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Posted on 09/25/2007 6:51:28 AM PDT by Sam's Army
New Service Eavesdrops on Internet Calls
Monday September 24, 7:35 am ET By Peter Svensson, AP Technology Writer
New Service Eavesdrops on Internet Calls to Display Ads Based on What's Being Talked About
NEW YORK (AP) -- A startup has come up with a new way to make money from phone calls connected via the Internet: having software listen to the calls, then displaying ads on the callers' computer screens based on what's being talked about.
For instance, a caller talking about going for dinner might see ads to local restaurants and restaurant review sites, while someone pondering whether to buy a new computer might see ads for computer stores. Relevant unsponsored links also appear.
That is, if the system works. It's notoriously difficult for computers to recognize speech. A test of Puddingmedia's beta software was a mixed success: Relevant ads appeared when this reporter talked about restaurants and computers, but the software was oddly insistent that he should seek a career as a social worker, showing multiple ads and links pointing to that field.
"Sometimes crazy things pop up. It actually enriches the conversation, which is very cool," said Ariel Maislos, chief executive of Puddingmedia.
On Monday, the Silicon Valley-based company is launching a public trial of the software on its Web site, http://www.ThePudding.com. Visitors will be able to place free calls to U.S. and Canadian phone numbers from their computers using headsets or microphones. The phone numbers are entered via a Web browser, which is also where the ads and links show up.
The company's aim is not to be an independent provider of ad-financed Internet phone calls, but to license its speech-recognition service to other companies that use Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. Puddingmedia said it was talking to several possible partners but can't name any yet.
Outfits like eBay Inc.'s Skype unit would be possible partners. Skype provides free calls between computers but charges for calls to phone numbers so it can recoup connection fees charged by phone companies. Those costs could possibly be offset with an advertising model like Puddingmedia's.
The actual speech recognition is performed at Puddingmedia's servers in Fremont, Calif., not on the user's computer. In the test, the quality of the call did not seem to be affected by the extra step.
Maislos stressed that the calls are not stored in any way, nor does Puddingmedia keep a record of which keywords were picked up from a particular call.
"Have you talked about mountain biking? We wouldn't know," Maislos said.
The advertising model is similar to that of Google Inc.'s Gmail, which shows ads based on scans of the user's e-mail correspondence. That idea initially raised privacy concerns, but those have abated as users have become comfortable with the system.
Eventually, Maislos hopes to be able to expand the service to cell phones. In that case, ads would pop up on the caller's screen after the call.
Volunteering away your privacy to marketers is cool now!
Sheeple will happily give it up.
"Maislos stressed that the calls are not stored in any way, nor does Puddingmedia keep a record of which keywords were picked up from a particular call.
If I have a company looking at this service as an investment, I need to know how to it will refer customers to me. Somehow an ad gets generated due to keywords and they don't have a way to track what ads were generated when? It's either BS or an extremely bad business model; maybe both.
I think one should be able to voluntentarily give up their privacy if they so choose, we should not be forced to be private. Personally, I’d rather receive advertisements that are useful to me.
That's hardly an issue these days...
No, it has already been establish in court that you have no expectation of privacy over the internet which is why many Law firms will not use it for communicating with their clients as it can undermine the attorney - client privilege.
If you want to take advantage of VoIP telephony you can do so without using the internet. If you are interested in knowing how then contact me privately by Freep mail.
Sure will cut down on the 976 numbers.
If it were to have listened to last argument I had with a vendor, I would have gotten porn popups.
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At first I thought that if Skype started doing this, I’d get rid of Skype and find another VoIP package. But then I realized that Google already does this with my email, so is this really any worse? The main difference is that I don’t use my Gmail account for business, whereas almost all my Skype calls are business calls. But honestly, as long as it’s not the government doing it, does it matter?
To each his own in this regard. It won't fly for me...if I am interested in Kayaking or new cars, I can do my own research and save myself the additional advertising bombardment that is nearly incessant these days.
Some folks will think it's "cool" and love getting more adverts put in front of them, no matter the circumstances it seems.
BONUS!!
well I guess it depends on what terms you were using with your vendor and what your preferences are ...
My "fear/concern" is what happens, when the Govt starts, "buying" this information from the company.
This company is claiming at least right now not to be storing the info ... but what happens when they do and start selling the info for "marketing" purposes ... whats to stop or disuade the Govt. from purchasing the info and the using it for their own purposes?
or am I just making the slope too slippery?
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