Next they’ll renaming Android itself… to Google Phone, or Google Mobile:
Google often confuses me. The company, with its thousands of genius employees, often makes the most brain-dead decisions. Just earlier today Google rolled out their latest twist on the Android Market — but it’s not called Android Market anymore. Instead of simply redesigning the e-store, Google also re-branded the whole thing to Google Play.
The reasoning is sound: the company wanted to better describe their offerings since it’s not just apps. The Play name is multifaceted, evoking thoughts of playing a game or pressing play on a media file. Cool. But most markets also sell more than one sort of good. The old name worked just as well.
The problem (from the perspective of Google executives) was that the old name was not directly tied into the Google brand. The new one is, just like Google Plus, Google Wallet, Google Chrome, Gmail, Google Apps, and most of the company’s other offerings.
Perhaps the name change is a good thing. At least now it’s more evident that Google owns and operates the online store that is preloaded onto Android (soon to be known as Google Mobile) spyphones.