Google Shows Off Ad-Supported Cell Phone

taoman1 writes "Today Google showed off a ad-supported cellphone that the company plans to offer for free to interested parties. The product could reach the marketplace within a year, and will offer Google search, email, and a web browser. 'The move would echo another recent product launched by a phone industry outsider, Apple Inc.'s iPhone. But Google's product would draw its revenue from a sharply different source, relying on commercial advertising dollars instead of the sticker price of at least US$499 for an iPhone and $60 per month for the AT&T Inc. service plan. Negotiating the fairest way to split those advertising revenues with service providers could be a big hurdle for Google, one analyst said. Another problem is the potential that consumers could be scared off by the prospect of listening to advertisements before being able to make phone calls, said Jeff Kagan, a wireless and telecommunications industry analyst in Atlanta.'"

Pictures?

[Shadowplay00]

This article is useless without pics

Ads ads everywhere

[fishybell]

IMHO people are getting pretty fed up with pervasive advertising. Part of Tivo's initial popularity came from the ability to skip advertisements. The people quite obviously want less ads, not more. As all of google's money now seems to come from advertising, and they seem to only be innovating new ways to push ads, I'd say that they're going down the wrong path.

Re:listen to ads?

[middlemen]

People do that with their television and radio, don't they ? And yet for some of them, their lives are pointless without the TV or radio, just as for many others their lives are pointless without the telephone. Imagine an audio ad of "Girls Gone Wild" before calling your mother.

Audio ads?

[Aladrin]

I see -nowhere- that Google has said these advertisements will be audible or will be played before a call. That's just FUD by the article writer. Until Google has said -anything- we don't know what their plans are.

In fact, Google has not even said the phones WILL be ad-revenue supported, as far as I can tell. There's a couple quotes from Google on there, but they only deal with Google apps on the phones, not the calling plans.

scared off?

[nurb432]

No, more like pissed off.

Can't you see

[warrior_s]

FTA " Negotiating the fairest way to split those advertising revenues with service providers could be a big hurdle for Google, one analyst said."

Thats why Google wants to become the service provider itself and wants to buy that spectrum for itself.

Re:The voice version of AdSense?

[ignipotentis]

The geek in me says this would be extremely cool (from the technology point of view). Picture this. The Google phone service analyzes your conversation (no data is permanently stored... must do no evil remember). When certain key words are found, Google flags your phone to download certain advertisements to say, your background image. Each time you open your phone to use it, you see a new advertisement targeted to you based on your previous conversation. Add to this a browser, and you could quickly and easily purchase what your are being advertised using your phone.

Reminds me off

[SamP2]

The dawn of the ISPs, where many companies offered free dialup internet access through serving ads to customers desktops.

The whole thing died for a number of reasons. In order to gather enough revenue to pay for people's internet connection SO many ads had to be served that people just didn't accept it.

I can only imagine this will be even worse when on the cell. Having to *click* on an ad every few minutes is bad enough, but having to *listen*, which takes time, every time before you make conversation is even worse.

Privacy issues are rampant here too. Google is known for context-based ads by reading your email content in exchange for free email. How bad would it be if Google had some voice recognition built-in, which LISTENED to your conversations, gathered keywords, and served you ads based on what you talk about?

And God only knows where that information would be stored and for what purposes in some Google database, which is already an issue, but could be much worse with real voice being recorded.

To play the devil's advocate, people don't seem to have much of a problem listening to radio stations which work on the same principle. But there are big differences - no two-way interaction, you just listen , so no privacy issues; you can switch radio stations at any time if you hear something you don't like instead of HAVING to wait for it, and most importantly, you listen to radio (for vast majority of people) for leisure, not business, so ads don't have such an impact.

In short, I just don't think this one will be adopted. Anyone who's lifestyle requires a constant or even occasional use of a cellphone, would probably rather pay for a service (cheapest services can go for as little as $10/mo) than be part of this scheme.

How Much are Ads Really Worth?

[inKubus]

The medium is the message. A big goal is location awareness. I doubt there will be audio advertising. More likely if you turn the phone on there will be a popup of a nearby business with a special offer or something. Or if you use data functions, there'll be targetted ads. GIS, you know.

Keep in mind they are bidding up that huge chunk of spectrum coming open soon and if they can snag some of it this could work pretty easily. Start small with a few towers in major markets, preferably near some dark fibre or a NOC they already have in place. Put their sales force to work and cross market to local businesses already using adwords. Lease airtime from other providers in the meantime, under the new regulations they have to provide a quality connection. They have plenty of cash to burn through and I think it would quickly prove itself one way or the other. Obviously offer the chance to "buy up" your service to remove some of the ads. But really try to make the ads real "content". Google has done a good job making ads "content" that actually provide value. In this case, let the consumer know that there's a nearby business offering a special. Don't spam the phone with popups for downloadable ringtones or phone sex lines.

Re:further proof

[Anonymous Coward]

Just this morning there was a Slashdot article about MS Works being ad supported and at least a few commenters called them evil because of it.

I disagree

[DogDude]

I couldn't disagree more. The masses *love* ads. People pay to wear ads on their clothes. People pay to advertise their car's brands on their cars. People pay a large sum of money to their cable/satellite company every month to watch ads. People willingly sit through ads before a movie that they paid for. There are so many idiots out there who PAY to consume advertising, that I guarantee people are NOT fed up with advertising.

Personally, I'm fed up with ads, but I see no sign that regular people are fed up with advertising.

Re:listen to ads?

[xappax]

5. Prostitution

It's interesting that you put prostitution on that list. While the other negative things that you (perhaps a little one-sidedly) attribute to poor people are arguably accurate, customers of prostitutes are very predominantly wealthy or middle class. Not all the vices and ills of society can be associated with the poor :)

This Should Scare...

[Nom du Keyboard]

This should scare Apple shareholders for a few days at least.

Re:further proof

[Thyamine]

They have a vastly popular search engine online, how does that translate to a monopoly in phones? If they were now denying access to their site to all non-Google phones, then yes I'd say they are using their might for evil, but they aren't. They're simply saying 'hey look we're Google and now we have a free phone'.

Microsoft used to threaten OEMs with higher rates or even denial of Windows if they did things like offered other OSes or bundled other browsers (way back when). Google is certainly large enough that they can commit similar evil acts, but I don't see how this would be one of them.

The Anti-MS leanings of Slashdot is too obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that when Microsoft comes out with a product with ads it is tagged as "ADWARE" but with Google it is "Ad-Supported"?

Re:listen to ads?

[fimbulvetr]

Agreed. Google, to date, has proven to be quite effective at dishing out ads that don't negatively affect me. I'm not inundated with doubleclick monkey shooting win IPOD ads, rather I get ads based on somethings I'm writing about in email, searched for, or reading about.

Google has a chance to pioneer "effective" advertising, of the type that is extremely context sensual - enough so that it wouldn't arguably be a nuisance to most people. Try this: Go to google and search for "japan". Then search for "vacation". Boom - it puts up small ads about vacations to japan. Convenient? Yes. Obtrusive? Hardly. Innovative? Absolutely. Relevant? Likely.

There are a hundred things, I, as a consumer, would love to see ads on *right now*, but not the old school ads - the new kind. The kind that advertise there's a new chinese restaraurant with 5 star ratings 1.4 miles from my current location. Or the kind that let me know there's a new used game store 3 miles from me that pays more than gamestop for trade ins and sells them for less. Or the kind that say there's a new book at amazon with 5 star ratings on PHP OO when I'm bitching about PHP's OO in IM. There are zillions of these kinds of examples, and if google pioneers it, I will gladly welcome the demise of the doubleclick assault.

Bubble2.0

[evilviper]

I would like to welcome back the dot-com bubble. v2 is shaping up to be better than the first.

People want tech products. Tech products are expensive. Advertising gives us money. Therefore, we should give away computers... I mean phones. Those 2/10ths of a cent we get for every ad are free money. We'll be GAZILLIONAIRES in a week! No need to worry about the hundreds of dollars of investment in equipment and large monthly service fees. If we decide we aren't making enough money, we'll just throw in twice as many ads, and make twice as much money! It can't possibly fail! FREE MONEY!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go integrate my customized strategic life-cycle synergy platform into the vibrant emerging vertical market to differentiate my uniquely challenged customers and organizationally leverage our thriving demographic margins under one roof.

Re:listen to ads?

[aesiamun]

They wouldn't be paying attention if they were on the phone either. Maybe verizon, sprint and at&t shouldn't be able to offer cell phone service either because it could end up killing someone.

GM, Ford, Honda and others shouldn't be able to sell cars because they could be used to kill someone.
KFC, McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell,etc shouldn't be able to sell fast food because it could kill people.

It's the responsibility of the consumer to understand the consequences of what they do, as well as far any laws put into effect by their state. Listening to an ad or listening to their friend, they aren't paying as much attention on the road...

Re:listen to ads?

[JackieBrown]

How does listening to an increase the odds of a distracted cell phone user?

Re:listen to ads?

[porcupine8]

Every 30 second ad is 1/2 minute of your life you'll never have again. Do you really want your life slowly eaten by ads?

I don't think I would want to have a phone with ads, but you can also look at it this way: My husband and I spend about two hours of our combined income a month on our cel phones. So we would have to place 120 calls a month to waste as much time listening to the ads as we do working to pay our cel phone bill. Yes, we probably do make that many calls a month between the two of us, but there are probably people who have higher bills or lower income than us for whom this would be a good deal, time-wise. And if the ads were only ten or fifteen seconds (which seems a bit more reasonable and might even be something I'd be willing to sit through), then it would be a good deal for even more people.

Re:listen to ads?

[jlarocco]

What about incoming calls? Some companies, like Sprint and US Cellular offer free incoming already with select plans. I suppose Google would have to implement something similar, they can't delay an incoming call so you can listen to some ads.

Sure they can. The person calling you would love to listen to an advertisement.

Re:listen to ads?

[Arancaytar]

what happens when a teenager driving a car and listening to an ad isn't paying attention to the road.

Is your attention more captivated by an advertisement than it is while you are talking on the phone?

Ouch, you must know some very boring people...

Re:listen to ads?

[coleblak]

Drivers listen to ads on the radio as they drive. A driver shouldn't be talking on the phone as it is. Reductio ad absurdum.

Especially since Works is already "free"...

[norminator]

Not to mention that Works is the base "productivity software" on Dell systems (and maybe most or all other major Win-box retailers).
You can still order them without it, but it doesn't decrease the price of the system, so isn't Works pretty much free (as in beer) to the consumer already, if you're buying a new computer?

Adding ads just makes it a worse product that still won't change the price of the system (to the customer) whether you include it or not.