tbc0's posterous

I shilled for Google this morning. I don't mind doing that for a company whose slogan is, "Don't be evil." My apologies to speakers of the King's English. I refer to Google as "they," not "it." I hope that doesn't put you off. Blame Professor Yagoda for helping me re-discover my American literary heritage.

11:12 AM (me) Hi (<non-GV-customer>). Just want to be sure you have my latest mobile number: 719.357.7822. Did you call 210.xxxx this morning?

11:13 AM (<non-GV-customer>) Yes. Why? Did it not work?

11:15 AM (me) Yes. The 210 number only rings my Sprint phone. The 357 is Google Voice, so should will reach me anywhere. I had it set to ring my home phone, so when you called I was afraid Google was broken. Thanks for clearing that up. I would pay money to Google if that's what it took to keep Google Voice reliable. I love it. Another cool feature is that if you dial 357 and leave voicemail, I get a text message with the transcription. Like having my own personal secretary. :)

11:17 AM (<non-GV-customer>) Cool. I need to check into Google voice. It's 100% free? What's the catch?

Connected to <non-GV-customer> (xxx.xxx@xxx.com).

[At this point I switched to voice. I told the non-GV-customer that as long as you trust Google's privacy policies you're fine. But we're all being set up to have Google fully intergrated into our lives: They have power to read our email, it knows all our contacts, they see our appointments on our calendars, etc. So with GV we're giving them power to listen to our phone calls and know who we talk to. Then I went on to point out that there's no reason they ever have to charge for GV. But for now, they're getting something in return. We crowdsource the improvement of transcribing speech to text. Every time we rate a voicemail transcrtiption, Google gets something in return. Everytime we donate our voicemail to Google so they can improve transcription, they get something in return.]

Call with  <non-GV-customer> (xxx.xxx@xxx.com) has ended. Duration : 0:03:09

Notice a few more things:

• Since my phone number is free, I don't mind publishing it on the Internet. If I get too many unwanted calls, I'll simply change my number.
• Yes, Google, I'd pay for your service if you had to charge to make it more reliable. But so far, so good. Thanks!
• About that crowdsourcing thing. You don't think that's a crown jewel? Just wait. This is a key, foundational computer science technology, and their PhD's and ScD's know it. They're already perfecting the conversion of images to text with Google Images, Picasa, YouTube, and Google Books. Once "analog" information -- pictures, printed text, and speech -- are converted to text, the path to a Star Trek all-knowing computer is much shorter than it is for all the other companies (Microsoft? Meh!) who have tried and failed. They're using us! This is a characteristic of the new economy. Give away a free service that returns to you something valuable.
• I didn't scratch the surface with <non-GV-customer> regarding the power we are quickly giving Google. It has power to read our documents stored in Google Docs, it knows our search history, it knows what maps, we look at. You can name more examples, I'm sure.
• Cory Doctorow wrote a story called "Scroogled" that assumed Google would know our friends, too. This was way back in 2007 when Orkut was more arguably viable as a social media network. (Do you still use Orkut? You must be Brazilian!) A minor setback. I doubt Zuckerberg's ego would allow him to sign on as a Google employee, but who knows? The 2012 Facebook IPO could be a flash in the pan, and we could see a day when Google buys Facebook at a bargain price.
• Ironically, all my communication with this non-GV-customer went through Microsoft Office Communicator. You can google "Microsoft evil" for yourself. :) But Microsoft is a 20th century company. Let that be a lesson! Another company will dominate after Google has had its day in this, the 21st century. Unless Jesus returns to Earth first.

I don't yet have a conclusion to this blog post. It's a work in progress. It all hinges on whether Google ever becomes evil.