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What Does Google Get Out of Voice?
itwbennett writes "Assuming Google isn't offering Voice out of the goodness of their hearts, what's the payoff? One likely, if cynical, possibility is that Google Voice is 'just another feeder for their vast database on you,' writes Kevin Purdy in a recent blog post. Or maybe Google just wants to get better at speech-to-text, and collecting your voice messages is just one big voice-mining effort. 'They already did it with GOOG-411, the free phone directory service that mined voices across the country to launch Google Voice's current transcription offering,' says Purdy. For its part, Google says it has no plans to monetize Voice beyond the international calling and number porting fees that it currently charges."
Nonsense. The reals reason is that Google maintains a very complex evil portfolio that they need to offset with good assets by the end of the fiscal year. Capitalism and the free market has turned their "do no evil" slogan into "do no net evil." As a result, Google Voice generates rare and coveted benidons that are traded on the moral exchange. One benidon offsets one hedon as a base unit at the end of the year. While Microsoft and Apple executives Scrooge McDuck in their massive hedon reserves and show them off to investors, every year Google struggles more and more to finish in the white.
My work here is dung.
For reasons which are far beyond this post, I can't port my old phone number to my new phone provider, but I CAN port my old number to the mighty GOOG.
Basically its a forwarding service pointing my old number to my android phone.
In the long run, if "phone service" went away and all I had was data service, and I ran google voice over that data service, I'd be OK with that. If I had ubiquitous wifi and could connect to google voice over that, I wouldn't even need "phone" service.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
All your phone numbers, those of your wife, your kids, your mistress and all your relatives and business contacts.
Given Apple's success with Siri, Google has a long way to go to make their products as user-friendly as possible in the vaguely futuristic way Siri offers. Also, when you install Google Voice, it asks you whether you want to turn on Personalized Voice Recognition, so that Google can pick your voice out of a mess of voices. No, thanks.
They get the ability to really improve voice recognition software, the ability to search on audio, etc.
Just a guess.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
They transcribe your voicemail and mail it to your gmail account. They scan your gmail to target their advertising. What do they get out of it? Mining your voicemail as well as your email, for one.
"Assuming Google isn't offering Voice out of the goodness of their hearts, what's the payoff?
Sincerely folks, I do not know or care. What matters to me is how I am going to be able to make something for myself in a climate of strangling student, home, medical and personal debts. All these in a climate of an uncertain job market, which is likely to get worse before getting better.
What Google of any other company is doing with their cash is of no consequence to me sincerely.
Does what Google do with its services matter to you? If so, how?
Speech recognition is essential in order to achieve the inevitable pre-singularity destruction of the language barrier. They want to monetize that destruction. They are a business. Duh.
Author hits the nail on the head. A lot of people debate whether Google is a search company or an ad company, truth is it's neither, it's the world's biggest statical service, gathering up and analyzing massive amounts of statistics(for good or for ill). Their main way of monetizing that right now is ads, but they are already starting to branch out. For instance you can pay to have Google's pattern matching technology mine through your own company's data to find trends, classify things etc. And I imagine that Google is looking towards other markets beyond ads, and for that they will need lots and lots of data, your data....
Monstar L
To take over the world, of course. Wouldn't you?
If Google had won a wireless spectrum auction (they didn't), then Google Voice could've been the core of Google's competition with the telco network. Pieces of it are probably still useful for Android, and it could give them negotiating leverage with carriers. So it could've been really important, but didn't turn out that way. The thing with software products, though, is that almost all of the cost is in the initial creation; once created, they cost very little to keep around. So Google keeps Voice running, because it costs them little and turning it off would be very disruptive.
I paid $10 on Google Voice for calling a relative in the Middle East. However, I've paid $0 in ten years of using Google's other servces. Don't underestimate the price of calling non-western countries.
Maybe they like the free phone calls with the customers footing the bill
It was a great test bed for improving the speech to text algorithms with a huge variety of accents and languages. It is the research the leads you to a Siri type service, or just a better hands free device.
I don't rely on it because it isn't in my best interest to rely on a service that I can't see why it is being given away. I know that a local phone number should cost a minimal amount of money to create and maintain. So, why am isn't Google charging $2 a month for it? Since they are not, I have to assume that this service could be temporary.
For those responses indicating that they get your phone numbers, they get that with Android's integration with gmail, without any additional expense to them.
Google is collecting data on us in so many ways. The good thing is that they are in it for advertising dollars and don't care about personally tying us to our habits. Google wants to understand our connections, interactions, and preferences in a way that maximizes our value as a target market for someone else's product. When an advertiser wants to target a very tight demographic, Google wants to be able to produce the maximum number of near-perfect matches. Even more than that, they want to make sure that those ads go in front of not just the people who match, but the people who match AND act on such information.
In a way, Google is an anti-corporation in they they do take the long view of value. They're willing to give you free GV service for years, on the hunch that someone will eventually want to sell you something, and you'll be just the right person to buy it. When advertisers find out that their Google ads have a 10 or 20 or 100% better rate on the dollar because Google can find them just the right consumers, they'll keep coming back.
Voice recognition is coming of age, and it would cost an immense amount of money to collect and categorize the myriad of languages and dialects of the world. Not only does Google not have to set up satellite offices everywhere to collect data, the study participants are giving Google their time for free. Even one better - it's real, conversational speech. Google isn't getting some idealized, white room version of speech, they're getting what's actually out there in the wild.
The more Google understands, the better Google can profile you. Google won't just know what you were looking for last week, they'll be able to anticipate what you will need next week, next month, or next year. By understading and correlating buzz (little "b"), they could predict movements in people, in industries, in commodities, in governments. Those last ones start straying out of the "don't be evil" territory.
As long as Google stays corporate and focused on advertising, we're in great shape. As odd as it sounds, I think the world would be a much better place if the only ads I saw were for things I wanted or needed (then again, I don't have ED...). If Google were to get into commodities or market prediction, or involved in personal witch hunts, things could go down hill pretty quickly.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Think about it. Google offers a lot of messaging offerings. Google Voice is the voice portion of videoconferencing. The software also supports the video part. If Google wants to offer an integrated messaging system (e-mail, IM, voice/audio, videoconference) to corporate customers, Google Voice plays a central part. And then there's Android: Google Voice is their version of the many "wireless calling" features on cel phones that let you make/receive phone calls using local wireless connectivity instead of the cel network (useful inside downtown office buildings where cel reception's poor).
Google Voice is one of those products that on it's own isn't particularly sellable, but once you have it you can build a lot of other things that are.
I know, offtopic, but I just need to know. What is a "plog"?
They provide practically no support. People have text messages and phantom calls that repeat over and over again. It's not meant for business use. Imagine sending a single text message and having it repeat forever and all you can do is send in little support form emails which they confirm they will not contact you back unless they want to. I know it happens because I have been receiving the same txt message over and over again for months now, with no resolution in sight.
I don't care what the reasons are as long as my Obi 110 keeps giving me free VoIP using Google Voice. I have my Obi hooked into my home phone line so every phone in the house can use it to make and receive calls just like the landline service that I cancelled. It works great and helps me keep our mobile minutes on the minimum plan.
First off do recall that Google voice was bought not made by them. Having been in the telco world, the money comes from you calling a google voice number, being that it is routed to a CLEC or and ILEC and that cost the caller more then calling say ATT. But with most of us having free anywhere calling we never see that it cost our provider more money. Also when you make that out bound call from the google voice account when that caller ID number goes out it cost your phone provider money if they want to look that number up as well. Now mind you we are talking about fractions of a penny for each time all of this happens but with some one the size of google and how big they made it, it could bring in a bit of cash for sure. But this may just help the whole thing run in a wash for being able to see how the market uses the service, and for being able to develop more voice software on the back side as well. I am just pointing out that money can be made on it if that is what they really wanted to do.
I got the satisfaction of cancelling with ATT, saving a $30 per month bill, all for a 1 time fee of $50.
Like most people you have failed to count all externalities when computing something's cost.
Even before trying to identify costs for less-direct externalities such as friends for whom your new number's exchange is no longer "local" and giving ATT more support for eliminating the Universal Service Fee and the requirement to offer landline service to any residence, you have failed to include the monthly recurring cost of your Internet access (the "IP" portion of that "VOIP").
No way, no how is VOIP "a 1 time fee."
There was a competition on a signal processing with the goal of classifying healthy/unhealthy cows based on recordings of them doing "MOOO".
Likewise, Google could possibly show you medical ads when it thinks you're sick (or when you have the voice of Miles Davis).
Or they could use it to further profile you (e.g. voice depth and tone, which may be related to some psychological traits; guessing your age, etc.)
If it were another company, I'd say building a subscriber base and selling out to a big company later on. But this is Google - they are the big company. :)
It gets information on you. How else do you think Google makes its money.
It knows who you are.
Google Pay = your credit cards
Google voice = Your phone numbers, all who call you and all you call.
GMail = all your mail is indexed and attachments scanned
Apps = All your docs and data
contacts = huge DB that is easily crossed referenced
android phone = gps location, data usage, etc..
Just add all that to the searches, calendar items, name it.
It's a 1 stop shop for all things info about you. The more info they have, the more valuable it becomes.
All they need is a google connected toilet and refrigerator to complete the picture
The less Google knows about me the better.
Google Voice was originally a startup named GrandCentral, and it was invented to fill a personal need for a phone number that is independent of the phone carriers. Presumably, that need still exists.
Have a nice time.
I'm not convinced it's a net gain for Google, but it's very likely that they're paid every time your call goes to their voice mail.
The 'net says recip' comp' is a way complex system, but it boils down to carriers charging each other to transport or terminate calls.
Your normal GV call would be a call to Google (so, they get paid), and a call to you (so, they pay)... turns out to be a wash. But voicemail or VOIP calls, that's all getting paid. Soft switches aren't all that expensive, so their capital investment isn't outrageous. I wouldn't be surprised if, whether in the red or the black, it's a small enough portion of the budget that they keep it around.
I've also seen hints that Google has done SIP with that service... that might be important if they're selling SIP services to other companies.
I know I'll get slammed for this, but they seem to be closer than the average bear with some U.S. agencies; I recently read that a Federal judge ruled against someone requesting FOI data regarding Google and the NSA, citing "national security". I also found from an article in PC World:
The paper also questions Google contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and other agencies, suggesting that, in some cases, Google contracts were fast-tracked. The paper also questions Google's relationship with the U.S. National Security Agency and calls for the company to be more open about what consumer information it shares with the spy agency.
They're being asked to be up front about what's being shared; this implies that they are not. I know that if I was a higher-up in an intelligence agency, I would try very hard to make a deal with Google to share in their information harvest. Better yet if I could (and they can) obscure this access from view under a blanket "national security" status. Worse things have been done in the past...
Well familiar with $10 to port number and even love the thought of keeping the old Grandcentral number indefinitely for a one time fee of $25. But what still causes concern is not what Google is doing with the information I happen to be streaming them via GVoice, but how can I recover the cost of moving completely to using Google Voice. If the move only saves me $5 per month after things settle out, then keeping US and Canada calling free is the only convincing position. Our current carrier is planning to make major, so the family will need to get new phones. That will be a one time cost, but more importantly, it forces the discussion of possibly moving to a new mobile carrier. Given the uncertainty in Google Voice space, I must assume that they will either charge for the service or that I will not be able to recover the cost. It would be nice if they would establish something as Google could completely dominate the voicemail and transcription market even if they just offer it for free since the data does have some value. The certainly get plenty of voicemails from me where my coworkers from India have left messages.