AT&T rolls out nationwide ad-supported directory assistance
12/20/07 AT&T recently announced that it was rolling out nationwide their ad-supported directory assistance. They have been testing it and this is no doubt in response to Google’s 1-800 GOOG-411 ad supported service and 1-800 FREE-411. I think this is also a big clue to where the future is heading.
I found a couple articles mentioning this:
http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2007/12/20/att-expands-ad-supported-directory-assistance-nationwide/
http://www.clickz.com/3627942
http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=3924&source=HOME
I think this also explains some of their other recent acquisitions, namely Ingenio, one of the leaders in the pay-per-call industry, as well as 1-800 YELLOWPAGES.
My take is that they are very serious in not allowing Google to dominate that automated directory assistance category which seems so potentially close to their world. I think we will see all of these activities converging into a serious new service.
Looking into the future a little further, as speech recognition reaches main stream, I think this will all merge with cell phones into a kind of star trek type of communicator that you wear on your shirt which allows people to interact not only with each other, but a giant computer in the sky.
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information. Google has also said that they intend to bid Billions of dollars for the new spectrum coming from the conversion of analog tv signals to digital. I know the end of this scenario may sound kind of far fetched today but I think it’ll seem obvious in the future.
What does anyone else think? Feel free to laugh, jab or go even further, because this is just my personal opinion and my take on events of the day and where they are heading. And I’d like to hear your opinions too.
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