Google Shows Off Ad-Supported Cell Phone

taoman1 writes "Today Google showed off a ad-supported cellphone that the company plans to offer for free to interested parties. The product could reach the marketplace within a year, and will offer Google search, email, and a web browser. 'The move would echo another recent product launched by a phone industry outsider, Apple Inc.'s iPhone. But Google's product would draw its revenue from a sharply different source, relying on commercial advertising dollars instead of the sticker price of at least US$499 for an iPhone and $60 per month for the AT&T Inc. service plan. Negotiating the fairest way to split those advertising revenues with service providers could be a big hurdle for Google, one analyst said. Another problem is the potential that consumers could be scared off by the prospect of listening to advertisements before being able to make phone calls, said Jeff Kagan, a wireless and telecommunications industry analyst in Atlanta.'"

Comments

Re:listen to ads?

[omeomi]

I can't imagine ANYONE using a phone as their main phone if they had to listen to ads before every call-- unless they couldn't afford a cell phone in the first place, inwhich case I doubt those ads would attract many buyers. :)

The article does say that it "plans to offer consumers free subscriptions by bundling advertisements with its search engine, e-mail and Web browser software applications"...doesn't say anything about voice ads...except later in TFA, there's a quote from somebody echoing your sentiment...so it's not really clear if there will be voice ads or not...

Re:listen to ads?

[wurp]

Begin off-topic rant:

I dunno whether you were trying to be funny (mocking some people's view of poverty), and the mods just went awry, or if you're being serious...

If it's the first option, feel free to skip this post altogether :-)

There are plenty of people, I'm sure, who are poor because they have bad decision making skills, and so they also drink too much, or get caught doing illegal crap, or cash their checks at check cashing stores.

There are also plenty of people, probably many more than the prior set, that are poor because they made one bad decision (having a child by a loser who won't help) or had one episode of bad luck, combined with a lack of extended support networks. Either their friends & family are poor too, or their friends don't have enough money to help and their family is poor or estranged, etc.

I was raised by a single mother, and I am offended by your characterization of the poor. Moreover, I am horror-struck that a significant group of people think that it's accurate.

Imagine if you had lived your whole life surrounded by people working at jobs that barely made ends meet. Now imagine how you would:

a) Fit your head around the notion that you could get a job that paid well, having no direct experience with people with such a job.
b) Obtain the skills to get that job.
c) Recover, with no support network, from the inevitable bad decisions or bad luck that befall everyone.
d) Develop all of the skills and habits to take advantage of financial success, having not been raised with them.

If your parents worked professional jobs, ever bought you a car or bailed you out of some financial problem, or paid for your college, you have NO CONCEPT of why the poor are "the poor".

Part of the problem is similar to (although much less severe than) trying to understand how people could do the stupid things they did hundreds of years ago. You live in a different culture, that has given you tools to become successful and build on that success. What's more, the culture has given you confidence in those tools that just hearing about them can't convey.

End rant.