Did Robert Scoble forget Nokia?

Duncan Riley caused a mass heart-attack of the Techcrunch audience this week when he reported Robert Scoble’s prediction that Mahalo, Techmeme and Facebook are very soon going to destroy Google’s businesses. Robert Scoble might have succeeded in link-baiting, but his prediction did surely create a debate on who is going to halt, or at least prove a tough competitor for Google in the long run.

Ever since, I have been looking at the long term strategies of different companies trying to see what each of them strives to achieve in the long run. In my own analysis,I found Nokia to be one company that can seriously match up with Google in not just the mobile segment, but the internet segment as well.

Nokia’s Plans
Nokia had sometime back given its first indications of trying to get onto the internet segment earlier this year with its acquisition of Twango. Twango is a social network to share pictures, videos and audio, and this acquisition was seen as a move towards enabling easier sharing of social mobile apps among users.

This week, Nokia have further demonstrated their aggressive future plans with the launch of Ovi. Through Ovi, Nokia shall simplify the way its users access Internet services. This includes accessing the Nokia Music store, Nokia Maps and games.

Google Vs. Nokia
There seems to be a striking similarity in the way Google and Nokia have identified the future path. Both the companies seem to agree on ‘Internet on Mobiles’ being the clear path to the future. While Google has been beefing up plans on introducing the GPhone, which will clearly take all that Google has achieved on the internet to the cellphone, Nokia has been trying to extend its expertise in the area of handsets to internet.

However right now, the monetization model of these two companies seem to be different. Google will clearly stick to its tried and tested method of ads on its services. When it comes to Internet based services, mobile phones are still an unchartered territory. And Google shall surely be able to scale their existing ad model to the mobile phones. Compare this to Nokia, which shall stick to earning money through purchase of music and games.

Which of these two services shall win in the long run is a difficult question to answer, though worth guessing. In my opinion, Google shall still win this race. Reason - In the lucrative US market, the wireless carriers decide what handsets to provide that CAN prove to be a hindrance for Nokia. While Nokia faces considerable less pressure in the Asian and European market, one should also note that in the emerging countries like India, where Nokia expects huge sales, the consumers are still not tuned towards value-added services like music and games. Google at the outset, faces no such competition and atleast this will make Google a winner yet again.