Google will recommend ideas and innovations to the FCC for their proposal of a National Broadband Plan to Congress in 2010.

Such an announcement allows us to dream a little bit. So what if Google played the role of leader in building and supporting national Fiber Optic? Here’s a few things we can observe about our friends in Mountain View.

1) Google enjoys working directly with consumers. As it relates to your monthly Internet bill, there would be no middle man. Although there are several Cable and mobile companies playing the role of ISP in the market, the hope is that these service providers (uVerse, Verizon/FiOS) would compete with Google within certain regions and neighborhoods across the United States. Since Google is of a second business plan, much speculation could be done as to where Google would be allowed to compete. More than likely, they would be allowed alongside Cable providers, but not alongside other Fiber providers.

2) Google provides national/global services for free. If neighborhoods received service directly from Google, it could come at a greatly-reduced price from current market alternatives. But how will Google respond to FCC regulation? This is a company that loves to provide services for the world. Have they ever been told their software isn’t allowed in certain zip codes? Google Street View and Google Voice rolled out over time, but never has the FCC controlled the release of Google software. The game will change for hardware.

3) Google cares about consumers. Whether or not it’s genuine interest in the lives of the little guy, they seem to make decisions in the best interest of the republic. Adwords enabled small business owners to bid for the same ad space that corporatations bid for. A company can never lose with this sort of business strategy. It could be said that Microsoft operates directly for a bottom line; they cut programs and developments for the greater interest of staying on-budget. Cable companies refuse to rethink their business plans.

A Google-provided Internet would service the health of the market. Head over to Google Moderator to join in the FCC conversation.

In 2008, 36 million Americans bought music online¹. I recently visited Napster.com just to see what the once-famous music downloading service is up to these days.

The site offers unlimited music streaming on-demand. Any song, any time for $12.95 per month. However, I did find some functional problems in how their site acquires customers. Let’s take a look.

Signing up for a service should never be more important than the service itself.

The site makes for a great customer acquisition effort – no user will miss the FREE 7-day trial offer – but what is the service being offered? What artists are available in the 7 million song library?

The layout puts a big expectation on the user to search to find the content that the service offers. Browsing from the home page is an after-thought, as it well below-the-fold, buried in the site's footer.

Browsing music is only available after using the search box. Does this really help users find what they're looking for?

It’s quite unclear as to what exactly users are signing up for because a very small portion of the layout has been dedicated to content – the search box. Ideally, users should be given the right to browse and search. Browsing content triggers a user response to search. For instance, if a user sees a Raconteurs‘ album while browsing, that may remind her to search for albums from Jack White’s other project The White Stripes. As users of the web, we’ve traditionally been spoiled with the right to both search and browse. This is especially true for entertainment content. Whether it’s Amazon, the iTunes Store or Netflix, we’re accustomed to browsing and searching for our favorite books, music and movies. This probably ties back to the fact that as humans, we’re visual people who make purchasing decisions online just as we would while walking the aisles at Target. All this to say, browsing content should be at the foreground of any user experience online and should not be secondary function that falls out of search.

Solution: Napster’s content should be the primary incentive which drives its users to sign up for a new account, not a glossy orange button. Put popular albums and content in the foreground of the home page, while dedicating some of the best screen real-estate (not all of it) to customer sign-up.

Never ask a user to register for a paid service, without first communicating price.

It is tough to understand Napster’s pricing structure without first signing up for a $12.95 per month account. I have to assume that the monthly price does not include unlimited music downloads, but only unlimited streaming on-demand. That brings us to question which sort of customer is better: a long-term customer who is happy with the music service and its pricing from the start or a short-term customer who is surprised or frustrated by additional fees only to abandon membership in their second month.

Be clear about the price of downloads from the start of a customer relationship.

$12.95 per month isn't necessarily a scary price point. How would users react if this was given more importance in the layout?

Solution: Communicate price points for downloads and streaming content from the start of a customer relationship.

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¹ More Americans buy music online, fewer buy CDs http://en.kioskea.net/

I’ve added Google FriendConnect to this blog. If you join, this will add my posts to your Blogger Dashboard. All you need to start is an existing Google, GMail or Blogger account.

Hopefully more Google features will be released that make this blog super-dope.