As with ATG (all things Google) the industry watches every blink, nod and burp of the morphing colossus…far be it for me to not exhibit pile-one behavior…

Recently, the search engine mavens have noted the first sign of Google advertising its services - a marked shift from its traditional viral growth without any brand or services advertising. Of all things, it chose to advertise its Free 411 voice service. The media of choice? billboards. What’s up with that?

Well, think about it - what’s a monolith to do when it is obsessively trying to collect enough “voice utterances” from which is can construct a viable alternative (let alone a technology advantage) to the decades of learning and momentum at Nuance and TellMe?

When users go out into the real world, and have no visible means of connecting back into the mother ship, they are but a phone call away from the soothing voices of Google. And we need to be reminded that we can be searching while we drive. Farbeit to leave us alone simply enjoy the scenery or sing a tune, when we could be executing a search string and feeding the beast’s knowledge base!

The interesting thing from this is that is signals a weakness that isn’t “naturally being filled” - Google may control the real estate for the majority of online search activity, but it has a far weaker influence position for building mobile usage. Consumers in front of a desktop based Google search box are no the least bit inclined to “pick up the phone” and call their HAL-like entry into voice search. With no position of control (yet) on the mobile screen, there’s no logical point of influence here.

This signals both a weakness and seriousness of their drive towards voice-based search - for which they need to build a meaningful position which they do not have today. Without a scaled based of voice call traffic, their ability to innovate is hamstrung.

Must be driving them nuts in the g-plex.

Posted by Perry on Friday, October 5th, 2007 at 4:42 am.