Seth Godin shares his take on the rumoured GPhone:

My non-inside prediction of what the third-generation phone they ship will be like:

• (Relatively) free
• (Relatively) open
• Ad supported

So, any carrier can offer it (hence the free part), any developer can easily modify it/enhance it, and the thing is paid for by location-aware permission marketing. Anticipated, personal and relevant ads based on who you are, what you do and where you are. GPS-coded photographs from all over the world automatically appended to Google Maps. Free calls if you’re on a wifi network. And it won’t be nearly as design-wonderful as an iPhone. But it will be addictive and in many ways, better.

I’ve been wrong before, but my guess is that this is a huge sweet spot and an even bigger market than most people imagine.

I can’t help but agree with him, given Google’s technology and the obvious growth potential of local search and location based services (read advertising) it’s got to be something Google is looking at to continue growing it’s profits.

I wonder how it’ll gel with the privacy issues they’ve faced…

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