Google just introduced the ability to connect you to local businesses on the phone. To do this, you look for a business using Google Maps and then you find the one nearest you and click the call button. After entering your phone number, they call you and connect you to the business. Sounds great especially since they are the ones paying for the long distance charges.
But this is where I think it could go: pre-call advertising. Google exists to sell ads and having a person on the phone before a phone call is a whole new audience! Before being connected to the local "Google map-dialed florist" in your area, you could hear ads from other florists. And they will already know your Google maps search history so they can target their pre-call audio ads even better.
Sound interesting? They have already been buying blocks of print ads in newspapers, selling space in those blocks to the highest bidder.They are doing the same thing with radio ads. They also are working on technology to recognize a song or a movie based on a partial audio clip of that piece. Imagine recording audio clips of your voice, analyzing them for content, and using that to target ads on the abovementioned Google map phone calls ads. Combining their ad-generating genius with old media (news, radio) and new media (web), who knows where it will end? They sky's the limit for them!
Disclaimer: I am a Google fanboy. I love their innovation and that they keep other businesses on their toes. They have the capital to pull it off and are making the industry think better and faster about how things are done. They think outside the box and it is paying off for them. Now I only wish I had bought some of their stock when it went public...
It would have been nice to vote in my country's election this year. I did not abstain from voting or stay home because I did not want to make a choice. I think that's for sissies who don't want to make a difference for the future of my country. It was yet something else. I did not receive my absentee ballot in time. It was post-marked September 19. It arrived to Russia on October 9. It hit my post box on November 13, a full-week after the election! Oh well, I don't think my vote would have mattered considering the margin of difference was about 10 million...
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