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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?
Google’s just announced acquisition of Grand Central paints another point on a line with an increasingly clear path. Google is building the infrastructure for a suite of communication services that erase the lines between modalities and communications delivery channels.
For the unfamiliar, Grand Central is an innovative voip-based technology company (an NBC video roll for a simple overview, and their Demo 2006 video gives a more detailed product concept orientation).The GrandCentral notion of a “life-long, multi-modal mailbox” will presumably be integrated with GoogleTalk and Gmail. This will become a compelling hook to your personal communications life.
What might this imply to the progression of voice services? advertising services? (more…)
I ran across this fascinating commentary from Tim O’Reilly, hidden inside an unrelated Wired interview. It deserves to be called out. It it Tim’s (always insightful) perspective, this time on Google’s intent behind the voice work.
“Why did Google, for example, recently decide to offer free 411 service? I haven’t talked to people at Google, but it’s pretty clear to me why. It’s because of speech recognition. It has nothing to do with 411 service, it has to do with getting a database of voices, so they don’t have to license speech technology from Nuance or someone else. They want their own data stream.”
That is a pretty intriguing viewpoint on motive. I do agree that the probable intent of Google is not to “be in the 411 business” - rather it is to begin the process of domination in voice navigation. This importance of this feels pretty darn far-reaching. The Google Voice Box, here we come.
UPDATED LINKS:
1. Tim posts on his own blog with more context. Worth reading for sure.
2. A Google patent watcher, with interesting insight into Google voice search patents (as picked up by Battelle)
Well, we’d all expect it to be variation on HAL, no doubt…
A pretty predictable move to those of us who live in the space, but it’s obviously noteworthy that the ‘plex has pushed their IVR experimentation out as a new beta service. As profiled in SearchEngineLand, Google joins the ranks of entrants as the industry increasingly recognizes that the vast majority of mobile inquiries for local information come via the entrenched information services channel of Directory Assistance.
While the business is most certainly ripe for innovation and commencing a process of re-invention via Free DA and mobile search, there are major challenges in the user experience and content navigation elements of these services. Nothing overly impressive from the get-go from the new service, from my cursory use. However, it’s foolhardy to under-estimate what the merry band in the Googleplex can do from a technology viewpoint.
Much to write ahead on this topic; I’m working on a “series of posts” to instigate the conversation around the connections between voice & internet in the increasingly mainstream mobile economy.