I guess the lesson learned here is: you have to advertise your products!  Apple and Motorola/Verizon inundated television with commercials for their phones.  Google’s marketing plan so far is to have text and image ads all over the web via Google AdWords/AdSense.  Combine the lack of television advertising with the fact that you can only purchase the Nexus One through Google.com, and you have a recipe for disaster.  You can go to any Apple or AT&T store and hold an iPhone in your hands, or you can visit the Verizon store for a demo of the Droid.  Being able to actually use an expensive product before purchase means a lot.  Not to mention that stores and salespeople have a vested interest in making you buy their phone.  When Verizon or AT&T gets you in their store, they can do the hard sell, and they can up-sell you service plans and accessories.  When you go to google.com/phone, you will see an awesome demo of the Nexus One, but all you have to do is close your browser when you've had enough.

Selling consumer electronics is not like launching Google Maps.  The Nexus One can’t be in ‘beta’ for 3 years.  If Google search goes down, so what?  Users will switch over to Yahoo! or Bing.  If a user’s Nexus One locks up, they are going to want immediate customer service.  When you shell out a couple hundred bucks for a phone and it doesn’t work, you’re not going to be too pleased with searching a support forum for answers.

Unless Google finds a partner to help them sell and service the Nexus One (T-Mobile is the Nexus One network, but they don’t provide customer sales or support), the Motorola Droid will continue to be the Android top dog (until the next big think comes along in about 10 minutes ).