Definition

Playmaker's Forum

Ping

Ping

Ping: PG

Definition

An oblique reference or suggestion, enabled either by a player's mere presence in a marketplace or its implied interest in topics, ideas, events, and developments.

Trial Balloon

Trial Balloon

Trial Balloon: TB

Definition

The preview and testing of preliminary ideas or tentative plans. To reduce a player's exposure, Trial Balloons are often run without attribution to the player or positioned as temporary.

Google Wireless

Google Tests the Water in Telecoms Industry

Google is a real-life Screen on innovation in high-tech. In the past year it’s rolled out Google Wave and more recently Google Buzz. And now, the Silicon Valley powerhouse is up to its old tricks again.

Last week, the company announced – via a Trial Balloon to test marketplace feedback – that it would start experimenting with new ways to offer faster wireless Internet. The search giant further led on, with a Ping, that it hopes to build the country’s most cutting-edge broadband network.

By announcing the move, Google is running an inferential Call Out on the current state of the telecommunications industry. The more telling question, however, still remains unanswered: How will competitors counteract Google’s move? On one hand, they can run a Preempt by offering consumers a better Internet deal. Or, they can run a Red Herring + Recast and say that free wireless Internet for everyone is unfeasible.

This playmaker thinks that Comcast and Verizon should be shaking in their boots. Google has already revolutionized how we use the Internet. Now it seems that it plans to change the way we get Internet.

Posted by: Alice Hu