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#1
11-28-2006, 10:58 PM
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an old idea what do you boys and girls think?
New Phone Service Concept
Originator: mister green “Any intelligent person can make things more complex. It takes a touch of genius and courage to move in the opposite direction” E.F. Schumacker Copy number 3, submitted to Google on …. February 2006 Introduction The internet, with the help of the search engines, has democratised the access to information. In the past there was a lot of information to which only scientists or financial institutions had access. Today, anybody with a computer and an internet connection can retrieve vast amounts of information on almost any subject. This, while being a blessing in one sense, at the same time also has it’s drawbacks. People get an overkill of information when they try to do a search. Although some searchers want to have as many search results as possible and don’t mind sifting through them to find what they were looking for, the majority of people prefers a simple answer to their question. Love of ease is a part of human nature. What is the easiest way to find information? Yes, let somebody else find it for you. What is the easiest way to get somebody else to look up something for you? By just opening your mouth and asking. Description of the “CallGoogle” concept What if there was a telephone number that you could dial to get help for all your “information problems”? Hereinafter, this one stop phone service will be referred to as “CallGoogle”. Nowadays, there is a telephone service for virtually everything. The yellow pages, the taxi service, public transport, the movies, the theater, the weather forecast etc. The core of the CallGoogle business idea is to reduce this multitude of services to one single phone service that can be reached under one phone number. All the services mentioned above (and many, many more) can be found online, basically within the reach of one mouse click. So, what if you could call an assistant who has all the relevant websites within the reach of one mouse click? This would give you access to the entire network of phone services by calling one phone number. In it’s basic form this will hardly require any special skills from the operator. The only things needed are a phone, a computer and an operator who can hold a phone. When the operator receives a call, he or she first opens the required website and enters the query. Subsequently he or she reads the answer to the caller which solves the caller’s “information problem”. Why Google? To start with, Google is one of the most popular brands globally. For example, recently “googlen” (which means “to google”) was introduced as a verb in the official dictionary of the Dutch language. When people are searching for information they use Google, so it is a very logical step to attach the “google status” to an idea like this one. Furthermore, this phone service idea has a nice fit with Google’s new service, “answers.google”, that was introduced recently. As an example, please find below some typical questions that can be posed to the different phone services. Underneath each question the website is mentioned where the answer to the question can be found. • What is the phone number of John Smith at Websteravenue 34? Yellowpages website • What is the chance of rain in my hometown tomorrow? Wheather website. • At what time does the train from New York City to Chicago leave? Public transport website. • At what time does the new “Angelina Jolie” movie start? Movie theatre website. In the present situation somebody will have to call four different phone services and hence four different phone numbers to get the answers to these questions. Please note that each of the websites mentioned above enables people to find the desired answer within 60 seconds. In the CallGoogle concept it would not only be possible to obtain the answers to these four questions with one call, but of course also other questions, such as • What does the word rheumatoid mean? Online dictionary. • How do I spell the word syplhlike? Online dictionary. • I want to buy an iPod nano with 4GB memory. Is $ 230 too much? A price comparison site. • I want to buy a Logitech Z-5500 stereo system. How do the Z-5500 users rate this product? Consumer report site. can be answered at the same time. In addition to the integration of present phone services and for example an Encarta encyclopaedia lookup service it is also possible to incorporate “answers.google” in the CallGoogle phone service. Most phone services offer a call forwarding option for free, so this option can also be utilised. Competitive analysis When looking at the (potential) competition for the CallGoogle concept, the increasing popularity of hand-held mobile devices (phones and PDA’s) with internet access springs to mind. However, for the time being surfing the internet with such a device is still very clumsy as compared to surfing on a desktop or laptop computer. In principle, the hand-held devices are only really suitable to read e-mail. The data transfer speed of such devices is still low. It is not likely that these devices will become more user-friendly in looking up information on the internet. The telecom world does not expect a UMTS revolution in the very near future. It seems that the telecom companies decided to focus the attention of their mobile services on offering mp3, photo and video downloading and on tv broadcasting. Even if and when mobile devices would become more suitable and user-friendly for surfing the internet, CallGoogle still would have some strong USP’s and pros such as: • It is faster and hence more cost-effective. • Calls can be forwarded instantaneously. • The operator has all the required applications within the reach of one click of a mouse, which is a significant difference as compared to the capabilities of mobile devices. • People prefer personal contact. As indicated earlier many people feel that the best way to find information is to ask somebody else to find it for you. • By asking the caller, probing, questions the operator can accelerate the search process. • Oral communication is faster than written (typed in) communication. • There will always be a large group of people who will not own sophisticated mobile communication devices. Let’s not forget that the societies in the Western world are greying societies. The baby boomers and older people will have mobile phones but are unlikely to use them for anything more advanced than just making phone calls. Earning model The earning model can be quite simple and straightforward. CallGoogle will charge on a per minute basis and the payments can be settled through the phone company. In addition Google could start introducing their own “CallGoogle Phone Card” (in cooperation with one or more credit card companies) for this purpose. Another option is a type of monthly subscription fee model. Implementation The most attractive way (with a low entrance barrier) to implement the CallGoogle service seems to be by entering into a cooperation with the major “call centre” operator in each country. Every “call centre” already has the technology and the right people to become a CallGoogle centre. this is idea is 1 year old and did not "make it" so I just thought hey lets see what you guys think of this 
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#2
11-29-2006, 01:31 AM
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Re: an old idea what do you boys and girls think?
It's free if you call the Foy Information line....(334) 844-4244 and the Fact Line at (419) 372-2445.
"The service, known as the Foy Information Line, named after the Foy Student Union building that the phone service operates from, is free for anyone to call and will answer nearly any conceivable question. " http://www.ocm.auburn.edu/clippings/....html#15014918 Great idea, just don't know if it would be profitable. ScottieK
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#5
12-01-2006, 11:38 PM
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Re: an old idea what do you boys and girls think?
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#6
12-04-2006, 12:17 AM
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Re: an old idea what do you boys and girls think?
I am so not reading that post
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