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November 16, 2006

Google Local Adds Click to Call

Marshall Kirkpatrick

51 comments »

The official Google Blog just announced the availability of a click-to-call feature in Google Local. This has been expected for some time, but it’s now official and it works well. Businesses you find in Google Local now have a call link included in search results. That link opens a javascript form to enter your phone number and calls both you and the business. I’ve been pestering businesses around my neighborhood this morning and though they don’t find it as fascinating as I do, I imagine this new feature will prove quite useful. I could call the listing on the right, for example and tell the business that its name is misspelled in Google Local.

The calls are powered by Google Talk and Skype, more VOIP under the covers, via an agreement made this summer. They are free on both ends. That agreement also included discussion of interoperability between Skype and Google Talk, something we’re still waiting for.

You might remember that this program was the subject of one of the bizarre hacked messages posted on the official Google blog. Persons unknown wrote on the Google Blog in October that “We finally consider click-to-call agreement with e-Bay a monopolistic aproach [sic] that would damage small companies in the CRM area.”

Windows Live Local has offered click to call for some time. Local search is a potentially lucrative space that’s seeing a lot of innovation right now. Note also that the Google Local logo includes the outline of Africa, ironic given how awful that and other map search programs’ coverage of that continent is.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 16th, 2006 at 10:30 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » Google Local広告にclick-to-call機能

    November 16th, 2006 at 2:33 pm

  2. Google — have your people call my people » Mathew Ingram: mathewingram.com/work

    November 16th, 2006 at 7:37 pm

  3. Click To Call Debuts In Google Maps - TheVanBlog

    November 16th, 2006 at 8:17 pm

  4. Life or Something Close… » links for 2006-11-17

    November 16th, 2006 at 9:27 pm

  5. Google Maps Adds Click to Call « Screenwerk

    November 17th, 2006 at 4:42 am

  6. Random Thoughts » Lifehacks and Tech Posts

    November 18th, 2006 at 10:29 am

  7. My VoIP Blogs » Blogged by Tom Keating - Google click-to-call launches

    November 20th, 2006 at 8:19 am

  8. Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Google Pulls Click-to-Call

    November 21st, 2006 at 11:52 am

  9. The Blog furtherly known as MCM » Googles Click-to-call

    November 21st, 2006 at 2:50 pm

  10. Google Pulls Click-to-Call « Anything+Everything

    November 22nd, 2006 at 3:21 am

  11. Imaginet TechLog - » Google Pulls Click-to-Call

    December 5th, 2006 at 8:31 pm

  12. Techcrunch » Blog Archive » Google Not Giving Up On VoIP

    December 8th, 2006 at 1:14 pm

  13. Pay Per Call Company VoiceStar Acquired by Marchex

    August 9th, 2007 at 3:50 pm

  14. Pay Per Call Company VoiceStar Acquired by Marchex « iBrian

    August 10th, 2007 at 10:15 am

  15. Click To Call Debuts In Google Maps | TheVanBlog

    January 27th, 2008 at 5:13 pm

Comments

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  1. Aaron Kassover

    November 16th, 2006 at 10:48 am

    Very cool. Imagine the prank call possibilities!

  2. Uri L.

    November 16th, 2006 at 11:05 am

    Definitely a market with a tremendous growth potentail. I wonder what this means for Ingenio,eStara, Miva and other players…

  3. George

    November 16th, 2006 at 11:07 am

    Well, I suppose that explains why Skype is not a part of Google’s pack of “essential” software, even though it is listed as an optional download there.

    Very smart move - thought I wonder if Yahoo will be joining Google any time soon, what with their expertise in local search.

  4. Michael Fagan

    November 16th, 2006 at 11:11 am

    Google Maps actually did add a lot of African data just recently

  5. Joel

    November 16th, 2006 at 11:26 am

    Google isn’t worried about the clear potential for abuse? It was the first thing we thought of when we saw it a few days ago.

  6. Patricia

    November 16th, 2006 at 11:27 am

    I’ve worked a bit with click to call technology and I think this is one of the better ways I’ve seen it used. It’s also one of the best solutions leveraging VoIP so far - on the ecommerce side, it’s putting voice customer service back into the equation for smaller sites that normally relied on email, and there’s some use of it now in the ad industry too that gives the overall click to call market a bit of promise. The only thing is that VoIP call quality is still pretty rough - if your ISP or service provider isn’t provisioning the voip packet, it creates call drops and jitter, etc - bad quality turns people away, especially in a customer service-based situation. There’s also still a lot of issue with carriers, etc. blocking VoIP (including a big lawsuit about it in the states last year). But, it makes connecting with what you need a lot easier and it’s cool to see it being used. City Search.com makes you dial into an 800 number now - this is way, way better. I still think there’s a bit of a gray area in exactly how to leverage VoIP-based click to call, but this is a pretty cool application and it works pretty well too.

  7. Andrew M.

    November 16th, 2006 at 11:36 am

    I’ve been testing Google AdWords click-to-call for a while. Unfortunately, it was never as good as I expected. Here’s why:

    When set at the same bid amount as my text ads, the CTC ads would appear really far back in the results, like page 28. I contacted Google and they said to let the “quality ranking” increase, so I left it running for a week, letting the CTC ads display on obscure pages instead of my text ads appearing on page 1, #1 position (it shows one or the other, not both text and CTC). After a week, nothing really changed, it moved to page 27. Then I tried to raise the bid to $20 per call (insane)! This moved it to page 5! Come on now, for $20 ($19 more than the highest text ad bid), I would expect it to be *somewhere* on page 1.

    After that, I paused the CTC campaign and returned to text ads, very disappointing. As far as the actual calling technology, it worked very clearly and reliably, but for $20 per call? I don’t think it beats text ads. I’ll try it again soon to see if they’ve corrected the ranking problems.

    This announcement mentions that CTC is free for both ends (on Google Maps only), which is excellent, can’t complain. My bad experience was with the paid, ranked ads on AdWords.

  8. NeoTechie

    November 16th, 2006 at 11:43 am

    Google will not cease to invent great services. Once this service catches on, it will change the way we interact with local businesses.

    Google does not need to produce gadgets because they offer great services.

  9. Linda

    November 16th, 2006 at 11:49 am

    Voicestar has offered this service for many publishers and agencies. This will be the new hot category for local advertisers

  10. Nate

    November 16th, 2006 at 11:50 am

    I will probably use this about 15 times a day. Absolutely fantastic.

  11. Pranab

    November 16th, 2006 at 12:24 pm

    Neotechie:
    “Google will not cease to invent great services.”

    This only goes to show how disconnected you are with technology. Windows Live Local added this feature almost 5 months back, so in real sense Microsoft is the actual innovator. Perhaps you overlooked but even the article mentions this fact
    “Windows Live Local has offered click to call for some time.”

    Please give credit to the company when it is due.

  12. Frank

    November 16th, 2006 at 12:28 pm

    whats really nice about it is the posssibility to track success of local advertising. although the contact-rates for click2connect are lower compared to just phonenumbers - at least till now

  13. AndrewG

    November 16th, 2006 at 12:57 pm

    They’ve had that feature for more than a year on the Local Mobile version, aka GLM.

    Personally that’s the only time I’ve needed to use it anyways since when I’m by the computer my cell is only a foot away to just pick it up and dial. Boy do I love GLM while I’m on foot though….I tend to get lost in unfamiliar cities and looking at satallite images of downtown is a huge help to get to where I want to be the fastest way. It even does directions just like car navigation but without the GPS and robotic voice…

    I love you Google. Hopefully I’ll be wealthy enough to buy one of your first 100mpg cars too :)

  14. AndrewG

    November 16th, 2006 at 1:04 pm

    Pranab:
    As I said, GLM had the direct dialing integrated into their mapping service first and in the most convenient form. It’s pretty clear who ‘borrowed’ ideas.

    I know a guy who works for MS and even he admits Live is slower and just seems lacking in some way or another. It’s his job to try to convince me otherwise but after a very small debate he laughed and admitted it.

  15. Neil Vineberg

    November 16th, 2006 at 1:32 pm

    Not surprised about Google. The one-click category is heating up. I suggest you research Jaduka.com and their Click-and-Connect product. I work with Jaduka on the PR side.

    While popular C2C enterprise solutions cost a bundle, Jaduka’s solution is free to install and you prepay for calls, reasonably priced. If you’re a small business, it’s a great day because Jaduka has basically smashed the price barrier and your c2c solution is doable right now. And if you’re looking to jazz up your CRM campaign, Jaduka offers customizable eGreeting cards featuring a one-click dialing button. Get the card, click the button, and you’re connected to the person who sent it. The cards work nicely for real estate brokerages, medical and dental offices, etc..

  16. Amit

    November 16th, 2006 at 1:52 pm

    This is an excellent services. Hats off to Google.

    -Amit
    http://www.ipatrons.com

  17. mathew

    November 16th, 2006 at 2:04 pm

    So I could search for gay porn, wait for an ad to pop up, enter the local Republican politician’s work phone number, and Google will call him and connect him to the local adult bookstore?

    What a great idea for a service. What could possibly go wrong?

  18. luca filigheddu

    November 16th, 2006 at 3:09 pm

    Click to call is the future. Any business should be click-to-call enabled. Just announced important achievements for my company two days ago:

    http://lucafiligheddu.blogspot.....ll_14.html

  19. David Mackey

    November 16th, 2006 at 7:25 pm

    I wonder what was the inspiration behind choosing Africa? Seems like a pretty neat idea, will become even better when phones become de facto connected to our computers.

  20. John Mazur

    November 17th, 2006 at 5:06 am

    This technology will eventually bring together the fragmented relationship between local businesses and online users researching products/services online in a local community.

    My favorite player right now is http://www.click2talk.com who is doing the “heavy lifting” of targeting the local business directly one business at a time. The Click2Talk product is being used by hundreds of local businesses who want a more direct relationship with prospects online. Check it out at http://www.click2talk.com

  21. Eric Dewhirst

    November 17th, 2006 at 6:53 am

    I am so totally with Matthew on this one!

    “So I could search for gay porn, wait for an ad to pop up, enter the local Republican politician’s work phone number, and Google will call him and connect him to the local adult bookstore? What a great idea for a service. What could possibly go wrong? “

    I read all the comments and thought maybe I am being super naïve here but when was the barrier to entry the phone call? I mean if you are looking for a hardware store and their ad pops up with a phone number – do you really say to yourself ahhhh way too far to the phone? As for spamming
    and unsolicited calling it is a perfect playground and it’s a double whammy because the advertiser pays real money for the click and then pays with his/her time with some joker hooking them up with Pizza Hut in Montevallo, Alabama.

    I am sure it will do well for certain sectors but the local advertising market is not as easy as everyone thinks. Go down to your local dry cleaner and ask him/her if they want to place adwords?

    Cheers,

    Eric

  22. sandy

    November 18th, 2006 at 6:56 am

    Hi nice article. It is amazing what google has to offer. Recently I came accross this site http://www.mapmyevent.com/
    Its awesome bcoz I can now make my own custom events map page and share with my users.

  23. Ralph

    November 21st, 2006 at 11:28 am

    Did they cancel this already? http://www.pinkprankradio.com/?p=92

  24. Tony C.

    November 26th, 2006 at 5:50 pm

    This has nothing to do with Skype. This service is powered by VOIP Incorporated (voii.ob) out of Orlando, Fl. Anytime you see the little green phone nest to the call feature, thats Voip Inc.

  25. Norbert

    December 4th, 2006 at 10:48 am

    When I first tried it, I was blown away. I tested it calling my cable company through a maps search. Right away I received a phone call and was immediately connected to the outgoing call to the cable company.

    Hats off to Google once again.

    Here is my review of the new feature: http://www.melearnasp.net/opinion/?articleid=10

  26. fiorentina

    February 16th, 2007 at 4:50 pm

    L’information interessante que vous avez! I’am allant revenir bientot.

  27. yahoo

    February 26th, 2007 at 6:32 am

    luogo fine, sapete..

  28. erotico

    February 26th, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    um… buoni, realmente buoni luogo e molto utile;)

  29. liberi

    February 26th, 2007 at 2:06 pm

    Ich besichtige deinen Aufstellungsort wieder bald fur sicheres!

  30. gianna

    February 26th, 2007 at 9:03 pm

    Great site! Good luck to it’s owner!

  31. grosso

    February 26th, 2007 at 9:57 pm

    Stupore! ho una sensibilit molto buona circa il vostro luogo!!!!

  32. zucchero

    February 26th, 2007 at 10:50 pm

    Interessare, molto interessante. Come avete fatto questo?

  33. prosciutto

    February 27th, 2007 at 5:30 am

    Ich fand gute und wichtige Informationen - dir zu danken.

  34. gelato

    February 27th, 2007 at 6:46 am

    Du musst ein Fachmann sein - wirklich guter Aufstellungsort, den du hast!

  35. sardinia

    February 27th, 2007 at 12:34 pm

    pagine piuttosto informative, piacevoli =)

  36. michael lambie

    March 3rd, 2007 at 1:31 pm

    i can imagine we’ll soon hear a short advert before the call connects. still a very cool feature.

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