It is getting harder and harder to weed out the chaff from the good stuff when it comes to android development, regardless that the Android guy at Google has my same name. The good part is that there is a group of people out there that are interested in keeping relevant and current data on android and android development available for people.
Techwag sat down with the AndroidGuys and found out that they are indebt to Ask the Admin, one of those truly useful sites out there, and ended up with a very interesting interview. If you are into android development and want news, good relevant news, then this is the site to visit.
Techwag: Are you affiliated with AtA? (Ask the Admin)
AndroidGuys: Although we are not affiliated in any official capacity with AtA, we definitely owe a great deal of thanks to Karl and his crew over there. He was one of the first ‘bloggers’ to reach out and offer advice and direction for us when we were getting started. By letting us guest blog on AtA a couple of times, we were able to gain some traffic boosts back to our site. Any time we have any questions or are looking for feedback, Karl is one of the first names we think of.
Techwag: What kind of value do you bring with your web site being focused on Android news?
AndroidGuys: We feel that Android will be a monumental force in the wireless industry and are very excited about what its capabilities are. The value we bring is in providing readers a one-stop place to get all the latest news surrounding Android and the members of the Open Handset Alliance. There are 34 founding members in the OHA and each brings different things to the table. While there may be a handful of excellent tech/mobile/gadget sites out there with thousands of readers, we found that nobody was covering Android specifically.
We created the site as a project between a few friends who wanted to post our own daily findings about Android. As a community blog, we wanted to avoid the constant “Hey, did you see Google is doing this…?” situations. We intended to direct our friends there whenever they were asking questions. We realized very quickly that nobody else was doing this on any level, so we took it from our secret site to a larger audience. We’ve seen our traffic grow leaps and bounds in just over 10 weeks.
There are a couple of sites dedicated to Android development floating around, and a few blogs and tech sites who talk about Android every so often, but there is yet to be a news site like ours. Daily posts of facts, rumors, and opinion is what our readers have come to expect. This is the value of AndroidGuys.
Techwag: Do you do any kind of digest or your own content around Android?
AndroidGuys: What we do is kind of unique in that it’s a mix of both. We cull information together from a variety of news sources and report on what we feel is the most relevant. We also write our own opinion pieces every few days about anything related to the mobile industry in general. Finally, we sit down every week or so and do a pair of podcasts we call the 20/20. So far, this seems to be exactly what people want. We’ve not seen any weeks where our traffic dies off.
In fact, it’s growing much quicker than we expected, given that Android is still months away from hitting the streets. One of the things we try to keep in mind when we do things on AndroidGuys is whether or not we would visit our own site, and more importantly, would we come back?
Techwag: What would you say the biggest difficulty is in finding android information?
AndroidGuys: Right now, it’s finding news in general. For the first few weeks after Android was announced, there was plenty of news and speculation online and it was just a matter of putting it together in one place for everyone. Then with the next month or so it was harder to find anything new as most people involved in Android development were keeping things top secret or at least close to the vest. Even now, we’re just seeing snippets of things where Company A has a phone that will be able to run Android.
Even though the expected release is only 6 months or so away, we have yet to hear how the carriers (T-Mobile and Sprint Nextel) plan to utilize Android phones and services. None of the 4 phone manufacturers (LG, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung) have made any official announcements regarding product lines.
Techwag: Where do you see the future of Android?
AndroidGuys: One of the things I found myself thinking, and sometimes saying, is that even if Android doesn’t set the world on fire, it will still light a fire under a few butts. Take for instance the announcement of Any Phone, Any App from Verizon. The idea of them opening up their network to different phones and programs may or may not have come about directly as a result of Google’s plans. To us, it seems a little too coincidental to simply be a matter of timing. Literally days after that, AT&T comes out and starts extolling how ‘open’ their network is and how it has been for so long.
Android is the catalyst the mobile industry needs, especially here in the United States. Our network providers have had too much control over the users for far too long. Consumers are learning the benefits of open source technology more each day. It was only a matter of time before people starting demanding more choices from their carriers. The ability to take your phone from one provider to the next puts the burden on the carriers now. It becomes, “Tell us why I should sign up for your service instead of their service.” The same can be said of the benefits of open source software. If Joe down the street can create a program to keep track of his MySpace friends with instant updates on his mobile device and wants to offer it for free, then big software houses will have to reevaluate their strategies.
How can they keep asking for $30-$50 a pop for something that might not look as good or run as smooth as something created in a basement and dispersed via shareware? Android will be just what is needed to help revolutionize the industry.
We would like to thank the androidguys for sitting down with us and having this great interview. This is one of those sites that is worth checking out.
