The Nexus One will, crucially, be sold unlocked, giving Google complete control over the hardware and software with no pesky carrier interference. Even the iPhone, which has had almost unprecedented autonomy in its functionality is still constrained by carriers: AT&T’s anti-tethering paranoia is a good example.

Although not yet officially announced, Google has coyly admitted that the phone is real and will be on sale early in the new year. In fact, it has provided the handset to its employees in order to test it out in the wild. The Google Mobile Blog explains, somewhat cryptically:

From the Google Mobile Blog

We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities, and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe. This means they get to test out a new technology and help improve it.

Unfortunately, because dogfooding is a process exclusively for Google employees, we cannot share specific product details. We hope to share more after our dogfood diet.

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There’s a race of content creation.

I’ve talked about it before with AOL and Demand Media.

Their paying bottom dollar to create content factories.

Quick, Fast, and Cheap. About 4000 videos and articles a day.

How do you compete with such a model? They are creating this content with search engines in mind and rapidly. Mom and Pop blogs/sites may find it hard to compete with such a machine.

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