Speak up its ASK Mobile Search
Rating: click to speak?
by Bena Roberts
I can’t write anymore. It’s just the start of the year and I fear that there is already too much “rubbish” coming out of the mobile search and services space. First ChaCha powered by humans and soon to launch voice and now ASK voice enabled Click to Speak mobile driving and walking directions.
Is it me or is voice suddenly “hot” again. If it is – what a disaster because the thought or talking to an IVR machine or getting some robot voice answering me is simply chilling. (I mean chilling as in shivers down the spine and not chillin’ as in cool baby).
Why?
Voice dialling, speech, voice recognition and response services have been available since the 1990’s. They didn’t work then and they have slightly improved but in general they don’t work that well now either.
I remember testing every voice portal service in the market back in 2002. There were about 15 available them all with major operators globally. None of them succeeded.
Why?
Voice fails the minute you have any background noise as users don’t understand the query and consumers can’t understand the response.
Am I being unfair?
Perhaps. The best thing about this Click to Speak service is that it’s a voice assisted service. So that users can speak and talk at the same time. This means that instead of asking a question or solely talking to the phone – users click as well as speak reducing the clicks.
No thinking about it agian - I still hate it.
From the press release
“Voice input is one more way Ask.com Mobile helps searchers find exactly what they are looking for faster and easier,” said Doug Leeds, senior vice president of product management, Ask.com. “The new ‘Click to Speak’ service is quick, free and accurate, and makes getting driving or walking directions a breeze.”
“Voice input is a natural complement to the Ask.com Mobile Directions service,” said Amit Desai, co-founder and chief product officer of Dial Directions (www.dialdirections.com). “Dial Directions’ new spoken location interface technology offers a dramatic improvement over typing addresses on mobile devices. We look forward to a continued relationship with Ask.com as they look for new ways to further improve the mobile web search experience with Ask.com Mobile.”
Anything else?
Well, Voice Search, even though I hate it is a wanted service. I grit my teeth as I say it but look out for an arsenal of new voice services in 2008.
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- VoiceBox Conversational voice search applications
- Mobile Search: Talking to the Internet - can voice enabling become the standard way to search?
- Bubble and speak text to Airtel customers
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