October 17, 2007 | Wednesday
Search through voice recognition just around the corner?
By Rob Shaw, CTO in Search Engines |Google |Search Technology
I read this week that the GOOG-411 service has just passed the labs stage in the states and is now being launched over there. It’s more often referred to as 1-800-Google and it’s a service where you call a free phone number, state your location, state the company or service you are looking for via voice recognition and you are presented with a recorded list of local businesses in the areas you are in. It has the added benefit of then being able to dial the number of the business you were looking for, get it’s details sent to you as a text or even as a Google map on your smart phone.
I spent many years working in the call centre industry with technology companies trying to sell me speech recognition almost daily. I have to say I’m still waiting to be convinced. The cool Youtube video Google have created to demonstrate the service shows a nice simple search for local pizza delivery but in the real world people are often looking for more complex services.
That said, I like the concept and I’ll be watching it’s adoption in the states which I’m sure will be an indication of it’s potential to launching in the UK. Certainly for local businesses this may be a service worthy of consideration alongside their paid search from Latitude White
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