Announcements about announcements crack me up. The only reason this one is worth paying attention to is because it is Google, and the subject of the announcement will be its future mobile plans. Specifically, products and services it hopes to have in the market by mid 2008.The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is set to make its mobile plans known in the near future, possibly as soon as some time in the next couple of weeks. Citing "people familiar with the matter," it appears that Google is intent on making applications and services, such as its Gmail or Google Documents, as easy to access from mobile phones as from desktop computers. I think Google is already there with its mobile Gmail products, but they could definitely improve the functionality of mobile access to documents. (Not that editing documents from most mobile phones is very practical.)

With the long-rumored Google phone all but dead, the announcement will likely center on a new mobile operating system for phones. Google leaked that much information in the not-too-distant past. How open the operating system will be is anyone's guess, but Google will likely lean toward making it easier to develop for rather than harder.

Beyond the operating system, though, there is not much to go on. The WSJ writes that not only will the operating system be announced, but phones running the Google OS will have integrated Google applications, such as Gmail, Maps, search and YouTube. Google already makes these applications available for free on many different phones and it seems like a no-brainer that they would appear on a Google phone. If they will function better or differently on Google's OS is unknown.

Whatever Google announces in a couple of weeks will probably be exciting and might even throw the entire wireless industry for a loop, depending on how far Google takes any innovations. Until then, all we can do is twitter away the days and wait for Google to get on with it.