Google: The emergence of mobile and the web platform

CEO Eric Schmidt has made a presentation at the Annual Stockholders Meeting. Here are some of the highlights:

• Google expects that adverts will become more narrative, engaging and interactive.
• Eric suggest that the defining technological shift of our generation will be the shift from PC centric to internet centric. Why have things stored locally on different devices when you can access everything from any device? There are over 500,000 businesses are now using Google Apps for your domain.
• The emergence of mobile. Japan, which is seen as a front runner for technology, has 81% of people accessing the internet from their mobile. Also, the top three selling books over the last year first appeared for reading on mobiles before appearing in print.
• There are more smart people outside of Google than inside Google. Google is building a 'web platform': Android and other APIs allow the smart people outside Google to build on top of Google's technology.

Elsewhere, Vint Cerf, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist, mentions briefly that the internet will increasingly become asia centric because that is where most potential users are; most people in the US and Europe are already using the internet. Everyone needs to pay attention to this Asia growth area, in terms of its culture and differences to the west.