Today Google announced the rebranding of GrandCentral (a company it acquired in 2007) as Google Voice. The NY Times has a thorough (and effusive, I might add) write-up of the platform and features.
In a nutshell, Google Voice consolidates all your phone numbers into one master line and allows you to do things like control which phone rings when certain people call, which outgoing voicemail message is played for certain people, transfer calls from one line to another, etc... all for free!
The feature that caught my eye as a recovering search marketer is this one (as reported by the NYT)...
"FREE VOICE MAIL TRANSCRIPTIONS. From now on, you don’t have to listen to your messages in order; you don’t have to listen to them at all. In seconds, these recordings are converted into typed text. They show up as e-mail messages or text messages on your cellphone. This is huge. It means that you can search, sort, save, forward, copy and paste voice mail messages."
They day has come... Google has now made your phone searchable. I suppose it was only a matter of time. At Resolution Media, we'd been predicting that for years -- witness the graphic above that's been part of our general presentation quite some time.
Of course 3 of the other tabs on this mock-up have already come to (and, in some cases, gone from) fruition -- TV, Radio, and Print.
I like to think that it's inevitable that Google will one day be able to make your house searchable and even your (and other people's) mind searchable. I got at this a bit in my 2006 Search Insider column -- Why Can't Everything Be Searchable?
Another interesting thread around Google Voice is that of the Voice Search Optimization practice that it's bound to spawn. If voice mails and text messages are now stored in the cloud and accessible on demand via query, you can bet that marketers will figure out ways to make sure their messages pop up atop an individual's phone index.
"Hello, Aaron. This is Shelly from the March for Dimes. Would you consider making a $20 donation today? Your mom would be proud of you."
So when I search my phone messages for "Aaron," "Shelley," or "Mom," the March of Dimes voicemail transcript would come up.
SEO's, start your engines!
2 comments:
This is a very interesting post. I see the possibilities of Google Voice being a great resource for the end user but I do see the dangers of it being abused by shady marketers... you gave a perfect example of how this could / would be done.
Best wishes,
Karl
FYI Google Home is closer than we all may think http://www.google.org/powermeter/.
I have a sneaking suspicion that this technology is not going to just track energy usage in the not so distant future.
*as a side note I am taking note that I am being forced to type in "ginga" before I post this comment. Is this a new outcome of Google's targeting. Does Google know I have red hair?
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