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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.'"
This article is useless without pics
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. :)
I sure hope that those ads won't be targeted based on one's conversations, like they are on Gmail. That would be extremely scary.
My sig is permanently on strike.
Adblock?
IMHO people are getting pretty fed up with pervasive advertising. Part of Tivo's initial popularity came from the ability to skip advertisements. The people quite obviously want less ads, not more. As all of google's money now seems to come from advertising, and they seem to only be innovating new ways to push ads, I'd say that they're going down the wrong path.
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I have rare uses for a cell phone, I can either be reached at home or at work, or I'm with my wife with her cell phone. I can't be reached for the 10 minute commute from home to work and if you can't handle that it's not my problem. The biggest thing preventing me from getting a cell phone is cost, I can't justify paying for something I'll rarely use. This would work perfect for me, the few times a month I need to call someone I can wait through an add.
The only drawback I can see is if your trying to make a 911 call and have to wait through a minute and a half of dice.com adds only to panic and hit 991 and have to do it all over again.
If they do this I'd probably pick one up as probably one of the 2% of Americans that don't currently have a cell phone.
I see -nowhere- that Google has said these advertisements will be audible or will be played before a call. That's just FUD by the article writer. Until Google has said -anything- we don't know what their plans are.
In fact, Google has not even said the phones WILL be ad-revenue supported, as far as I can tell. There's a couple quotes from Google on there, but they only deal with Google apps on the phones, not the calling plans.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
No, more like pissed off.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This could really strike a blow to the prepaid carriers in the U.S. like Virgin Mobile and Trac unless they hop onto the Google bandwagon themselves. Virgin has had a limited "listen to ads for free stuff" program at one point, but I don't know how successful the program was. The rate structures for these companies vary, but certainly a free as in beer plan might appeal to some of the markets these companies are already tapping into (read: lower-class, (pre)teens, and the socially withdrawn).
You're only as smart as your brain.
FTA " Negotiating the fairest way to split those advertising revenues with service providers could be a big hurdle for Google, one analyst said."
Thats why Google wants to become the service provider itself and wants to buy that spectrum for itself.
No, scary would be if the party you called got to hear the ads too. Imagine the chaos it could cause if some spam style advert comes on in the middle of your business meeting!
you: Increase sales and....the size of your penis with cialis... by reaching out to new demographics....
pointy-haired boss: like women???
Get a web developer
The dawn of the ISPs, where many companies offered free dialup internet access through serving ads to customers desktops.
The whole thing died for a number of reasons. In order to gather enough revenue to pay for people's internet connection SO many ads had to be served that people just didn't accept it.
I can only imagine this will be even worse when on the cell. Having to *click* on an ad every few minutes is bad enough, but having to *listen*, which takes time, every time before you make conversation is even worse.
Privacy issues are rampant here too. Google is known for context-based ads by reading your email content in exchange for free email. How bad would it be if Google had some voice recognition built-in, which LISTENED to your conversations, gathered keywords, and served you ads based on what you talk about?
And God only knows where that information would be stored and for what purposes in some Google database, which is already an issue, but could be much worse with real voice being recorded.
To play the devil's advocate, people don't seem to have much of a problem listening to radio stations which work on the same principle. But there are big differences - no two-way interaction, you just listen , so no privacy issues; you can switch radio stations at any time if you hear something you don't like instead of HAVING to wait for it, and most importantly, you listen to radio (for vast majority of people) for leisure, not business, so ads don't have such an impact.
In short, I just don't think this one will be adopted. Anyone who's lifestyle requires a constant or even occasional use of a cellphone, would probably rather pay for a service (cheapest services can go for as little as $10/mo) than be part of this scheme.
The medium is the message. A big goal is location awareness. I doubt there will be audio advertising. More likely if you turn the phone on there will be a popup of a nearby business with a special offer or something. Or if you use data functions, there'll be targetted ads. GIS, you know.
Keep in mind they are bidding up that huge chunk of spectrum coming open soon and if they can snag some of it this could work pretty easily. Start small with a few towers in major markets, preferably near some dark fibre or a NOC they already have in place. Put their sales force to work and cross market to local businesses already using adwords. Lease airtime from other providers in the meantime, under the new regulations they have to provide a quality connection. They have plenty of cash to burn through and I think it would quickly prove itself one way or the other. Obviously offer the chance to "buy up" your service to remove some of the ads. But really try to make the ads real "content". Google has done a good job making ads "content" that actually provide value. In this case, let the consumer know that there's a nearby business offering a special. Don't spam the phone with popups for downloadable ringtones or phone sex lines.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
The sound of the phone ringing. So long as I'm not /delayed/ by the ads, I don't care.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Irony is that I had to watch an ad when I clicked the link...
Just this morning there was a Slashdot article about MS Works being ad supported and at least a few commenters called them evil because of it.
I couldn't disagree more. The masses *love* ads. People pay to wear ads on their clothes. People pay to advertise their car's brands on their cars. People pay a large sum of money to their cable/satellite company every month to watch ads. People willingly sit through ads before a movie that they paid for. There are so many idiots out there who PAY to consume advertising, that I guarantee people are NOT fed up with advertising.
Personally, I'm fed up with ads, but I see no sign that regular people are fed up with advertising.
I don't respond to AC's.
FYI, Google is not to first company that tried to put an ad sponsored cell phone on the market:
4 194714-1.html/
http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing-advertising/
I worked for Esp Media as a consultant, in 2000. Located in Montreal, we built the company with 7 software writers in about 6 months (there was more staff for administration and marketing though). Technically, it worked great. But the sales were lousy and Esp Media lost its funding with the dot com bubble burst. Still, one of my best work experience ever.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
(Taps number in).
(Pause).
"Head on! Apply directly to the forehead!"
"Head on! Apply directly to the forehead!"
"Head on! Apply directly to the forehead!"
"Head on! Apply directly to the forehead!"
"Head on! Apply directly to the forehead!"
(Two minutes later)
"Head on! Apply directly to the forehead!"
"Head on! Apply direc.... Hello?"
"If you ever take that long to reply to your phone again, I swear I will kill you."
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
This should scare Apple shareholders for a few days at least.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The thing that confuses me about an advertising phone based model is, how does anyone capitalize on the ads?
On the web, it's easy enough to be diverted by a good ad to quickly visit somewhere and perhaps buy something. But on a phone, you not only have the problem that the user might want to do something right then (make a call) that they are not willing to divert from, but also have the issue of how to you enable the user to actually make a purchase. I guess perhaps you have a credit card registered with the phone provider and you just click "buy now" when an appealing ad comes up?
Even local ads, where you get ads for businesses around you that you show the business for a discount sounds kind of iffy.
If anyone can figure out how to squeeze money out of that model though, I guess it will be Google!
I wonder if they'll require a certain level of usage each month to keep up service? Otherwise I can see people just getting one for free and throwing it in the car for emergencies.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oh come on.... this doesn't prove they are evil. And I think people missing a possibilty. Instead of hearing ring tones while you are waiting for someone to pick-up you you might hear 2-3 second Ad. you know... " This call brought to you by so and so" then boom the callee picks up. And the same when someone calls you. Plus this would not interfere with 911 calls. It is possible to do Ads without being invasive. If done right I think this would be a great phone to have. Plus even if someone linux hacked it... the ring tone Ads might still be under Googles control making Google happy and giving the hackers some fun. =)
As in most religions, it's the followers that turn people off to the religion. And Mac users are the worst.
That's because Works is a shitty product, offering little, with a viable (superior) free replacement.
A free phone is more useful, even if it is ad supported. Add to that a browser and the Google touch and it's OK.
As I said earlier, I would use this, while in the case of Works I'll stick with notepad.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
They have a vastly popular search engine online, how does that translate to a monopoly in phones? If they were now denying access to their site to all non-Google phones, then yes I'd say they are using their might for evil, but they aren't. They're simply saying 'hey look we're Google and now we have a free phone'.
Microsoft used to threaten OEMs with higher rates or even denial of Windows if they did things like offered other OSes or bundled other browsers (way back when). Google is certainly large enough that they can commit similar evil acts, but I don't see how this would be one of them.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Call 911 and hear/see an ad from an injury lawyer.
Do you have ESP?
There was also an ad-supported text pager that I believe went belly-up.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
I would like to welcome back the dot-com bubble. v2 is shaping up to be better than the first.
People want tech products. Tech products are expensive. Advertising gives us money. Therefore, we should give away computers... I mean phones. Those 2/10ths of a cent we get for every ad are free money. We'll be GAZILLIONAIRES in a week! No need to worry about the hundreds of dollars of investment in equipment and large monthly service fees. If we decide we aren't making enough money, we'll just throw in twice as many ads, and make twice as much money! It can't possibly fail! FREE MONEY!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go integrate my customized strategic life-cycle synergy platform into the vibrant emerging vertical market to differentiate my uniquely challenged customers and organizationally leverage our thriving demographic margins under one roof.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Sorry for feeding the troll but...
Google isn't just "selling ads" they're monitoring people habits. They can monitor what words people talk and with who. They provide a hardware based ID so any services used trough the cell phone can not be anonymized. In the end they can use all that info to "sell ads" and "index the world", two of the Google mantras.
Google marketing is to charge everyone 10% while advertising the 90% discount. People are so prone to technology that they don't care what they're giving back.
Hey dude that's actually a good idea ..all phones should have that .. if the phone/service carried out your instructions/commands or search query only if prepended by a trigger word instead of butting in when unnecessary that is. The trigger word should be pretty unlikely to say in a conversation and/or something user configurable. To find the pizza or whatever you would have to say "Google Searcher, where can I find a restaurant (where I am)?" Since you didnt specify a location, like you said it'll figure out where you are by using the built in GPS or triangulation and the come back with "There is a Domino's 2 miles from you, should I dial it or place it in a file and/or display the number amnd map, company logo etc. in your phone?" (assuming u didnt preconfigure it to do a default o something). Then you can answer it or ask for more places. That's a cool feature to have.
.. cause otherwise it would be plain creepy.
It would be like 411 and a personal assistant rolled into one. I would hope all that the actual voice/conversation analysis stuff happens locally on the phone instead of on a server
This is still different from the MS "monopoly" because with Windows there's some sort of lock-in, a reason you would need to use Windows over any other operating system, and that is compatibility. That means competition isn't totally fair because someone could have a better product, but since most programs are written for Windows a lot of people won't be able to switch to the better OS. This sort of lock-in wouldn't be the case with a Google phone, unless they did something ridiculous like only let people call Google phones with a Google phone. Which they won't. So it's not even a "monopoly" in the MS pseudo-monopoly sense.
So what if a bunch of anecdotal Mexicans can make ends meet. You are making presumtions from the wrong point of view.
The immigrants share housing and eschew luxuries
So all of a sudden living in a basement with 20 others and luxuries such as "food" or "" becomes the defacto acceptable minimum standard of living?
Stop saying stupid such as telling it that it should "OK" for people in a western world to live in a situation like a fucking "Favela".
The United States should be ashamed for the low standard of living for some of it's citizens.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
I'm wondering when the advertising bubble will burst. When will people become so fed up of advertising everywhere that it becomes almost worthless? TV has almost reached that point, with Nelson not counting DVR ratings (my fiend just did a Nelson survey, and they discounted everything watched on DVR) because everyone just bypasses the commercials. Jericho and a few other shows are good examples of where shows have been canceled because people watch them on DVR and online instead of at the regular time and miss all the commercials, thus being worthless to advertisers.
Not to mention that Works is the base "productivity software" on Dell systems (and maybe most or all other major Win-box retailers).
You can still order them without it, but it doesn't decrease the price of the system, so isn't Works pretty much free (as in beer) to the consumer already, if you're buying a new computer?
Adding ads just makes it a worse product that still won't change the price of the system (to the customer) whether you include it or not.