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As reported on Google’s own blog by VP Andy Rubin, and currently being repeated all over the blogosphere, Google has decided to slowly phase out the web store for their Nexus One Android phone in favor of putting it in brick and mortar shops.

After stating that one of their main goals with the Nexus One was “to introduce a beacon of innovation among Android handsets” (*coughs* hyperbole much, Andy?), Rubin then goes on to explain the main reason for this change, being…

…it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from.

It certainly does not surprise me that Google made this move, considering that despite its pedigree the Nexus One has not exactly set the phone world on fire…it is not even considered to be on the top tier of Android phones. Both Verizon and Sprint recently flat-out passed on adding the phone to their service packages, preferring other devices. Shifting the Nexus One into cash and carry stores means it can settle comfortably in the mid to low range Android line up.

What does surprise me is that a company with as much marketing savvy as Google missed the fact that the market would not get enthused about a phone they couldn’t touch or see before whipping out their credit card. Online reviews and blog posts may set off the gadget lust of techheads and early adopters (probably such as yourself, dear reader), but Joe and Judy Mainstream prefer to buy things they can at least first see in action when it comes to highly personal purchases….and a phone qualifies as highly personal.

In fact many people now feel that their choice of phone tells you as much about a person as the car they drive does (the previous pop psych tip off leader). After all, it is very easy to make some quick and dirty assumptions about a person based on whether they carry an iPhone, a Droid, a Nokia E91 or the cheapest feature phone they could find 5 years ago. I suppose my Treo Pro shows me to be stubborn, menu driven and into doing things with my thumbs.

People prefer to touch and feel a phone before they buy it, just as someone wants to test drive and if possible, rub all over a new car before they commit to linking it their persona for several years. Google should have realized this from the start, and rather then blitzing the web quite so hard with their Google Phone a few months back, should have given it lots of holiday shelf space in Best Buy or similar electronics stores instead. Now that they are doing so, I wonder if the Nexus One will be more widely hailed as Rubin’s “beacon of innovation” or fade into being a somewhat disappointing Android Milestone, like the G1.