Google Voice Pushes Free Phone-service Envelope
Hyper-convergence paradigm :: Comments (0)
16 October 2009 :: by J.E. Robertson
Google Voice, an ingenious use of web-based voice communications service, allows users to combine a range of phone numbers under one standard, permanent Google phone number. Any linked phone number can be removed or replaced, and the service is free. All domestic calls inside the US are free, and sms is free. The service even converts voicemail to readable transcripts in an online inbox.
This last feature could mark a shift in the way voice communications interact with the Internet broadly. If indeed Google does achieve something of a paradigm shift by offering not only voice-to-text, and the ability to concentrate a range of numbers in one convenient inbox, but way for voice and text to interact comfortably, voice communication could take an increasingly important role in online activity, even where text and work-output is the aim.
The real potential for Google Voice will depend on every individual’s use of the technology, naturally, but it may also depend on how well Google integrates such services into its Wave platform. Google Wave is a bold reinvention of online messaging and word processing, merging the two into a real-time viral-capable content propagation platform.
Even unfinished works can serve as content in the Wave universe, and that means the potential wikification of all sorts of documents and reports that are currently held to the finish-before-publish model established by print publishing over the millennia. Where Aristotle’s ‘Nichomachean Ethics’ has remained identical, except for the relatively modest alterations introduced by translation, for thousands of years, this century’s great ethical philosopher might ‘initiate’ a work optimally designed to evolve in a wave application, evolving with the consciousness of it’s readers.
The free phone-service paradigm is gaining ground, as new mobile carriers offer “unlimited everything” flat-rate plans, Skype takes over online voice conferencing, and the iPhone has allowed entry for Skype functionality. But there has been stiff opposition from the traditional telecom sector, including major mobile carriers like Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile, who say they cannot maintain their networks (in the case of Verizon) or access to networks (in the case of T-Mobile) for lower prices.
The proliferation, however, of low-cost pay-as-you-go services and flat-rate plans like Boost Mobile’s $50 monthly unlimited plan (with no contract) is changing the game. Google Voice is perhaps the most visible, most direct “piggyback” challenge to traditional phone-service billing, and offers an important clue as to how the convergence of voice and web communications might move forward: a constructive convergence of voice and text, data-transfer and direct person-to-person communication.
Adding Google’s Talk and Video Talk services to a combined overall service could make Google the world leader in piggyback telecommunications services, allowing the web giant to drive pricing standards for mobile communications and help end-users to liberate their personal and textual communications from the constraints imposed by standard telecom pricing models.
