Tech | November 15, 2009 | 70 comments

Google poised to be your Phone Company

source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/13/google.phone.service/index.html

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Hurtsville
(Wired) -- Google is set to become your new phone company, perhaps reducing your phone bill to zilch in the process.

Seriously.

Google has bought Gizmo5, an online phone company that is akin to Skype  but based on open protocols and with a lot fewer users. TechCrunch, which broke the news on Monday, reported that Google spent $30 million on the company.

Google announced the Gizmo acquisition on Thursday afternoon Pacific Time. Gizmo5's founder Michael Robertson, a brash serial entrepreneur, will become an Adviser to Google Voice.

It's a potent recipe -- take Gizmo5's open standards-based online calling system. Add to it the new ability to route calls on Google's massive network of cheap fiber. Toss in Google Voice's free phone number, which will ring your mobile phone, your home phone and your Gizmo5 client on your laptop. ÿþ

Meanwhile you can use Gizmo5 to make ultracheap outgoing calls to domestic and international phone numbers, and free calls to Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo and AIM users. You could make and receive calls that bypass the per-minute billing on your smartphone.

Then layer on deluxe phone services like free SMS, voicemail transcription, customized call routing, free conference calls and voicemails sent as recordings to your e-mail account, and you have a phone service that competes with Skype, landlines and the Internet telephone offerings from Vonage and cable companies.

That's not just pie in-the-sky dreaming.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/13/google.phone.service/index.html
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70 comments // Google poised to be your Phone Company

  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • The cult of Google. Phone, browser, operating system, apps, two way video communication, blogs, videos, etc. all they need is their own television network and they could become the first DemiGod Corporation.

    • 2 years ago
  • sammysoul
    • 0
      sammysoul  

    • The title of this post is quite misleading, Google will not replace your phone company. For that they would have to either build a new cell phone network or lay phone cables in the ground. What they're striving to do is to provide services that piggyback on the existing telecommunications infrastructure. All that will happen is that the cell phone companies will start charging more for data plans as more and more people will use VoIP (internet phone calls a la Skype) on their mobile phones.
      Also, Google Voice is not in the business of providing land line service. You are still required to get one from the traditional providers in order to be able to use it with Google Voice. You can of course hook up a phone directly to the internet (a la Vonage) but you'll still have to pay your internet service provider for access. That won't change.
      All in all this is really not newsworthy...

    • 2 years ago
  • Egnatius212
  • bailey78
    • 0
      bailey78  

    • Call me old fashion if you want but I like having a hard line phone in the house. How ever I have Skype for long distance and crank calls. I'm disabled and don't leave my house much so I don't need a cellphone nor do want one.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • bailey78:

      Bailey! Someone will hear you. haha II have moved all my electronics, tools, onto a single master bedroom circuit breaker, turned everything else off. It's like living in a cabin. or Tarzan, but I haven't been able to find Jane yet. I keep watching the vines to see her when she comes swinging by though.

    • 2 years ago
  • bailey78
    • 0
      bailey78  
    • bailey78:

      Hey ya man I hear ya I found me a jane twenty years ago. life has not been the same sence. as far as down to one room I'm outside a lot but I live out in the middle of no where. It's great just me the Ol'lady and peace and quite.

    • 2 years ago
  • artemis6
    • 0
      artemis6  

    • I will like to see how this plays out . Google has no military connections . A philanthropy record . It is a company made up of people , like all the other companies . The decency of an organization is determined by the people in it . Perhaps they are only first generation wealthy . They may not be aiming to turn to the dark side yet . Unlike other companies you might have noticed .

    • 2 years ago
  • matlaroche
  • BleachCore_912
    • 0
      BleachCore_912  

    • Taking over the internet, check.
      Taking over the phone, check.
      Taking over the world? Almost there; yes yes, another step towards world domination.
      Lets make T shirts and coffee mugs too, or do they sell those already?

      What can I say, I was kinda voting for Apple to be the next world leader :]

    • 2 years ago
  • calm_incense
  • andeeandee
    • 0
      andeeandee  

    • awesome!!!

      but then, if everybody switches to this phone other phone companies will shut down. hence, millions of people would be jobless, then recession worsens

    • 2 years ago
  • hack26
  • Gravity_Man
  • samthesixth
  • tommytripper
    • 0
      tommytripper  
    • samthesixth:

      ya but you are trying to tell people to wake up...

      google just dropped another shinny bobble infront of them... this sort of reminds me of that beads and land story... now how did that go again... oh ya it ended with people living on reserves some in basiclly 3rd world conditions.

    • 2 years ago
  • calm_incense
  • bailey78
    • 0
      bailey78  
    • samthesixth:

      what is so wrong about this

      "Last week's launch of Google's self-censored Chinese search engine marks another Internet company's gamble that Beijing will eventually ease its censorship, even if it means sacrificing the company's principles. This is causing notable embarrassment for an outfit that sells itself as an avatar of freedom, but we understand its dilemma.

      Google.cn will block mainlanders' access to terms, Web sites and services that are deemed offensive or subversive by the current Communist Party regime. This concession to the commissars is being made by a company that famously pledges to "do no evil," and whose shareholders and employees are profiting handsomely as users and advertisers flock to its promise of free information. We aren't the only ones to note the irony that Google is cooperating more readily with China's dictators than it is with the U.S. government (see related commentary).

      The company's defense implies that to remain competitive in China it has no other choice, which is probably true. The regular Google.com had computer servers across the ocean, making access slower and thus less competitive against such Chinese search engines as Baidu.com. The new Google.cn will be speedier, operating from China.

      "While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information, (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission," says a Google statement that for all of its highmindedness can't disguise that its decision is also in part about profits.

      Other foreign-based Internet companies have been pressured into similar kowtows. Microsoft has been widely criticized for filtering keywords such as democracy on its China-based Web portal. Most egregiously, Yahoo willingly provided information to the authorities that helped them arrest a man who emailed democracy-related materials. He received a 10-year sentence. If Yahoo executives wrestled with their consciences on this shameful episode, we've seen no public sign of it."

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
  • ankab
    • 0
      ankab  

    • Question gook I don't know. Could it be Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola ads they have running on Google. I, myself need a cheaper cell phone company, Rogers rates are killing me.

    • 2 years ago
  • CalgarC
  • Daimyo
    • 0
      Daimyo  

    • this is the time for intuitive thinking and google has made the first leap to a more efficient future where everything doesnt cost a leg and an arm and you use less resources to pull it off.

    • 2 years ago
  • atainder
  • scarlettcutie_01
  • scarlettcutie_01
  • LowShred
    • 0
      LowShred  

    • GOOG-411 is about as close as I'm letting Google get to my phone. Love the company for things I do on the computer, but I like my phone to be my phone and not connected to the internet. Plus, the phones will be hella expensive. this would really only be good for people that do a lot of international travel.

    • 2 years ago
  • calm_incense
  • LowShred
  • calm_incense
  • LowShred
    • 0
      LowShred  
    • LowShred:

      I can see the sarcasm, haha. I can see the advantages of it, but just from what I've experienced with my friends, they just seem to revolve around their phones. Checking emails, facebook, updating twitter every few minutes. It's just not for me.

    • 2 years ago
  • calm_incense
    • 0
      calm_incense  
    • LowShred:

      You can just as easily have a cell phone and not do that.

      It's called "will power"...

      I know you enjoy getting "lost", but when you unintentionally get *lost*, it's a little different.

      Then again, I didn't get my first cell phone until two months ago, so perhaps I'm not one to talk.

    • 2 years ago
  • LowShred
  • calm_incense
  • hack26
  • esserius
  • crispyfritters
  • flyingkick
  • NickerBocker09
  • flyingkick
  • justybw
  • lordsbassman
  • carmalite
  • chinese_democracy
    • 0
      chinese_democracy  
    • carmalite:

      Why do people get so defensive when it comes to privacy over digital media? If you have such delicate material, then you should stick to analog mediums. Realistically, no one cares about you or your dirty secrets so maybe it's time to stop being so paranoid.

    • 2 years ago
  • NickerBocker09
  • calm_incense
    • 0
      calm_incense  
    • carmalite:

      @ NickerBocker09:

      Yes, because Larry Page and Sergei Brin personally want to bring YOU down. Then your mother. Then your grandmother. That time you talked to your mother about having diarrhea? GOOGLE WILL TELL THE WORLD.

      *sigh* -_-

    • 2 years ago
  • Sam_the_Wizer
    • 0
      Sam_the_Wizer  
    • carmalite:

      Seriously, we got along fine before digital media. If you're paranoid about Google, you should be just as concerned about Verizon or AT&T. And really if you're that paranoid, perhaps you should be on anti-psychotics.

    • 2 years ago
  • QuestionGeek
  • bailey78
  • vinicius
  • johndeworde
  • Atalanda_Cameron
  • vinicius
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Atalanda_Cameron:

      Yeah! Google should have to fund its competitors, to be fair and rule with dignity not with an iron fist. And they have to offer all sorts of Public Options, and have many lotteries, and and and shut down the borders and pull the troops out of hornets nests where people have been killing each other for thousands of years and apparently hate women, and we won't change em no matter how many drone kills we rack up.

      And Dental I want Dental coverage, so if Google offers its customers a dental plan accepted in this burg I'm in.

    • 2 years ago
  • Gravity_Man
  • CarlosIsDown
  • QuestionGeek
  • mojojuju
  • CalgarC
  • AutifK
    • 0
      AutifK  
    • QuestionGeek:

      QuestionGeek, I think that that is a good question. I don't think any of us so far would give you a good enough answer. However, I think the best way to find out would be to call Google and ask someone from there... who would have a better answer to your question than Google, right?

    • 2 years ago
  • AutifK
    • 0
      AutifK  
    • QuestionGeek:

      Speaking of which... here is an answer directly from Google:

      "6. You can make money without doing evil.

      Google is a business. The revenue we generate is derived from offering search technology to companies and from the sale of advertising displayed on our site and on other sites across the web. Hundreds of thousands of advertisers worldwide use AdWords to promote their products; hundreds of thousands of publishers take advantage of our AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to their site content. To ensure that we're ultimately serving all our users (whether they are advertisers or not), we have a set of guiding principles for our advertising programs and practices:

      * We don't allow ads to be displayed on our results pages unless they are relevant where they are shown. And we firmly believe that ads can provide useful information if, and only if, they are relevant to what you wish to find – so it's possible that certain searches won't lead to any ads at all.
      * We believe that advertising can be effective without being flashy. We don't accept pop-up advertising, which interferes with your ability to see the content you've requested. We've found that text ads that are relevant to the person reading them draw much higher clickthrough rates than ads appearing randomly. Any advertiser, whether small or large, can take advantage of this highly targeted medium.
      * Advertising on Google is always clearly identified as a "Sponsored Link," so it does not compromise the integrity of our search results. We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results and no one can buy better PageRank. Our users trust our objectivity and no short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust."

      Retrieved from this hyperlink: http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html

    • 2 years ago
  • 02
  • TitaniuIVI
    • 0
      TitaniuIVI  
    • QuestionGeek:

      So in essence, Google is what the government should be? Charge big companies for their services, but give it free to the people? If that's the deal, I don't mind if Google rules the world.

    • 2 years ago
  • QuestionGeek
    • 0
      QuestionGeek  
    • QuestionGeek:

      AutifK if this were the Academy Awards, you'd definitely win an Oscar for your answer. It was very informative and interesting. I'm grateful. If Google can do business this way, they could easily squash the competition. How wonderful it would be to have them as a Verizon.

    • 2 years ago
  • JulianCommongold
  • asherp
    • 0
      asherp  

    • google is poised to be your mother and father.
      google is poised to be your king and queen of your country.
      google is our all powerful and glorious leader.
      google is our all powerful and glorious leader.
      google is our all powerful and glorious leader.

    • 2 years ago
  • tommytripper
  • wellhunggimp
  • vinicius
  • 02
    • 0
      02  
    • wellhunggimp:

      That's the whole problem, of course. Mainly, the only game in town also sets the limits. It's perimeter fence becomes all.
      You know, when your tools almost do what they should/could? -And that's why your life never gets where it should/could?
      They then also become the governor-limit of your life-arc. And has the built-in potential of outside competition beating you flat.
      Suddenly oops! You lost.
      Such aspect goes all the way to National Security.

    • 2 years ago
  • imfromtheinternet
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