Just a few weeks after Google announced that they would pull the Click to Call service from Google Maps, Anthony J. Cataldo, chairman and CEO of VoIP, Inc., told CEOcast today that his company’s technology is still working with Google.
Click to Call was pulled from Google Maps in late November because too many people were using it to prank local merchants. Cataldo does not mention this on the call, nor does he talk about how the two companies could prevent it. Although Google reinstated the service after they reportedly pulled it, we did not find any safeguards to prevent the problem from happening again. When the service was initially pulled from Maps, Google replaced it with an SMS service.
“We [said] back in January that we had a deal to provide Click to Call services for Google,” Cataldo said in a Webcast. “Google likes to keep its competitive edge and so do we. We’re very excited that Google has chosen our network and is incorporating our technology platform to connect customers and merchants. It has innovative products that expand its reach into new markets and we look forward to working really closely with them to further expand the applications for Click to Call.”
Recently, Click to Call was added to Google in India and Cataldo says that his company is providing the technology there but would give no details on the implementation.
I just did a local search and this click to call service is still active.
“Click to Call was pulled from Google Maps in late November…”
You could have at least done a local search to find out if it was still live before you made this retarded post.
You should have mentioned Ingenio’s Pay Per Call as the competitor of this!!! People need to know that the concept is not new and definitely not a Google concept….
I’ve been using the click-to-call service for a while and think it’s great. I agree with beatbox: check it out and try it yourself before you post.
I’m sorry my lead was not clear. The third paragraph states that the Click to Call service was pulled from Google Maps, not all of Google. I’ll revise accordingly. Thanks for pointing that out.
Uhhh except it HASN’T been pulled from Google Maps… what are you talking about?
I use click to call every day. With the hotels that I have to contact it works like a charm.
Google reinstated the service after it was pulled from Maps, per Marshall’s post that I linked to. I’m sorry if I have not made that clear today. Thank you for your patience.
“Just a few weeks after Google announced that they would pull the Click to Call service from Google Maps”
Google NEVER announced this. Marshall’s post was based on observation.
Wow – the blog police are in full effect. I think this was an “opportunity” posted by VoIP, Inc. on PPP.
Natali made $7.50.
“Click to Call was pulled from Google Maps in late November because too many people were using it to prank local merchants.”
This is complete speculation. Click to Call was missing for a day or two. But I don’t think it was ever confirmed by Google or anywhere else that prank calls had anything to do with its absence.
they could prevent crank calls by doing what vanquish is doing for email… you have to put up a cash bond before calling and merchant can take your cash bond if they decide your call was a prank.
Natali, I had the same confusion you did on the matter, so don’t be bothered by it.
But if you do get overly bothered by it, you can hope to hire beatbox as an assistant since nothing gets past him. Not only that, his constructive delivery of criticism is a huge bullet point on his resume!
Oh and ventureblogalist, that’s a swell idea except I can’t figure out which part of it is the selling point for the stated goal. The reluctance of people to lose money or the fact that it would be so much easier to moderate the 3 users who would actually do this?
Regarding the above, I can’t imagine anyone’s going to not drive for an easy acquisition out of a sense of bettering the entrepreneurial landscape. While correct, he’s preaching to the wrong audience, he should be having long talks with VC’s and M&A people, not the folks taking advantage of their greed. Richard Burnes might want to recognize that quick turnover startups don’t care if things come crashing down, as long as they’re paid before then.
Voicestar provides this for most media companies and ad agencies
This is a neat idea, but the pranking is definetly a major roadblock.
Rick,
Good thing someone is doing some fact-checking instead of blindly reading a post which was obvious misleading. Kiss my ass.
Wow, i saw thoose tags before, but i never tough they would become a microformat, shame if mf’s are used to spam. very bad thing!
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