Google is on the verge of releasing its Android Market, a place where the future users of mobile phones based on the Android platform will download applications.

The Android Market consists of a web-based distribution service hosted entirely on Google's infrastructure. To help future Android-powered handset owners make decisions, the Android Market will have a feedback and rating system similar to YouTube.

The first beta version of Android Market will support free applications only. Paid applications however will be added later, and so will be other features like versioning, multiple device profile support or analytics.

Apple, Microsoft, Nokia and its Symbian, and a forthcoming mobile OS from Palm are among the strong competitors of Android.

To get their content in the market, developers will have to follow three steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe content, then publish it.

Google also said that the first phones would have a beta version of Android market, and at the minimum, it would support free applications.

“We chose the term ‘market’ rather than ’store’ because we feel that developers should have an open and unobstructed environment to make their content available,” said Eric Chu from Google on the Android Developer's Blog. Chu didn't say, however, whether Android Market would also resemble to YouTube-like policies around the types of content that can be published.