusing and even a bit scary to the consumers below the early-adopter tiers. Just using a touch screen on a phone can be daunting if you’re not used to it.

So was search back in the early days of the Internet. But helping people simplify the complex tasks of finding something on the Web is what elevated Google from just another dot-com to the status of a verb. Schmidt and company are betting they can offer the same kind of guidance to mobile phone users, easing them into checking e-mail over their phones, editing documents, and making full use of the walking-around Web by accessing location-specific news and information via the Android’s built-in GPS tracker.

In other words, Android could take the good work that Apple has already done in growing the market for enhanced smartphones and push that line even deeper into the buying public. That’s especially true because Android-powered phones will be available from a broader range of retailers than Apple’s select vendors and may actually see some discounting. Wal-Mart has announced plans to start selling the T-Mobile G1 phone today in many of its stores, and it will do so for $148.88, about $30 less than the standard retail price.

Android is also taking a different approach in the Android Market, where users go to download applications for their phones: Unlike Apple, it’s talking about what people are downloading. Right now there are more than 60 apps available, all free; paid downloads won’t be available until Q1 2009. According to Medialets, an ad network for mobile phone applications, there were somewhere between 206,00 and 770,000 application downloads from the Android Market during its first 24 hours of operation after its launch on Oct. 23.

Granted, that’s a big range. But nine applications reached the 10,000-50,000 download mark in that first day, including ShopSavvy, a program that lets users scan a product barcode and compare an in-store price with prices online and at other stores in their location. Another, T-Mobile Hotspot Connect, lets users log onto T-Mobile WiFi networks and work on the Web. And with the Wikitude app, users can use the phone’s camera to take pictures of their surroundings and get local information from Wikipedia displayed on-screen.

Of course, there are no guarantees that Google’s brand will sell phones. Certainly, there were no long lines around the block at T-Mobile stores the night before the G1’s launch. And working in an open-source environment increases the odds that some programs may not work across all Android phones; that could hurt the product’s reliability rep.

But a successful operating system that is robust and dynamic enough to fit a wide range of handsets from a broad swath of makers can only help increase the mobile Web population, and that’s got to be good for mobile marketing as an industry. A recent survey conducted by mobile software maker Mformation found that 68% of mobile phone customers find it frustrating to be locked into using just the apps they have when they take their phones out of the box.

“Services are very locked down,” Mformation marketing director Rob Dalgety said in a press interview. “You get a device, and that’s what you have until you upgrade. People would use services more if there was more flexibility in provisioning. If you target services to customers and segment needs, you get more usage.”

More customization, of the type the Android OS hopes to provide, could mean more usage. And that means more time spent looking at that small third screen—and more opportunities to market through it.