In a review of CallMiner, the 451 Group reported that CallMiner seeks to expand into “analysis of calls made on Internet telephony networks”. That was a little mystifying to me at first, since CallMiner was already handling VoIP in the contact center. The explanation was forthcoming - CallMiner would use its audio mining tools to pick up on the context of the call and push the caller targeted advertising.
A few months later CallMiner’s website does not indicate that this new product is available from the company. However, a rumor that Google is working on something similar and Jajah’s announcement about switching to an ad-based model got me thinking.
Ad-funded VoIP service is not a new concept (Chocophone, Lycos phone), but in the past it has often failed. Lack of contextually appropriate advertising and the penchant for intrusively serving the ads in the middle of the call contributed to the failures. The consensus around Jajah’s announcement is also that without contextually targeted advertising they cannot break even on the cost of their terminates-at-the-PSTN VoIP calls.
Contextually targeted advertising should be sufficient, however, to subsidize free VoIP. Speech recognition technology, key to recognizing the context of the call, is improving year over year. Microsoft is one of the biggest investors in speech recognition.
With speech technology coming along nicely, and some common sense in serving the ad, ad-based VoIP might come of age.
Of course, there remains the question of who would agree to have their privacy invaded in such a brutal manner. Recall the debate following the launch of gMail. Google was first to announce scanning the content of the user’s emails to serve contextual advertising. I anticipate that VoIP mining for contextual ads would spur a far more furious debate than email mining. For many, the phone is not only the most emotional means of communication, but also a bastion of privacy when other communications modes have been compromised.
It could be that the very young/poor would be interested in such a service, but their limited purchasing power does not make them a good candidate for targeted advertising.
Still, it may be that some bets in this direction are being made. Jaxtr recently got funding from some very high quality funds. The company allows users of social networking sites (i.e mostly young/poor) to embed click-to-call links in their personal profiles. Click on the link, enter your phone number, and you are connected through free VoIP. Jaxtr CEO Konstantin Guericke has been quoted as considering of monetizing Jaxtr through selling services to lawyers and real-estate agents as well as extra minutes. Take a look at Jaxtr’s home page and tell me if this is a product targeted at SMBs. I would be surprised if an ad-based model is not on Guericke’s mind.
