Verizoogle: VzW, Google to Cut Search Deal?

First of all, you have to admit that “Verizoogle” is fun to say.

Secondly, according to the Wall Street Journal, Verizon Wireless and Google Inc. are oh-so-close to signing a deal where Google search bars will crop up on all handset home screens, and may be wrapped into Verizon Communications’ FiOS television service and Web portal, too.

Um, hello ... open access? Seems like the Google open-Web, anti-walled-garden talk takes a small vacation when it comes to expanding its search hegemony, to the tune of 68 million wireless users. What’s next? The Google Android handset OS stack exposed as merely a Trojan horse for its mobile Web applications? Naaaah. Couldn’t be.

But what does it do for the mobile search market itself? The Journal is calling the deal a potential shot in the arm for what it terms an “anemic” mobile search business. Well, of course it's anemic! Have you seen the user interfaces and the speeds available in most places that make searching the mobile Web a Sisyphus-like exercise in futility?

The iPhone is working on that problem, but adding a Google search bar to an existing deck portal is unlikely to help. Google, however, does have a chance to prove its mettle in making the mobile Web safe for search when T-Mobile USA releases the first Android-based phone in a few weeks.

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