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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."
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.
Given the searches I've tried, I really doubt that this feature is turned on. I tried a lot of searches that result in some of the most appropiate advertisers many of which show up on AdWords. Even if this was only available to a few AdWords customers, I'd think one of our searches would have found them: flowers moving vans pizza pizza 94043 car rental vacation hawaii vacation hawaii orbitz hotels new york
Asterisk isnt really appropriate for this. They dont want to build a call server or PBX equivalent. They need an IVR that simply makes calls and connects the two parties. Something like Telco Perl is much more appropriate for this.
In Soviet Russia the insensitive clod is YOU!
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!
You should have read the part of the article that describes how it works. You will still end up on hold because you are calling the advertiser, the advertiser is not calling you. Google calls you, then forwards your call on to the advertiser. Basically, they are just dialing for you.
Screenshots can be found on Greg Yardley's blog
--- No Boom? No Boom today. Boom tomorrow, there's always a boom tomorrow.
Google doesn't give the phone number to the advertiser. They delete your number after a short time. At least according to their privacy statement. Doing otherwise could open them up to litigation.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
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.