Comments on: “Click”, “Is someone listening in on your extension?” http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/ A daily round table on the tech industry with experts and callers from all over the globe. Join us as we pick apart the news and get to the meat of what\'s happening out there. Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:52:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Look past the pudding at Call the Cloud http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-389008 Look past the pudding at Call the Cloud Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:32:01 +0000 http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-389008 [...] Free Internet Phone Service, But With A Creepy Twist. More coverage from TechCrunch,  Saunders, Keating and [...] [...] Free Internet Phone Service, But With A Creepy Twist. More coverage from TechCrunch,  Saunders, Keating and [...]

]]> By: Shai Berger http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-389001 Shai Berger Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:25:47 +0000 http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-389001 I think there is a bigger picture here. What if Pudding could really deliver useful information to us during a phone call? Routing your call "through the cloud" brings access to massive processing power and the terabytes of information that are online today. Once we become comfortable that the cloud is a 3rd party on our call, a world of possibilities opens up. Alec (and others) have brought up the parallel to Gmail. Consider: Gmail exposes me to ads in exchange for free email service. But, I don't use Gmail to save money. In fact, I have email options available to me that are zero-cost and ad-free. I use Gmail because I like having all of my email in the cloud, available from any computer and searchable. Cloud-routing of phone calls is ultimately going to improve the calling experience. If it's done right you will *want* to make your calls through the cloud and it won't be about saving money at all. Peter: VoodooVox, which is doing something similar, claims an astounding click-thru rate of 12%. Even if you discount that by 10x, it's still not bad. Omfut: 1) The ads are in the browser, not in the audio. 2) Pudding asks you for your "main" language during sign-up. More on this at my shiny new blog ... http://www.shaiberger.com I think there is a bigger picture here. What if Pudding could really deliver useful information to us during a phone call? Routing your call “through the cloud” brings access to massive processing power and the terabytes of information that are online today.

Once we become comfortable that the cloud is a 3rd party on our call, a world of possibilities opens up.

Alec (and others) have brought up the parallel to Gmail. Consider: Gmail exposes me to ads in exchange for free email service. But, I don’t use Gmail to save money. In fact, I have email options available to me that are zero-cost and ad-free. I use Gmail because I like having all of my email in the cloud, available from any computer and searchable.

Cloud-routing of phone calls is ultimately going to improve the calling experience. If it’s done right you will *want* to make your calls through the cloud and it won’t be about saving money at all.

Peter: VoodooVox, which is doing something similar, claims an astounding click-thru rate of 12%. Even if you discount that by 10x, it’s still not bad.

Omfut: 1) The ads are in the browser, not in the audio. 2) Pudding asks you for your “main” language during sign-up.

More on this at my shiny new blog … http://www.shaiberger.com

]]> By: omfut http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-388501 omfut Wed, 26 Sep 2007 05:29:05 +0000 http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-388501 Couple of things that needs to be addressed here - Any voice calls involves two parties, not sure if the other person would be interested in hearing the ad during the call. - How would the voice recognization system understand different languages other than english. Couple of things that needs to be addressed here
- Any voice calls involves two parties, not sure if the other person would be interested in hearing the ad during the call.
- How would the voice recognization system understand different languages other than english.

]]> By: Peter Childs http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-387800 Peter Childs Tue, 25 Sep 2007 11:09:17 +0000 http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-387800 Two issues need to be addressed for this to be successful - the ads have to be relevant and they have to be easily ignored so that they don't dominate the experience. On the relevance side I have a hard time believing that Speech recognition is at the point where it can have a large speaker independent vocabulary of keywords to produce relevant ads. Hitting a single key work - or even several - is not going to give a good sense of context. This is made more difficult given that VoIP and (cell phones for that matter) have a habit of mangling speech by adding echo and clips if they, the network or the background environment are not ideal. The other issue is obtrusiveness. Googles innovation has been to get decent ad density (ads/page) while being easy to ignore if one chooses. That said the ads are embedded in the application so are always accessible. As I understand with Pudding the application (talking) is totally separated from ad delivery (PC or possibly mobile device). One has to make a conscious decision to view the ads - so their presentation is critical - especially if they are going to get enough ad density to deliver any behavioral indications back to the advertiser. Without this they will be at the bottom end of the revenue/impression – and that’s not terribly lucrative – especially as I expect that the speech recognition is not cheap to implement per caller. Conceptually it's an intriguing idea – but with the cost of calls dropping, the inherent privacy issues and the problems presenting enough contextual ads with a behavioral outcome it’s difficult to see this as finding anything but a niche following. Two issues need to be addressed for this to be successful - the ads have to be relevant and they have to be easily ignored so that they don’t dominate the experience.

On the relevance side I have a hard time believing that Speech recognition is at the point where it can have a large speaker independent vocabulary of keywords to produce relevant ads. Hitting a single key work - or even several - is not going to give a good sense of context. This is made more difficult given that VoIP and (cell phones for that matter) have a habit of mangling speech by adding echo and clips if they, the network or the background environment are not ideal.

The other issue is obtrusiveness. Googles innovation has been to get decent ad density (ads/page) while being easy to ignore if one chooses. That said the ads are embedded in the application so are always accessible. As I understand with Pudding the application (talking) is totally separated from ad delivery (PC or possibly mobile device). One has to make a conscious decision to view the ads - so their presentation is critical - especially if they are going to get enough ad density to deliver any behavioral indications back to the advertiser. Without this they will be at the bottom end of the revenue/impression – and that’s not terribly lucrative – especially as I expect that the speech recognition is not cheap to implement per caller.

Conceptually it’s an intriguing idea – but with the cost of calls dropping, the inherent privacy issues and the problems presenting enough contextual ads with a behavioral outcome it’s difficult to see this as finding anything but a niche following.

]]> By: Alec http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-387494 Alec Tue, 25 Sep 2007 01:37:28 +0000 http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-387494 That may be the biggest flaw in the whole scheme Richard. At the moment it's dependent on people using PC telephony for their phone calls. With a big enough screen built into the phone, though, that may not be an issue. That may be the biggest flaw in the whole scheme Richard. At the moment it’s dependent on people using PC telephony for their phone calls. With a big enough screen built into the phone, though, that may not be an issue.

]]> By: Alec http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-387493 Alec Tue, 25 Sep 2007 01:36:39 +0000 http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-387493 It's an interesting point, Mark. Conceptually the idea of advertising in email is identical, though. The sender has no control over what tool the receiver uses to read the mail, and in fact lots of people use GMAIL. It’s an interesting point, Mark. Conceptually the idea of advertising in email is identical, though. The sender has no control over what tool the receiver uses to read the mail, and in fact lots of people use GMAIL.

]]> By: Richard Sprague http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-387406 Richard Sprague Mon, 24 Sep 2007 23:39:00 +0000 http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-387406 No question, people will be happy to exchange phone privacy for a free call, but what a low click-through proposition for advertisers. Who's going to interrupt their phonecall -- an interactive, real-time experience -- to view an ad? No question, people will be happy to exchange phone privacy for a free call, but what a low click-through proposition for advertisers. Who’s going to interrupt their phonecall — an interactive, real-time experience — to view an ad?

]]> By: Mark Goldberg http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-387344 Mark Goldberg Mon, 24 Sep 2007 22:05:00 +0000 http://saunderslog.com/2007/09/24/click-is-someone-listening-in-on-your-extension/#comment-387344 As I wrote in my posting on Puddingmedia - there is an interesting privacy issue that arises since there are two people involved in the phone call. The Puddingmedia subscriber may have consented to the eavesdropping, but as the recipient of such a call, how do we get an opportunity to provide our consent? http://mhgoldberg.com/blog/2007/09/context-based-ads-for-phone-calls.html As I wrote in my posting on Puddingmedia - there is an interesting privacy issue that arises since there are two people involved in the phone call. The Puddingmedia subscriber may have consented to the eavesdropping, but as the recipient of such a call, how do we get an opportunity to provide our consent?

http://mhgoldberg.com/blog/2007/09/context-based-ads-for-phone-calls.html

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