By sheer volume, the iPhone gets a lot more chatter than phones using Google’s Android mobile platform (and at this point, that’s really just the the G1). Proof can be found here. Does this mean that the Android/G1 marketing effort has been a failure? That Apple so dominates the discussion of next generation mobile personal computing devices (because it’s tough to call things in this category “phones” anymore, even “smart” ones) that the competition can barely even get a word in?

Maybe, but that doesn’t seem to be the whole story. Take a look at this large outdoor ad for the G1:

Curious indeed. Who exactly is this ad targeting? The red “M” superimposed on an envelope shape in the little yellow box (just under the YouTube logo) might be a clue. That’s the Gmail icon. Gmail is an important and popular Google service but not nearly as present in the public consciousness as YouTube, for instance. How broadly recognized is that little symbol? How many of the people who see this ad register that it’s there to remind them that a Google phone would have better integration with the Google mail application? We’ve written before about how Gmail seems to cater to a younger, more tech-savvy set generally. That seems like the same sort of demographic that might be likely to buy something because they’re curious about it or to even be curious about something like the G1.

The iPhone never tried to leverage obscurity in order to generate interest or buzz. In fact, Apple made pretty sure that the iPhone never really was obscure. People were only curious about it during the lead up to its release. After that, there was plenty of talk about it even outside of the in-the-know techy crowd. There were network news stories about people lining up to buy the thing. Nothing like that has happened with the G1. The Android platform has floated below the radar of broad awareness and seems almost insignificant compared to the titanic iPhone. There are iPhone ads on TV demonstrating its capabilities. Consumers have to actively seek out information about the Google alternative.

But maybe Google is most interested in exactly those consumers who do such seeking. For the iPhone to appear on the scene the way it did it had to come out in its finished form; it had to basically be perfect. The G1 isn’t under that pressure, nor should it be. The iPhone platform is exclusively for the iPhone hardware (as is the case with all Apple products) but the Android platform is intended to run on many phones built by many companies. The G1, built by HTC, is simply the first. It turns out not to be perfect and there have been several complaints. But because the Android platfrom is much more open than the iPhone one, the response to people who complain can be “well, improve on it then.”

Clearly this isn’t a response most consumers want to hear, but some do. There’s also an intermediate bunch that might not be able or willing to start reprogramming the device but can appreciate the idea of it. It seems like that’s the group the ad above is targeting: Tech-aware, probably often younger consumers who understand that this is still sort of in beta (keep in mind that Gmail has been that way for around half a decade a now) and are willing and maybe even eager to be one of the brave first few to deal with the rocky start of the new platform.

So yes, curiosity makes it stronger because while the launch of the G1 might have been relatively quite compared to the dramatic unveiling of the iPhone, it has a narrow but powerful appeal to the segment of the population for whom being there for something new is worth having an imperfect product. That same sort of person might have been first in line to buy an iPhone the summer before last, but it’s old news now. It’s also worth noting that the gPhone and iPhone aren’t just competing for users, but for developers. Both need people to be writing applications for their platforms and it’s this early adopter type of user who is likely to be able to do that.

All this raises an interesting question about the idea of “early-adopters”: Do they lead the pack because they figure out where things are headed before others get there or because others follow them to their destination? The need for developers to make each platform more attractive is an interesting factor in favor of the second thought in this particular case, but there’s the broader issue of whether “alpha-geeks” (as Tim O’Reilly calls them) are trend-anticipators or trend-setters generally speaking. They’re often assumed to be former but Google seems to think that they also might be the latter. After all, these aren’t just mobile application developers, they’re tech bloggers and twitter-ers and just generally likely to influence others in terms of their understanding of this market.

The G1 is still new on the scene and the Android story will get a lot more interesting as more phones come out and it starts appealing to a broader category of consumers. But how that plays out (especially in comparison to the iPhone) might have a lot to do with this early, less visible stage.