Google Engineers show off Voice
(Important note: If you want a Google Voice number, or know someone who does: Wait times for new applicants are widely said to be down to a week or less.)
Google Voice is a gigantic potential winner for Google, possibly on the level of Google Search and search advertising. (Yes, that big!) It’s quite possible that anyone who’s serious about using a phone will eventually have a Google Voice number.
Yet at this early point the most striking thing about Google Voice, having written a book about it and now writing this blog, is the difficulty of explaining it to people. There’s no one killer thing that Google Voice does that makes it a “must” for everyone.
William Wood Jr, writing in the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader, put it well: Google Voice is “one of those things that you don’t realize you need until you start using it.”
Emily Miller had a similar take on Politics Daily: “Google Voice is the telecom invention that everyone wants, though few understand how it works.”
Miller goes on to describe a rocky adoption process among Google execs when the company had begun to consider purchasing GrandCentral: “Chan said Page and Brin didn’t initially understand it either: ‘It took months for me to get them to put it on their phones, then to get them to use is it. But it wasn’t until they put it on their wives’ phones and they got it, that they became enthusiastic.’”
And a good guide to where Google Voice might be going: “Walker said that he continues to update Google Voice based on user feedback. ‘I ask people: What frustrates you about your phone?’ he said. ‘What about your phone contract makes you feel you are being taken advantage of? Those are the things that I want to fix.’”
Early adopters love technology like this. That’s because early adopters pursue joy and satisfaction. For people in this group, a technology has only to be interesting, moderately useful and affordable. Google Voice is fascinating, highly useful and free. No problem! Early adopters can be expected to adopt Google Voice in droves. It’s already being mentioned regularly in the press as a “cool kids” social media tool.
Mainstream users, by contrast, are driven by fear and pain. They don’t trust new solutions, and they don’t change unless they more or less have to. For mainstream users, a technology has to be compelling (solving a big problem), easy to adopt and affordable. In addition, it must be so popular with early adopters as 1) to greatly reduce the risk of trying it and 2) to make the mainstream user feel left behind if they don’t try it. Google Voice is not yet compelling to mainstream users (there’s no one must-have feature); it’s quite tricky to adopt, especially without phone number portability; the only checkbox it meets is that it’s affordable, being free.
That’s why Apple’s rejection of all Google Voice apps from the App Store is so crucial. My impression is that most cell phone early adopters have iPhones, as either their only mobile or one of two or three they keep with them. The App Store’s success and innovation means that no early adopter type can be caught dead without an iPhone! While a few are so upset at Apple over Google Voice as to leave the iPhone, most will stick with it, Google Voice or no.
Unless there’s a very good Google Voice solution for the iPhone, Google Voice could get stuck, never saturating the key early adopter segment and gaining momentum for the mainstream.
I don’t think that the workarounds developed so far, nor even the mobile Web site that Google is developing for Google Voice, are going to be good enough. Google badly needs one of two things to happen:
- Apple accepts Google’s free iPhone app for Google Voice;
- Apple restores one of the previously available Google Voice apps, which cost a few dollars each.
Until one of these things happens, acceptance of Google Voice will be severely slowed.
In this situation, Apple’s “nyet” is a rock, and Google Voice is a stream; the stream will probably find its way around the rock over time. But if the rock is removed, the stream will flow much faster.
Partially in response, the FCC has launched an official investigation of US wireless carriers’ competitiveness – focusing on handset exclusivity deals, carriers’ roaming deals and spectrum auction rules. It’s all seemingly sparked by the Google Voice / App Store hassle.
It’s impossible to know what the results will be, but this is potentially huge. It could change most things about the world of cell phones, and smart phones in particular. Any changes – whether made by companies to forestall government action, or by regulation – are likely to be of benefit to Google Android and Google Voice, which are designed for an open ecosystem. The best example is the widely held opinion that Apple will relent and allow Google’s app for Google Voice into the App Store sooner rather than later, which would seemingly be only due to government pressure.
Wikipedia has a long interview with wireless industry spokesman Chris Guttman-McCabe. It’s interesting, but can be summed up by one sentence from him, in the second of three parts of the interview: “I don’t think prescriptive rules are necessary.” Well, he would think that, wouldn’t he? (For a good list of criticisms, see 10 Things We Hate About Wireless Carriers and The People vs. Cell-Phone Tyranny.)
As a further counterpoint, there’s informed criticism – and a prediction of better things to come for consumers – from a veteran of the AT&T breakup of the cell phone industry’s position.
PS. With Apple iPhone and Android moving into China – Android with the largest Chinese carrier, Apple with the second-largest - and most of the early adopters being English-speaking, there’s a good opportunity for Google Voice penetration if the service is extended there (even if, initially, it’s in English). The Google Voice people (and perhaps the sales side of Apple) will want the Google Voice/iPhone problem solved before then; the Google Android people might prefer that the logjam isn’t broken up quite so soon.
News highlights – “clash of the titans”
Several sources describe how Apple may be worried that Google has too many of its apps on the iPhone already (including Maps, YouTube and Search) and that Google Voice might have been the tipping point, making it more a gPhone than an iPhone.
The New York Times, in an official editorial, comes out in favor of net neutrality for both fixed and mobile broadband. Interesting, and appreciated, because the NYT is strong enough to muscle out competitors in a less-than-neutral world. Separately, the chair of the FCC vowed to enforce net neutrality.
Anick Jesdadun of the AP has a good summary of barriers to full use of the Internet, defining net neutrality and using the Google Voice-on-iPhone hassle as an example.
Steven Shankland has an excellent summary of the Apple/AT&T/Google “kerfluffle” on CNET, predicting flatly: “Google will win out because it has one powerful ally on its side: the Web.” This is the summary to show your friends who don’t understand what all the fuss is about.
Skype has raised many call connection fees. These are not big changes, but this is the move of a company turning toward maximizing profit from its existing user base, not a company seeking to beat others to world domination.
A Spotify music app was approved on the iPhone, with speculation that it may have been partly an attempt by Apple to be seen as a good guy after the Google Voice hassle. Gpush, a Gmail notification app, was approved as well, again to widespread surprise.
Users may gain an exemption to copyright law making it fully legal to “jailbreak” iPhones. (The law is currently unclear.) A decision is expected in October.
If you really want to understand the increasing importance of data transmission over voice in the wireless market – including all sorts of devices along with cell phones – Karen Mulvany has the facts for you in an analyst’s note on ClearWire. (And here’s a downbeat note on Clearview and an interview with the CEO.)
GigaOm reports that one in four (!) US households are now cell phone only, and suggests directions for Google to do even more in wireless.
And Google’s apps, potentially including Google Voice, may be movin’ on up to the big leagues. The City of Los Angeles is considering moving part of its IT needs to Google Apps.
News highlights – Google Voice news, usage, tips and tricks
Rafe Needleman of CNET has an excellent review of using Google Voice on various smartphones: Android wins, BlackBerry is a close second, and using the current version of the Google Voice mobile Web site on iPhone is described as “a load of crap”.
Another blogger claims that Palm Pre is already second to Android. Palm is said to be working on a very high level of integration for Palm Pre with Google Voice – perhaps even better than Android’s, with the Google Voice number considered as the “true” number for the phone.
A new answering service bills itself as “the perfect partner for Google Voice” in what is unfortunately a badly written press release.
LifeHacker calls for five improvements to Google Voice: less lag, SMS/MMS multicast, better Google Apps integration, universal voice dialing and leaving voice notes for yourself and sending email while you drive (wait, isn’t that six?). Separately, LifeHacker describes how you can already use Google Voice as a kind of Dictaphone, to record and transcribe notes to yourself .
Google had a problem that made Google Voice calls drop after 15 minutes, just the kind of thing that people worry about in having Google as, in part, their phone company. It seems to have been fixed, but Google, and users, won’t be wanting a lot of recurrences.
Michael Arrington describes life after porting his cell phone number to Google Voice – which Google allowed him to do now, and which the rest of us can hope for in the months to come. (This somewhat punishes those who make the effort to adopt Google Voice now, get some or all their contacts switched over to the new number – and then find that if they waited a bit they could have had number portability. But that’s part of the fun of being an early adopter!)
Nadeem Unuth on About.com points to a new service, Voxbone, that gives you one phone number for life – from an area code not specific to any one geographic spot. I know I’d love it if people didn’t make guesses about where I came from based on my phone prefix. How ’bout it, Google – can we have Voxbone numbers for Google Voice?
And Google has added free Canada calls to Google Voice – something GrandCentral had that Google Voice had, until now, taken away. That just leaves Alaska and Hawaii (home state to President Obama) out in the cold, and out in the sunshine, respectively.
On the lighter side:
- TechCrunch, running again in the Washington Post, says that the Mac fanboy base – infamous for death threats against critics of anything Apple – may be lightening up.
- Apple and China will be working together to better oppress their respective masses.
- John Fort of Forbes compares Apple’s “walled garden” to Animal Farm.
Posted by Bud Man 
