Google Voice Basics: About Google Voice

Google Voice gives you one number for all your phones — a phone number that is tied to you, not to a device or a location. Use Google Voice to simplify the way you use phones, make using voicemail as easy as email, customize your callers’ experience, and more.

Google Voice isn’t a phone service, but it lets you manage all of your phones. Google Voice works with mobile phones, desk phones, work phones, and VoIP lines. There’s nothing to download, upload, or install, and you don’t have to make or take calls using a computer.

Google Voice will let you define which phones ring, based on who’s calling, and even let you Listening on voicemail before answering the call. We use smart technology to route your calls. So, if you’re already on a Google Voice call, we’ll recognize it and use call waiting to reach you on the phone you’re on.

Features

Basic Features of Google Voice

Bad News…

Google voice not on iphone

Back in July Apple pulls Google Voice off iphone:
The long-awaited Google Voice application for the iPhone has been officially shot down by Apple.

There were a scattering of reports on Monday, and then a Google spokesperson confirmed it: “Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store. We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users–for example, by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers.” Click here for the article

FCC looking into Google Voice

Google argues that it is not subject to the same laws because it’s a software company and because Google Voice doesn’t replace phone service; it still requires phone service to work properly. It addressed the inquiry in a blog post Friday.

“AT&T apparently now wants Web applications–from Skype to Google Voice–to be treated the same way as traditional phone services,” wrote Richard Whitt, Google’s Washington media and telecom counsel. “Their approach is what a former FCC chairman has called “regulatory capitalism,” the practice of using regulation to block or slow down innovation. And despite AT&T’s lobbying efforts, this issue has nothing to do with network neutrality or rural America. This is about outdated carrier compensation rules that are fundamentally broken and in need of repair by the FCC.”

So now it appears that the FCC will attempt to referee the matter. Google’s no stranger to federal authorities at the moment, with just about everything it does falling under the watchful eye of an administration that seems determined to examine dominant companies in the tech industry. Click here for the Article

But good news for Verizon Customers (Like Me)

Two Verizon Android phones coming in 2009

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10368458-265.html?tag=mncol;mlt_related

The Android devices that emerge from this partnership will have Google’s Android Market preinstalled on the phones, said John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless parent company Verizon Communications.

The companies declined to name hardware partners for the initial devices, but Motorola and HTC have been rumored for months as the initial phone makers expected to work with Verizon. Beyond that, it sounds like Verizon and Google expect to release other devices, such as Netbooks or perhaps an ebook reader that will run on Verizon’s network.

Some nice possible phone that Verizon may use….

The New Marketing Buzz Words We Need to Understand, Incorporate into Our Vocabularies, and USE to Do More Business

Every so often technology introduces something that changes the way we do business and the way we live our lives. We are currently in the midst of an explosion of ideas, models, and methods of doing business.  I want to expose some of these new techniques to you.  You might be familiar with some of these terms while others will be completely foreign to you. However, most of the concepts are deep seeded in some form of traditional marketing with a new high tech interpretation.

“Going with the Flow Marketing“ or the other name I like is “Intuitive Marketing”. This is the more natural way of marketing. For years we have been talking about Contrarian Marketing or swimming upstream. That’ s daring to be different, standing out in the crowd,  or just disagreeing with conventional thinking. That still works but something has changed.  There is a new term we are starting to use, “that’s intuitive.” What that means is “Does it make sense? Is it logical? Is that the way it should work?”

We started saying intuitive when it comes to websites. We want to be able to navigate a website easily. We don’t want a detailed list of instructions on how to maneuver a website. If it requires that, we are gone.  Now this concept has spread to just about everything else we do. It has to make sense.

This applies to the way we use the internet to search for the things we want. We have another new or at least modified term called, “Inbound Marketing”. That just means that we establish a system that fosters customers looking for us as opposed to us reaching out to customers to sell them. The difference between outbound and inbound marketing is the difference between running an ad in the local paper and hoping someone comes into the store. That is “Outbound Marketing” as opposed to creating a “landing page” which is just one page out of your website that is dedicated to a word, phrase, or concept that your perspective clients might be looking for.

“Why do we need landing pages? Don’t we just want all of our traffic to go through our home page?”

That would be nice but it also doesn’t go with the natural flow of things–it’s not “intuitive”. Here is a simple example. Say you own a men’s store and also sell merchandise on the web. (Selling on-line just makes what I am about to say even more powerful.)  You sell casual and dress shirts, pants, blazers, suits, belts, all accessories, etc. You, as a store owner, want your customer to enter your website through the home page, see all of the things that you sell, and have them click onto the page for dress shirts.

There are a couple of problems here. If I am searching for dress shirts, what do you think the chances are for your home page coming up in the top 10 to 20 spots? Slim at best on a “natural search”.(That is any type of search other  than a sponsored link, a.k.a. a “pay for click” campaign where we pay Google or whoever a fee  to have a small add  on various searches.)

OK, so you don’t want to create a separate landing page and you might not need it IF you have a page on your website that just talks about Dress Shirts.  It could be the intro or title page to the dress shirt section. So if you were to “beef up” (add more applicable content that someone might just be searching for), you will have increased your chances of someone finding you, naturally.

Isn’t that the same as advertising?  Perhaps it is advertising but in a very different way.  All you are doing is removing the barriers and streamlining the possibilities for someone who is looking for what you sell to find you. It’s natural and intuitive because you are only appealing to people who have an interest in what you sell. You are not interrupting them, or trying to convert them into buying something else.  You are just making the prospect’s journey easier while putting your business in the most favorable light. When you think about, it’s really a form of “Pinpoint Marketing” (a way of reaching just specific groups or individual customers). It is really the same thing with a different twist or application.

Going along with this more logical or intuitive way of looking (searching) for things, consider this. Using the same menswear example about someone searching for dress shirts, think about all of the ways we could refine a search for dress shirts. How about French cuff dress shirts, monogrammed dress shirts, spread collars, button downed, silk, cotton. Polyester, all white, two tone, and what about all of the different dress shirt vendors? There are a multitude of possibilities for creating simple landing pages that could help someone find what they want and what you sell. You are making it easier for the customer to buy from you.

These pages don’t take long to create. 15 to 20 minute maximum if you have the right software to use or your website was created by someone who has set up the ability to add simple pages. Think of the possibilities. We can start to have websites with hundreds of simple pages.  Sound crazy? It’s happening every day. It’s just a new way of thinking and looking at the world of on-line marketing…Inbound Marketing.

My key point is that all these applications are going to use content that is already developed by Google Local Business or similar content from Yahoo, MSN, etc….

In the article they highlight an application from Layar :

One company working to make this happen is Amsterdam-based Layar, which recently released an augmented-reality browser by the same name for Android phones. Layar lets you search for things on Google but delivers the results based on your location, which it determines from the GPS readout. So you can search for, say, a bike shop or a pet store close to where you happen to be.

As you can see above Layar is using data sets like Google Local Search for their application

Love them or hate them Yelp (Review Service) is going all out for the iPhone crowd:

For a year, Yelp, a Web site with business reviews written by customers, had an iPhone app that used the device’s GPS and wireless Internet connectivity to deliver local search results. But when the iPhone got a compass, bloggers wondered whether Yelp would go further and make its app overlay information onto a real-time view of the world. After noticing the speculation, Yelp quietly created such an app this summer, spokesman Vince Sollitto said.

The augmented-reality program, known as Monocle, was built for Yelp by an industrious intern and originally hidden in Yelp’s app. (It was activated if you shook the iPhone three times.) Monocle is a formal feature that combines the iPhone’s camera view with tiny tags indicating the names, distances and user ratings of proximate bars, restaurants and more. Poke a floating tag on the screen with your finger and up pops detailed information about the business.

All business need to get their best reputation they can out on services like Yelp ASAP.

Click here for the article in the San Diego Union-Tribune

For example small applications (Networking 2.0) for iphones translate Google Business Listing & Google Maps and translate that information on the fly to direct a user to the top BBQ listing along a freeway and then the user is directed to their restaurant choice.

Where to Eat? Finding restaurants using GPS

There are two take home messages from an application like this. First you need to continually work on being on the top 10 box of Google maps.  In this example the iphone application starts with a list of the top ten BBQ restaurants that the odds are great that the user will select from.  The second point is that the Top 10 lists are not perfect as the #8 choice is not even a restaurant.  This shows that developing this information is still in its infancy and you, as a smart restaurateur, can quickly get on this list, as it may not be very competitive.

The other finer point is that as a restaurateur, if you really want to work on this aspect of your advertising you need to make sure that you are categorizing your business around the list of options in the GPS software.  In this application the list looks like this:

Restaurant Categories

I have not researched if most of the applications use the same catagories, but I would bet that the developers of these applications are not trying to change the world on the data side, but like most databased applications are looking to use standard data-sets, that Google and other large search engines supply.

Here in San Diego Rubios Fesh Mex is working with Yowza, A new iPhone app that is a substitue to paper coupons.

Rather than fooling with a stack of coupons at checkout, those with an iPhone (or iTouch) simply show a digital coupon and the savings is automatically deducted from the purchase price.

Retailers that have already signed with Yowza!! include Sears, McDonald’s, Finish Line, ESPN Zone, The Container Store, Islands Restaurant, Sports Authority, Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill, Pier 1 Imports, REI, Saks Fifth Avenue, Regency Shopping Centers, California Pizza Kitchen, American Golf Corporation, Cavallo Point Lodge, Marmalade Café, Traditional Jewelers, American Car Movers, Aveda Salon/Spa, Inner You Pilates, JRK Hotel Group, Cheeseburger Restaurants, Kiehl’s, Midway Car Rental, Santana Row Shopping Center, Seaton, Jill Roberts and many others.

Coupons for the Iphone

There is a nice article about this in the SD Tribune.

Two forces are driving mobile coupons, said Greg Hallinan, chief marketing officer with Verve Wireless in Encinitas, which works with newspapers, TV and radio stations on wireless services, including The San Diego Union-Tribune and the company’s Web site, SignonSanDiego.com.

“One, coupons are back in vogue in the midst of the recession,” Hallinan said.

And two, faster cellular networks have boosted what can be delivered to a wireless phone.

“Consumers see these phones as more like a personal information device that’s not just for making voice calls,” he said.

Use of electronic discounts and coupons more than doubled in the first half of 2009 compared with the same period last year as overall coupon use rose 23 percent, according to coupon-processing company Inmar Inc. Electronic coupons now account for more than 3 percent of all coupons used, up from roughly 2 percent in 2008.