Given that about a week ago I talked rather glowingly about Google, OpenSocial, and how social networking could be transformed, it would take something pretty remarkable in order to get to me post about Google again so soon. Google’s foray into the wireless world – announced monday, with this write-up in the NY Times providing a particularly excellent summary (very much worth the read) - is just such an event.

If you read last week’s post, see if you can spot any similarities between the approach Google took to social networking, and the approach they are taking to the mobile phone business (quote from the NY Time article):

But while Google’s much-anticipated plan has encouraged talk of a Google Phone, the company said that for now it had no plans to build phones. Instead, it has signed up powerful partners to develop and market the phones, including handset makers like Motorola and Samsung, carriers like T-Mobile, Sprint and China Mobile and semiconductor companies like Qualcomm and Intel. The group, the Open Handset Alliance, expects to start selling the Google-powered phones in the second half of next year.

It kind of jumps off the page – the partnerships and the openness that Google is using, has used, and will continue to use as a competitive weapon. And by opening up, Google will allow phones to be customized in ways many of us probably can’t imagine right now – which stands in stark contrast to, say, Apple’s strategy with the iPhone.

Will this difference hurt Apple someday? Well, one would think so. After all, as Apple gets ready to release their next firmware update, the big question on many people’s minds is basically will Apple deliberately try to “brick” the phones people purchased from them and then customized in some way? Maybe the Apple and iPhone brands will gain strength into the distant future even while the company intentionally tries to destroy products that customers legally bought and/or simply make their experiences worse. However, maybe not.

It’s a very different strategy and approach to market, because Google is a very different type of company, as they’ve shown time and again. It’s also interesting to note that while the incredibly diverse list of partners around the world is fairly exhaustive in terms of mobile networks, the two notable exceptions that have opted not to join are AT&T and Verizon – two companies that combine to control 52% of the U.S. market.

But surely they have interesting plans for the future too, and good reasons not to join the open alliance, right? Well, let’s quote AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel from the NY Times article again:

“Google’s announcement is about what is going to happen in the future, and our focus is about delivering the goods today”

That might be one annoucement they want to take back some day, as occasionally good strategy and customer focus includes thinking about the future. More to the point, could the U.S., which has lagged behind much of the rest of the world in mobile phone use for so long, fall even further behind because the big guns don’t catch on to what the rest of the world sees?

I’d personally bet yes – but not if Google has anything to do about it.