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Google's New Click-to-Call Service
teknopagan writes "Google has debuted a new service called Click-to-Call, in which they will connect you by phone to any of their advertisers. You click a phone icon next to the ad, enter your phone number, and Google calls you and connects you for free to the advertiser."
Pure genius.
I'd love to know the technology behind this. Given Google's commitment to FOSS, I would venture to guess that they are using Asterisk somewhere in the mix since it's one of the most flexible and mature open source telephony projects. However, Asterisk isn't known for scaling very well when you start talking about enterprise level installs. In fact, one of the biggest complaints of the Asterisk community is that VoIP providers routinely hack the source to improve scalability and stability, but then never release those changes back to the project. If indeed Google is using Asterisk, it will be interesting to see how much they support the developer community.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
..especially if they have the phone number of someone they don't like.
This tagline is copyrighted material. Please send $10 for an affordable replacement.
Not that this is the first and only thing in my mind, but if phone sex operators are using this service......
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
are they recording the call as well?
prank calls have now reached a new frontier!
How do they make sure that the number entered is indeed from the person interested in the product? What stops me from entering (say) Darl McBride's number a million times?
There are 11 types of people. Those who understand binary, those who don't and those who are sick of this lame joke.
Don't they know the reason that I use the web is because I don't like the phone?
With all this information gathering technology at there hands, I find it hard to believe that Google will in fact not be evil for much longer.
Great. Where do I sign up?
Wow, a useful and impressive innovation, although I'm certain that the "Live Chat" software providers are probably stewing in their cauldron over this one. I wonder, though: could this be abused by phreakers? With the digital age of IP Telephony, let us live in interesting times! ~d
Here I am looking at male enhancement products... what's Taco's phone number again?
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
I might as well enter the advertiser's number.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
According to the FAQ the advertiser can't see your phone number, so they can't add you to their list and annoy you if you decide not to order anything from them. That's pretty nice.
Does anyone have an example of a link that shows this? I've tried googling IBM, business, computer...I cant find where this mythical phone icon is I should be looking for.
The reason is (or seems to be) that Google blocks your number from them. The advertiser can't see your number. I guess that means you won't get telemarketing calls or something?
How long until they integrate this with Google Talk?
Google already knows everything about me: my contact info and my buyer habits.
I would have expected them to know exactly when to connect me with the company I was about to Google!
will our children mock google the way our generation mocks microsoft?
I wish this was everywhere. Not necessarily because I want to talk to every advertiser, but because I would love to be able to talk to these jerks sometimes. Really, if you got a spam email, wouldn't it be better if you could then just click, and be connected with them and tell them what you think about their -bodypart- enhancement, or their new guaranteed -success at something-? This would be an excellent feedback mechanism to increase the cost of internet advertising so that every hokey jerk out there cannot bombard me mindlessly. I enjoy google ads, I like those for the most part, and the do work. Targeted ads work. I wish I could provide feedback to the dimwads that do not target their marketing. I wish I could feeback to those that abuse my bandwidth.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
1. There are guards against crank-calling. Try calling your own number and hanging up right away. Then call it again. You are given an opportunity to block your number. So no one victim will be repeatedly crank-called.
Also, remember that you don't need an online service to crank-call someone, you can just use a phone; so there is some tolerance there.
2. To the responder who said he might as well key in the merchant number, the point is that you only have to enter your own number once. After that, your number is securely stored and you don't need to enter either number again.
So it's easier than dialing on your phone.
I bet they can't put you through to the latter for free!
Now I have the PERFECT use for my list of people who have wronged me. Now I can't wait to find bondage adverts!
www.olin.edu
why ddos someone's website when you can ddos their phone network
is that all of the telephones ringing in the office at the same time i hear?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If I go to google.com on my PDA phone, Google forwards me to http://www.google.com/pda
If I do a standard google search such as John Johnson, Chicago, IL it'll list all the phone numbers, and if I click on a number, it will automatically load up my phone dialer and begin dialing.
This IS a little different from the Click-to-Call, but it has been part of Google's PDA services for well over a year. I use it every day (I hate saving contacts if I don't have to).
I read on some SEO forums that Click-to-Call was limited to a few States and might stay that way for a while. I haven't seen any CtC links in Illinois or Wisconsin, yet.
Amazon has been doing Click To Call via A9 yellow pages for some time now. It's not terribly useful to when you sitting at the computer with a phone right next to you, but I've used it when people call me looking for a phone number. Put their's in, and they don't have to worry about looking it up.
YOU call the telemarketing guys.
Thanks a lot Google! Our day of revenge finally came!
My ex once worked for an outfit in England that had a service like this for websites. Cellular Services Development I think they were called. Their service was called 'contact me' and the way she described it sounds identical to this. That was about six years ago.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Okay, cool idea. Except how many people actually click their ad links (I've never clicked one in my life), let alone would actually call these advertisers?
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
Can someone wiser than I fill me in on the value of this? I'm not trolling here -- what's the point?
1) If I want to do business with someone, I can pick up the phone and call them myself.
2) If I am going to buy their product, sooner or later I have to give them some information about myself (so anonymity isn't really a value of this service).
3) The system is easily abused -- no reason I can't put your phone number in instead of mine.
4) If I am an advertiser, I want to know that my product's demographic is being reached. If all I have to go on is a phone number, how does this help me?
As an investor and someone working in the tech industry, I'm pretty disappointed that this is the best Google's army of PhDs can come up with.
I tried a google search for a few items and didn't see a phone icon. Anyone have a sample search that would show this? And what prevents me from entering my number as someone down the street, to piss them off? ;)
KeepTrackOfIt.com - Find the lowest gas prices in your area graphically
This could be really irritating. If it is embedded like a hyperlink, there may not be a phone icon. This could create simple denial of services, piss people off who accidently click them, bugger up routers, and etcetera. Perhaps if they make this only workable with the google bar and make the page produce a bone grinding soud evytime there is one of these links on page, just so as you can't be mistaken.
1996 or 1997, someone introduced a clickable "call-back" service. Given that I don't remember their name, I don't think it:
a: Went very far
and
b: Was really that big of a deal
I've done some searches for seemingly common things, and I haven't seen this phone icon yet. Anybody have a live one?
-b
myselfmusic
Is it wrong if I use this new service just so I can say Google called me? :(
---
WARNING:Slashdot karma not redeemable in the afterlife.
They are building more than a phone book, they are building the most valuable database in the world. Right now, all they have is your IP address and it's killing them that they don't know who you really are. But when you sign up for Google services, they *will*
find out who you are and connect all your google activities with your real identity. Every search, every phone call, every online store you browse, will be up for sale.
I'll confess: I'm basically going to use this to troll people I don't like by entering their phone numbers in ads for "freehotsex.com" or whatever.
Amazon.com has a search engine named a9.com. It has a "yellow pages" feature. The businesses listed in these "yellow pages" have had "Click to call" for several monthes now.
But now that Google offers it, it is big news. Right?
What a boring name. No GClick, GCall, or G-Click-to-Call?
They just don't put the effort into their naming schemes like they used to.
This has been around for years in the UK. I used to work for a company that used the service(A very large mobile phone retailer). Let me tell you, as a call centre rep who took the calls it was total bollocks most of the time. Dead lines from people who change their mind, and worse just people not knowing what their doing. Its very gooods though for people who cant pick up a phone and dial. But what the hell do they want with a mobile phone anyway??
serenity now!
For people like me who prefer phone communications over e-mail(*Prepares sheild for attack*), this is the best technology that I SHOULD have thought of first. And to think, I'd have made a killing if I just saved that damn dinner napkin....
" i r 1337. j00 a l0z3r "
That talk kinda makes you cry, doesn't it?
That's right..cry those nerdly tears
No WAY am I giving my phone number up to some shonky web form, even if it is Google.
I wonder if advertisers will use this permission to call as a way around the "do not call" law.
John Doe just gave company X permission to call... little does he know company X is a telemarketing company (that now has explicit permission to call him.) So company X proceeds to call John Doe to plug it's 500 other products.
Ya think?
...what's to stop google from storing your phone number?
There are several comments here saying this has already been done elsewhere. But have any of those services been offering to foot the bill for it? I figured Google added that part themselves to keep with the idea of all their services being free for all.
Busy day for Google?
The Mysan website announces the new Google Space for London's Heathrow Airport. From the article: "A half of British passengers surveyed said they had nothing better to do in airport terminals than eat, drink and shop. [...] To answer this demand, on Thursday 24 November, Google is launching Google Space at Heathrows Terminal One. Google Space is a laboratory comprising Google pods, which travellers can access for free once through security to log onto the Internet, check their mail and use Google tools to find out about their destination."
Animoog.org
Use case is somebody buys an AdWords spot and enters the victim's telephone number as the contact number.
With all their other personalized services requiring you to log into your gmail account, why do you think this would be different?
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
They don't give your number to anyone.
Than just adding the advertiser's phone number so that somebody can call them on their own terms?
Sweet! Now I'm just waiting for someone write some bots to connect advertisers to EACH OTHER! Phone DoS!
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Either way, your statements are wrong.
A corporation is created for a variety of reason like limiting liability or creating an 'ongoing concern'. Corporations can be used to raise funds. Can you sell 10,000 shares of stock in a partnership?
The main reason anyone files for articles of incorporation is to separate the business from themselves. If your corporation tanks, creditors won't come after your house, your car and your savings account. If you are the business, everything you own is on the line.
Further, I take issue with your blanket statement that "it is simply evil to have the power." Is it evil for police to own guns? Is it evil for you or I to own them? Is a pointed stick evil?
Like anything else, a corporation (or a gun) is neither good nor evil. It is neutral. You can go file for articles of incorporation and then do nothing with them... and guess what? Neither you nor the world becomes 'more' evil.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
But then you RTFA and find out that your number is not given to advertiser and not retained by Google for any extensive amount of time.
Maybe I'm just easily excitable but that sounds like a neat idea. Cross-license with ebay and skype, flavor with paypal, and you can call from your computer and buy stuff without picking up the phone or even pulling out your credit card to read out the numbers or giving your address.
Yea it's consumerism and capitalistic BS, but who wouldn't give a pinky finger to have the rights to the tech and marketing concept?
They are quite imaginative in their approach to advertising. I wonder if the advertiser will have to pay Google each time someone is connected via phone (for other than phone charges), and whether, as an advertiser, you can limit the number of phone calls that will take place (to, say, five per hour), in case you're just a small business without hundreds of operators standing by.
I advertise through google, and they have my Cell number on record. The last thing I want is to have everybody on the internet start "automatically" calling me on it!
I hope that this feature is not enabled by default.
Expat Software Consulting Services
No. We take your privacy very seriously. Google does not share your telephone number with anyone (without your consent), including the advertiser. When you're connected with the advertiser, your number is blocked. The advertiser can't see your phone number.
In addition, we retain your information (including your phone number, date, time, and call length) only temporarily. It will be deleted from our servers after a period reasonably necessary to operate, audit, and evaluate the service.
Learn more about our privacy policy.
The sad thing is, the article is not that long. This was also commented on, almost verbatim. and speculation(and jokes) about what Google will do with your number with that term evaluate in there, they can leave it in bets forever to hold on to your number, and build a customer profile, but still, can't share it unless you let them (stupid idea).
"10001110101 - periodic table with a centerpiece of mind" -Clutch
IVR (Phone hell) bypass list aka "how to speak to a human"
Google's New Free Anonymous Online Dating Service.
Finally, I can talk dirty to call-center chicks with complete anonymity, without paying a dime.
Well, honestly, I'm wondering if this 'Google Space' news is fake. Even if it seems quite possible and not surprising, I only found two occurences of this Google project on the web and yes, this website is of unknowned reliability...
Animoog.org
LOL. Another tool for those who want telemarketing calls. Hopefully it will suck up even more call center manpower. With luck and do not call lists, I will never receive another telemarketing call again.
~~ What's stopping you?
Ok, I'm not crazy, there you go, Google Space !
l
http://www.google.co.uk/googlespace/
Linked from http://www.ogleearth.com/2005/11/google_space.htm
quite better from the first link I provided...
Animoog.org
Y'know, I'm generally a fan of Google's, but this isn't really a new 'innovation', or 'pure genius' the way some posters are making this service out to be. Amazon's A9 search has offered click-to-call for a while now. Paypal has being using a similar service to verify users. Vendors like eStara have been selling their "Push to Talk" service for a while... Arguably, eStara is the 800lb gorilla in this space. Major Financial Institutions are using this to help sell products. Dell is using it to help out with financing questions. Anything that can be simplified by a short conversation can benefit from Click-to-Call technologies.
So yes... it's innovative to use Click-to-Call with advertising. But it's hardly the earth-shattering 'pure genius' that people are making it out to be.
You could already do this with relay calls.
Many of the video phone companies have this feature free on their website.
http://www.siprelay.com/
What a dumbass comment. Of course they won't turn on it on by default. Do you think Google wants to commit suicide?
Just for fun, google "private jet" or "fur coat" and open the google ads in a new tab. Each ad makes a few bucks for google and drains the high end advertisers.
Most people thought of using it for pranks by putting in other peoples numbers.
I thought about using just to call up the advertisers - assuming the advertisers are paying for the call.
I'm in Australia - odds are that the advertisers aren't. Even if I just do Beavis and Butthead impressions until they hang up, the cost will add up.
And the advertisers can't see my number so they can't block my call without going through Google.
Probably a decent defensive strategy against getting pranked in the other direction...
I can't say I quite follow Google's logic here. Google is already doing enough things "on their dime", without paying for searchers to call advertisers. What are they, a phone company now? I can only think of a few reasons you'd want to call an advertiser, and any decent company will typically have a 1-800 number. Even if they don't, unlimited long distance either through your local phone company or your mobile carrier is pretty common.
Furthermore, this is going to cost the companies regardless. Sure, they want people to call them up and say "Advertise to me!", and this may make Google an even more attractive place to put an ad... but somebody has to man the phones. I don't think you want to call up such a number only to get a pre-recorded message. A private "click to email" where google blocks your address would have made a lot more sense to me.
About the only real use I can think of is small time advertisers, think auctions...
So now we can put companies phone lines out of action aswell as their websites.
Isn't Google wonderful? They're letting me hear advertising and sales pitches over the phone... FOR FREE!!!
Why isn't everyone doing this!
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
All:
Does anybody in here know how to file for patents ? Does one need to have a working model or prototype to patent a process/innovation ? Response appreciated.
Thanks.
This is a good one from Google! This has gone beyond advertising! This is a big step of transforming just advertising to real sales leads!!!!
The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity....Calvin
SmartPages.com (now YellowPages.com) has had Click-to-Call for almost two years!
infinite loop?
busy signal?
Anyone actually _find_ one of these buttons yet? If so, what did you search for? I'd kinda like to try this.
When I was with USLaw.com in 2000 we looked into this type of service to connect people with lawyers directly from the site. Basically if someone browsing the site had a question about one of the articles they could click a link, enter their phone number, and they would receive a call that was then connected to one of our "ask a lawyer" staff.
Unfortunately the entire Web team was laid off before we got a chance to try to implement it.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Google connects you to the advertiser and you get the usual recorded announcement: "Please hold for the next available operator. Due to the high volume of calls this may take some time. For faster service please visit our website."
Discounting the obvious exploits this system provides to (ab)users, how about Joe Sixpack using this system as it was intended... Google's complied record on Mr. Sixpack has just scored two very valuable data points: Not only his phone number, but the nature of his call.
No doubt the telemarketing industry would be very interested.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
This is great stuff. Now you can talk to companies and get information out of them, without them getting your phone number. Google doesn't give your phone number to them, and the callerid shows googles stuff, not yours. This way the company can't call you back and claim they were exempt under the do not call list since you had a business relationship with them. They wont even know your phone number in the first place :)
Web is primarily about strutured data which is around 15% where as phone is about unstructured data
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Google Porn Beta
I bet Google didn't think of one use of this new service - annoying and harassing the hell out of people whose phone number you happen to know.
"Honey, why did ``Joe's Male Escort Service and Gay Bar call your cell twenty times last night?''"
Perhaps Gooooooo(eww!)gle will christen them "Click-to-Callgirls."
Soon guys will be swapping stories like "Ohmigod, last night this chick, her PageRank was f***ing incredible!"
"But I feel so...so....dirty."
"Don't worry, baby - using Internet Explorer is all part of the kink."
How about a search engine that returns relevant results like Google used to? The usefulness of their search results have gradually but quite steadily gone downhill, yet they continue to roll out one new service after another. Don't get me wrong, they are doing some super cool stuff, but it just kinda seems more and more like their search engine has lost its magic, and in some cases... well... sucks.
Swedish chef anyone?
Or are you some sort of shill that works for Google? Either way, you sound retarded.
This seems to be the latest form of internet integration to the "offline" world. The next move will be to charge advertisers on a pay-per-call basis, as MIVA and AOL and others are already doing.
Really, it's an ideal way for more traditional 'walk-in' businesses to make online advertising pay without the need for a huge ecommerce site. It's a natural fit with things like florists, restaurants, and other small businesses -- and will work particularly well on portals like Google Local.
It also a move that anticipates most people will soon have VOIP ready to go on their PCs so you click and bang you're talking without the need for a BBS-style callback which is still quite crude. Maybe the Google toolbar will soon include something for this?
=======
Science -- Sealed, Delivered.
I know they require persons to "press 1 to join the call" to minimize certain types of pranks/scams; I dunno if Google is doing that or not but they probably will.
--LP
This is Slashdot, yet I haven't seen anyone concerned about privacy yet.
Be patient.
You'll see plenty when the dupe articles get posted to YRO...
For one second i thought i Read Ebay and Skype.
Now that would be good to be able to call the sellers if they are online.
"Forming a corporation is like modding overrated. Most will do both to limit personal liability. Limiting personal liability is logical and resaonable, as the parent suggest. However, most people do look to consequences to guide thier actions, and with corporation, for the most part, their are few consequences. Both the grandparent and parent agree that corporations limit liability. In which case would you be more likely to lie on a financial statement to your partners? The one where you can walk away scott free, or the one where your house will be taken away?"
AND
"The big problem with corporations, and this goes back to the founding fathers, is that it comes awfully close to creating an entity that looks like a person, i.e. a entity that has rights and responsibilities, without the concience or at least the ability to exact consequences. The board of directors can be sued, the CxO can be sued, but, at the end of the day, when people die from misconduct of the corporation, the only death sentence will be to a fictional entity, and most of the perpetrators will be free to commit other crimes."
Uh, huh. Just for research purposes, have you ever actually owned or run a corporation (any kind) of your own? Bonus points if you had gotten away with something illegal. e.g. swiping office supplies, or embezzeld money from your partner. I'm just wondering since I seem to be seeing a lot of these "business experts" on Slashdot and I want to tap into this "consequence free" pool of expertise. If I can do something illegal, then I know that it'll be because of the fact that I own a business, and not because I simply have a lot of money. After all rich people don't have such a good racket.
2) Get a 900 number that charges $350 for the first minute, and call it - so Google owes you $350
3) Prank phone calls, connecting your favorite Pastor to a pr0n advertiser
4) Connect two competing advertisers, just for fun ("You called me", "No, YOU called ME!")
5) Call your cousin in China, who happens to work for a Google advertiser. Free Long Distance!!!
6) Call your favorite phone-sex operator (assuming she advertises on Google) - all on Google's tab.
7) Write a script to perform any of the above functions multiple times in an endless loop - achieving the Slashdot affect by phone.
Wonder of these would work. I don't encourage you to try any of them! (Kids, don't try this at home!)
i can see this getting exploited to the point of ....hey it's an x10 ad, ring ring, would you like to buy some x10 products....ack noooooooo!
What is interesting here is that Google is taking a look at stuff that was Bleeding edge at one time, and adding their brand power to it. Back in 1999 we had a partner that developed this type of callback technology. At the time,web sites were simply brochure-ware and the interactive capabilities were too novel for most marketing managers. Time for everyone to dust off some old code.
The caller doesn't know the advertiser's number, so the only way the customer can contact the advertiser is through Google. And Google knows you called, so it can take a commission on any sale.
In Soviet Russia, Google calls YOU!
anyone have Jimmy Swaggart's Home phone number? How about Rush Limbaugh? I'm pretty sure their penises aren't big enough.
...you call the telemarketers, but here in America, you ask someone to ask the telemarketers to call you ASAP.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
see my blog from San Francisco where we discuss Google's offer of Free WiFi (interesting...) to the city for a defacto Yellow Pages Franchise It's the new Business Model for capturing Yellow Pages and Local Newspaper Advertising This Click-to-Call is part of that strategy to capture small local business advertising (like your local Deli) which are currently speading their local ad dollars on NewsPaper Display Ads and Yellow Pages (for which their value is hard to measure, unlike paying for leads with click to call - good for consumers, bad for local newspapers and local yellow pages, potentially bad for community businesses competing with nationwide chains, bad for local government with local ad spending now going to google, vs local ad jobs) http://www.webnetic.net/2005/11/why_should_you_car e_if_google.html
There is another level they need to get to with this, "Click to Face". I am working with a start up here in NYC metro area called Avivocom and they offer live interactive help desk / sales support with audio and video. They embed it and deliver it within a banner or any browser. Very cool stuff. www.avivocom.com. TK
The reason Google wants to do this is that they get paid a LOT more when someone clicks a call link. Advertisers pay several dollars per click. Google isn't an innovator here. Other have done it before. Google is just going to kill the others becuase of their reach with advertisers.