If you have got one or not, $99 for a tablet like the touchpad is a very cool deal. It obviously drove a lot of traffic to retailers online and off, to deplete all inventory in a matter of hours. There’s no question HP will lose money at the price point (as it costs them $300- and some change to manufacture the product), but there is a huge takeaway others in the tablet business can have from this situation.

Someone should create (preferably Google), a tablet priced at $99-$149, with the quality hardware a tablet should have, and an OS that people want (Android) other than iOS. So you are probably curious at this point how Google could achieve profitability at this price point. The goal wouldn’t be to make money off the hardware (it’s a sour and dying business anyways), it’s all in the software. Sell apps, sell more apps, and put ads on the device. Since Google is already in the ad business, the inventory and management of serving these ads wouldn’t be a problem. Put them in the browser and it will offset the loss of selling the tablets. They’ll create more impressions on these ads since tablet users are going to be using their tablets for longer duration of time than on their computer doing a search on Google. To make the deal even better for consumers, the ads should be disabled after an X number of impressions where Google recovers the amount of money they lose on the hardware.

Everyone knows Apple’s iPad is the number one selling tablet overall, but if another player wants to overtake them, they are going to have a very slim chance of dethroning Apple at the same price point of $499- no matter how killer the specs are- because they won’t have the app store. And since Google’s Android market is the most practical player, it’s only logical that they get in the tablet business first hand, like they’ve done with the Nexus line of phones.

Amazon did it with Kindle, placing ads on a cheaper version, but can you imagine how awesome it would be for a non-iPad tablet to achieve as much- or more market share than what the iPad has right now? Not to mention it would stimulate the ecosystem of apps for Android. Some of the best apps available on iOS are not available on Android, until months after the iOS launch, or ever. Why? Because the opportunity isn’t as huge. A product with a sweet price running the OS people can learn to love can disrupt how people buy tablets.

So what are your thoughts on tablets and the price point of non-iPad tablets?

Another hit out of Europe (Skype was from there) for sure, but more so one of the most relevant and useful tech companies of the past decade, Spotify, has all the buzz lately. And they deserve it. They’ve managed to create a radio meets iTunes client for online radio that everyone loves, myself included. There has always been different media players for consumers, but there hasn’t been one that lets you stream and listen to whatever song you want, for free in an iTunes like style, until Spotify.

I won’t rant on about how awesome Spotify is, instead, I’m making a bold statement and predicting that Google will acquire Spotify. Why? Well, there are many reasons and I will get to them, but my main thought is that Google will go head and head with iTunes, Google’s efforts combined with the boost of users Spotify already has, who have downloaded the desktop client, that will make them a big threat to Apple.

Aside from going head to head with Apple, there are other things that can benefit Google from acquiring Spotify, like their Google Music endeavors, a killer music experience for Android products and most interesting of all, tying Spotify in with Google+, particularly, the +points system.

I want to talk a little bit more about how Spotify is a huge threat to iTunes. If you think about it for a minute, iPod sales are on the downturn, that is mainly because people just use their Android or iPhone, as an mp3 player, that can do more than just play music. There is also a situation with the fact that each track generally costs $1.29 to buy on iTunes now, instead of $.99. In addition, people who buy more than 8 songs a month, are probably better off streaming the same music and more for $10/month with Spotify’s Premium plan. And the last point being that syncing will be irrelevant and people won’t need to deal with it if they stream their music, since their playlists are all available through one login on Spotify.

Now that we’ve established that Spotify is a threat, and a bigger threat to iTunes when Google acquires it, even though Spotify is not selling music and just streaming it, let me discuss why it will be a great move for Android.

Android is no doubt becoming more and more of a juggernaut, with 550,000 activations per day. But the Spotify experience seamlessly integrated with all Android phones and tablets? Now that’ll be a bigger scare for Apple. It’s kind of like Netflix, but 100x better because all of the new music available on iTunes is on Spotify, unlike Netflix where there is just junk for streaming (for the most part).

The combination of social (Google+) with a music streaming service like Spotify, will probably give Facebook a tough time. If Google makes all the playlists users have available in Google+, that would drive more people to be social for a longer amount of time, since their music is playing and it helps them waste more time through the day being non-productive (only kidding, but you know it’s true— how many people are on Facebook at work instead of actually working). The possibilities are endless, from people discussing their music to sharing, maybe even having a Google+ date with elegant music playing in the background (why not? It’s the digital age).

In fact, the whole acquisition could be expressed as an integration play. Integrate the Spotify service into every Android device natively. Integrate it into Google+. Plus it being on the desktop, would give Google a desktop presence and in turn they could integrate Google+ into Spotify’s desktop client, allowing users to surf their Google+ service on the client itself.

Obviously acquiring Spotify wouldn’t be cheap for Google, given Spotify’s raised about $150M and about 33.2M Euros, but with Google revenues around $9B for quarter 2/2011, it doesn’t seem that difficult.

Now there is a reason I didn’t predict Microsoft or Facebook would acquire Spotify for two reasons.

First, Microsoft wouldn’t acquire them because they are still probably working on integration of Skype, but more so because they are focused on other things like trying to eat Google’s lunch, with Bing and trying to 1 up Apple OS X with Windows 8.

Facebook simply does not have the cash to acquire a service like Spotify since it is not public, and while I’m sure they would throw in a bid during an auction, they won’t be the highest bidder, that said, you never know if Microsoft will pull another Skype and outbid Facebook and Google and just pick up Spotify so their competitors can’t have it. But if we start thinking like that Apple has been sitting on a pile of cash for years and hasn’t made many acquisitions and Spotify would assure their stability in the ecosystem for a little while, but I’m sure in that case the anti-trust brigade would come knocking.

People might say they’d still rather download music because of data caps on their cellular carriers data plans, etc, but the fact is that WiFi is available in many places than not, so that doesn’t seem like a big issue, more so because if you download more than 50 songs a month, it is still cheaper to pay for Spotify Premium, additional bandwidth for data on some carriers and still come out ahead. And if you can use Google Rewards like +points for a service like Spotify, I don’t see it doing anything but destroying Apple’s iTunes business. All in all I believe Apple has done a great thing and made everything digital for the world, but Google will make it’s move and it will be staggering.

P.S. It is good to note that Google has had discussions with Spotify in the past, offering $1B to acquire the company, but the issue was that the contracts Spotify has with the major music labels, would be renegotiated if the service is acquired, which throws a curveball for whoever is acquiring the service. So why will Google circle back in the future? Because Spotify will be able to grow under its current conditions to desktops (and mobile devices) around the world, and once there is a surety of number of users, the risk will be less, even if the service ends up costing the acquirer more money.

Before you read any of this, I have to say that if you think Google+ is “social”, it is a big understatement of the product.

Remember when Google said “social is a layer?” Well they weren’t kidding. People went as far as thinking Google was clueless about social, but the fact is the average Googler is smarter than the average human (source: myself).

I’m guessing if you are reading this you have heard of Google+, but if you haven’t it is a platform that Google is building that is going to be much bigger than social- (what many think it is). Don’t get me wrong, it is “social networking,” but there is a HUGE curve ball coming.

Before you continue, I’m going to paint the picture here for you. Think social+entertainment+commerce=Google+. By the way, a little birdy told me this…

Lets touch on social first. Social is obviously what everyone thinks Google+ is today and what people think it will continue to be in the months to come, but are mistaken. It doesn’t matter whether you are for the service or think it is just trying to steal Facebook’s game, and refuse to join, because in the end, you will want to join so bad, you might even pay for it. In my personal opinion, I already think some of the features Google+ has are 10x better than Facebook, for example Google Hangouts v. Facebook/Skype. The primary example being, you don’t need Skype branding to have a video calling service and it should have been on Facebook a few years ago, and group video calls with up to 10 people will drive more people to use Google’s Hangout functionality than one on one calling, especially in a commercial environment.

Now lets touch on entertainment. Here is the obvious, Google+ and YouTube will be linked together and the whole YouTube experience will happen inside Google+, for those who want it. But there’s a further step that most people don’t consider today. It’s YouTube movies. Now this might not make sense yet, but keep reading. People will be able to also play games inside Google+ and be rewarded for it, with REAL rewards (called +points). This is no new concept to the world, as many companies are currently rewarding its users with real tangible rewards for playing games, but the way Google is approaching this, makes all that seem irrelevant. By real rewards I should be more clear, Google won’t be giving away product X for playing a game, instead they will have a rewards system - the oldest form of rewards known to man kind. Google’s rewards (+points) will be able to be used to rent movies on YouTube movies, but more so it will play a killer role for the commerce business Google will bring to the social experience.

Here is where you start thinking Amazon. Everyone loves Amazon, for one big reason: it saves the consumer money most of the time. Google Commerce will use the +points earned from playing games inside Google+, among other ways of earning, like getting a certain number of people to engage with your Google+ posts, to discount items purchased through Google Commerce. Google also recently launched a product called Music. Currently you can’t buy music through Google Music, but that will change (with the cooperation of labels). However, just like +points could be used for YouTube Movies, they’ll play a gig in Google Music, once Google can ink the deals with record labels. There is also Google Offers, which these +points could be used for. Imagine buying a daily deal and not spending money on it. Playing a virtual game, getting points, and getting an end tangible satisfaction out of the whole system…sounds good to me.

So the killer question for all of this is: WHY? Why would Google give rewards to people for playing games and doing other things on Google+? It’s simple. People love it. It keeps the user lifecycle going in one big circle. Think about it this way, people are being social; playing games; connecting with friends, which they do already, and Google is giving +points for that. With +points, Google’s other business endeavors live on because who doesn’t like discounts or free things that they’d pay money for? In addition, the +points given to users, won’t eat away at Google, because they will earn revenue from the sources the points are given away in anyways. And the loop keeps going on and on as people spend more time on the platform.

All of this will only leave one question flowing in your mind…IS GOOGLE+ WHAT GOOGLE’S NEXT MAJOR BUSINESS IS? Everyone knows Google has been trying to innovate outside search, because in all fairness they may not be able to sustain what market share they have today for the next 10 years.

There is also another question. If Google executes on all of this in a successful fashion, it could certainly put a handful of other competitors in a sticky situation. How can anyone compete with Google’s “social layer” with rewards, leading toward cheaper or even free products for consumers? Google being in multiple spaces with Android, Google Offers, movie rentals on YouTube, a future commerce platform, Google Music, this could be really, really disruptive in the whole tech ecosystem.