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Ryan Tilton
join:2010-09-04
Seattle, WA

Ryan Tilton

Member

How will Google Voice make money?

Check out this video I made

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· zoHS3nmU


Interested to know everyone's thoughts on this topic. Thanks!
Pufferty
Perpetual Newbie
join:2014-07-07
Rockville, MD

3 recommendations

Pufferty

Member

Assuming you are Vestslink, I think that question is best asked of you!

Ryan Tilton
join:2010-09-04
Seattle, WA

Ryan Tilton

Member

I rather not comment on behalf of Vestalink just yet. But I really want to hear your input on this.
Mango
Use DMZ and you get a kick in the dick.
Premium Member
join:2008-12-25
www.toao.net

8 recommendations

Mango

Premium Member

I'll be happy to give you my input on your video.

If you'll respond satisfactorily to this thread: »Vestalink considers 2400 min an abuse of their unlimited plan?

Arne Bolen
User of Anveo Direct, 3CX and Qubes OS.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-21
Utopia

Arne Bolen

Premium Member

said by Mango:

If you'll respond satisfactorily to this thread: »Vestalink considers 2400 min an abuse of their unlimited plan?

+1

Ryan Tilton
join:2010-09-04
Seattle, WA

Ryan Tilton to Mango

Member

to Mango
I'll take a look!
Mango
Use DMZ and you get a kick in the dick.
Premium Member
join:2008-12-25
www.toao.net

Mango

Premium Member

Thank you.

nunya
LXI 483
MVM
join:2000-12-23
O Fallon, MO
·Charter

nunya to Ryan Tilton

MVM

to Ryan Tilton
I'm not buying it. Even if Google did something like this, people would bolt. VoIP is cheap enough that most people wouldn't put up with it.
They'd become "MySpace" to some else' "Facebook" in a heartbeat.

Google actually has a "less than stellar" track record when it comes to offering VAS to their ads and search.
Look at Google+. For all intents and purposes, a far superior social media platform to Twitter or Facebook. But, nobody uses it - just the smart kids.

Ryan Tilton
join:2010-09-04
Seattle, WA

Ryan Tilton

Member

But what if they did it slowly? Like when youtube started advertising.
drivel
join:2013-07-12
Santa Clara, CA

drivel to Ryan Tilton

Member

to Ryan Tilton
Google is already making lots of money through Google Voice.

They listen into every call you make and show relevant ads when you do web searching.

Google is not in the business of providing free services.

Arne Bolen
User of Anveo Direct, 3CX and Qubes OS.
Premium Member
join:2009-06-21
Utopia

2 recommendations

Arne Bolen to Ryan Tilton

Premium Member

to Ryan Tilton
said by Ryan Tilton:

But what if they did it slowly? Like when youtube started advertising.

Why are you concerned about Google Voice? Clean up your own house first, like stop misleading customers.

crazyk4952
Premium Member
join:2002-02-04
united state
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite
Ubiquiti UniFi AP-LR
Polycom VVX300

1 edit

1 recommendation

crazyk4952 to Ryan Tilton

Premium Member

to Ryan Tilton
Most people have shown that they are willing to trade much of their privacy for a good free/cheap service. Google proves this with the hundreds of millions of people that use its products.

If Google feels that enough people will tolerate ads in their phone calls, then I am sure they will do it eventually. If you don't like what they are doing, don't use their products. It's a free market and there are lots of alternatives (especially in the voip market).

It may be hard to compete with free, but seeing this video really does not make me want to flock to Vestalink.

Edit: Also, I am uncomfortable relying on a small business for my voip needs whose owner has another unrelated side business. It makes me wonder what takes priority when the servers go down and they are out DJing a wedding...

Ryan Tilton
join:2010-09-04
Seattle, WA

Ryan Tilton

Member

The DJ business got be through College at UW. It might be a side business but it has got me to where I am today. You do have a point but the servers are not going to go down. They are in the cloud. Amazon.com would need to go down first.
Ryan Tilton

Ryan Tilton to Arne Bolen

Member

to Arne Bolen
What do you mean?

Trev
AcroVoice & DryVoIP Official Rep
Premium Member
join:2009-06-29
Victoria, BC

Trev to Ryan Tilton

Premium Member

to Ryan Tilton
Seems like a viral marketing attempt. Although I can see how this is threatening your business model and why you'd like to educate others about a company that once swore to "Don't be evil."

garys_2k
Premium Member
join:2004-05-07
Farmington, MI

garys_2k to Mango

Premium Member

to Mango
said by Mango:

I'll be happy to give you my input on your video.

If you'll respond satisfactorily to this thread: »Vestalink considers 2400 min an abuse of their unlimited plan?

+ 2
Mango
Use DMZ and you get a kick in the dick.
Premium Member
join:2008-12-25
www.toao.net

Mango

Premium Member

That video was impressive, and I liked the music.

As for my answer to your question, I find VoIP so affordable that I would rather pay for it than listen to ads. The business model however would probably work. I bet Google could implement it and not lose too many customers. People would complain loudly for a while, but I suspect most would not actually leave.
said by Ryan Tilton:

the servers are not going to go down

From one sysadmin to another:

NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER SAY THAT!
PX Eliezer1
Premium Member
join:2013-03-10
Zubrowka USA

PX Eliezer1 to Ryan Tilton

Premium Member

to Ryan Tilton
Deja fricking vu.

Nothing is new under the sun.

Company Will Monitor Phone Calls to Tailor Ads

Pudding Media, a start-up based in San Jose, Calif., is introducing an Internet phone service today that will be supported by advertising related to what people are talking about in their calls. The Web-based phone service is similar to Skype’s online service — consumers plug a headset and a microphone into their computers, dial any phone number and chat away. But unlike Internet phone services that charge by the length of the calls, Pudding Media offers calling without any toll charges.

The trade-off is that Pudding Media is eavesdropping on phone calls in order to display ads on the screen that are related to the conversation. Voice recognition software monitors the calls, selects ads based on what it hears and pushes the ads to the subscriber’s computer screen while he or she is still talking.

A conversation about movies, for example, will elicit movie reviews and ads for new films that the caller will see during the conversation. Pudding Media is working on a way to e-mail the ads and other content to the person on the other end of the call, or to show it on that person’s cellphone screen....

»www.nytimes.com/2007/09/ ··· tml?_r=0

That is from back in 2007.

So what happened?

They were gone by 2010:

The Proof was not in the Pudding: Pudding Media is Shutting Down

According to Calcalist,Pudding Media, an Israeli mobile advertising startup, faces imminent shut down. Pudding Media let go 25 employees this morning and announced it will cease its operations in Israel. The company’s assets will be put on sale as the company only retained five employees for maintenance reasons.

Pudding Media was founded in 2006 by brothers Ariel and Ruben Maislos. Pudding managed to raise $10 million from BRM and Opus Capital, as well as investments from known Israeli angels including Eyal Waldman, Udi Weinstein, Yariv Gilat and Ariel Maislos himself, who previously sold Passave to PMC for $305 million in stock in 2006.

In its early days, the company offered free VOIP calls to landlines, with a plan to monetize those calls by contextually matching ads to the content of the conversation. For obvious privacy reasons, that path did not immediately succeed and Pudding took a radical turn towards mobile advertising focused on enabling and selling premium carrier-based inventory.

»www.vccafe.com/2010/06/0 ··· ng-down/
PX Eliezer1

PX Eliezer1 to Ryan Tilton

Premium Member

to Ryan Tilton
Oh, and another free service (ad-supported) was called [Brring!]

Brring was a free service allowing users to create phone numbers with embedded preroll advertising....

Brring acknowledged on its blog that it had received no income from advertising during the first 18 months of service, and that the founders had paid out all the reward money, in excess of $12,000....

Brring ceased operation on March 14, 2011.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brring

When they shut down, their owner posted a very nice letter.

Ryan Tilton
join:2010-09-04
Seattle, WA

Ryan Tilton to PX Eliezer1

Member

to PX Eliezer1
Finally some discussion other than, VESTALINK SUCKS!!! hahaha
This is really not a viral marketing attempt, it just interests me.
Sounds like a great business idea actually, maybe there should be a Vestalink free edition that is Ad supported. Anyone want to help me build it? But Wait, its already patented by Google.
________________________

Hi PX Eliezer, thanks for the excellent input! But Google is not going to listen to your calls from what I understand from the patent. They will just utilize the dialed number to match relevant ads during the ring tones. Its similar to what cell phone company ringplus.net is already doing but with more targeting and sophistication. I'm sure its going to be interactive advertising with speech recognition.
pinky321 (banned)
join:2002-06-05

1 edit

pinky321 (banned) to Ryan Tilton

Member

to Ryan Tilton
First, what Google patented is not what they will implement. There are far more patents never got commercialized than patents granted. In other words, your video is hypothetical.

Second, I doubt Google will actually implement what they have patented in this case simply there are multiple choices available to consumer these days.

I for one, do not use Google Voice (Hangouts) on mobile phone. For outgoing calls, I use magicApp primarily, Vonage Mobile as secondarily. Both Dingaling and Hangouts are installed as backup. Incoming calls I use Voxox. I have fixed line phone outgoing calls is still using Google Voice, but I hardly ever use fixed line phone these days as mobile phone via Wi-Fi serves me better than cordless phone.

I feel we have already offer too much information to Google by using Android and Google search engine. Unless Google telephone service is the best fit for me, I would not use it. Generally, I try to use best fit product and/or service for me. Free or lowest cost is just one of major factors to be considered.

bitseeker
join:2014-03-05

1 recommendation

bitseeker to Ryan Tilton

Member

to Ryan Tilton
Pre-roll audio ads on the phone would make me instantly drop the service. I'd rather pay than have such obtrusive interruptions to my calls. I'm with nunya, VoIP is inexpensive enough already.

As for AWS uptime, they've had some massive outages and many lesser ones. At one company I worked at, after several such outages, all AWS services were promptly cancelled. Sometimes there's a little rain in the cloud.

cb14
join:2013-02-04
Miami Beach, FL

cb14

Member

said by bitseeker:

Pre-roll audio ads on the phone would make me instantly drop the service.

+1
However, I would be willing to accept ads up to 30 seconds for free phone calls to satellite phones.
medbuyer
join:2003-11-20
Memphis, TN

medbuyer to Ryan Tilton

Member

to Ryan Tilton
this just goes to show that Vestalink isn't as business savvy as everyone thought...

Trimline
Premium Member
join:2004-10-24
Windermere, FL

Trimline to PX Eliezer1

Premium Member

to PX Eliezer1
When I dial 411 from my mobile, I get ads throughout the call.
PX Eliezer1
Premium Member
join:2013-03-10
Zubrowka USA

PX Eliezer1

Premium Member

said by Trimline:

When I dial 411 from my mobile, I get ads throughout the call.

Whether POTS, VoIP, or mobile, pretty much all 411 these days incurs a fee or else is ad-supported.

I think the main exception is cable company phone services, at least in the case of Optimum Voice (Cablevision) 411 is included.

CallCentric routes 411 to an ad-based service.

Voip.MS offers 411 at a 99 cent charge.

"Voipo" indicates 411 but I don't know if they route it to an outside ad-based service.

PhonePower charges 99 cents then adds 10 cents per minute if over 2 minutes.
dutchtender
join:2010-11-21
Sunnyvale, CA

1 recommendation

dutchtender to Ryan Tilton

Member

to Ryan Tilton
i worry about cottage industry voip providers doing stuff like this because their profit margins are razor thin as it is. google has many streams of revenue and voice can easily be a loss leader. no loss leader when voip is your only source of revenue.
PX Eliezer1
Premium Member
join:2013-03-10
Zubrowka USA

PX Eliezer1

Premium Member

said by dutchtender:

no loss leader when voip is your only source of revenue

Therefore the companies with the ludicrously low prices are the ones to be careful about.

sammoats
Premium Member
join:2014-02-16
Winchester, VA

1 edit

sammoats

Premium Member

Sorry for the double post my mistake.
Sam
sammoats

2 recommendations

sammoats to PX Eliezer1

Premium Member

to PX Eliezer1
As a lower priced provider who does follow the rules and is very privacy oriented my perspective might be useful here.

I believe you are either the customer or the product and if your paying for the service your a customer.

If your a paying customer:
I think it would be all kinds of unethical for a provider to even think about looking at the contents of a customer's conversation for ANY purpose that wasn't legally required including any marketing.

Secondly it's probably illegal see here:
»www.fcc.gov/guides/prote ··· -records
We are required to submit yearly compliance reports to the FCC on this

If your using a free service:
Your the product not the customer, I don't think you have any expectation of privacy beyond whatever the privacy policy of that provider is at the time you place the call.

Sam