Keep IT Simple

Yeah, I admit that when I first heard about this, I grew scared. Not that I give away important information over the phone because in fact, I do not mention anything about PIN, bank account number and any other private information over the phone. What I am talking here is that is that, whether or not a new service that can eavesdrop on phone calls intends to steal private information, any phone call can indeed be listened to.

And then it occurred to me after all that it is not just phones which are being eavesdropped. Even Gmail scans the contents of my email so they can get keywords for their adsense. And yes, everyone always has a choice: if he doesn’t want to get eavesdropped or scanner, he can always opt not to subscribe to the service or else get a paid service that promises no scanning or eavesdropping. At least, the free services are open about scanning mails or eavesdropping phone calls.

So, as I was saying, there is this free phone call services which makes money from a advertisements. Wondering how it works? Actually, anybody wanting to avail of free phone call service to the United States will just have to visit the company’s website, dial the number from the website and that’s it. The ads will show up on the website. And not just that, the ads are not some sort of random visuals. The ads are based on keywords, and the keywords are taken from the conversation as it goes along. For example, if the phone conversation is about bags, then the ads that would appear would be about bags and other related stuff such as department stores specializing on bags and accessories. Pretty cool or pretty scary?

If you will have to look closely, this is so very Google Adsense. But the thing in this case is that this is about scanning through voice recognition. Yes, this technology is not easy. In fact many have tried and claimed that it notoriously difficult for computers to recognize speech. But a New York based start up has been successful to certain degree. Puddingmedia’s beta software was able to have relevant popping up and many irrelevant ads too. For instance, one guy tried talking about restaurant and computers but the computer was insisting on ads for career as a social worker.

For chief executive of Puddingmedia Ariel Maislos, they look at irrelevant links as something to add spice to the conversation. ”Sometimes crazy things pop up. It actually enriches the conversation, which is very cool,” he said. For this I believe them. And when I see those ads, irrelevant they may be, I would have a new topic to talk about and it would not really matter if the conversation stretches because the phone call is free anyway.
Within the next few days, people can already start calling free to the United States and Canada by visiting their website at www.ThePudding.com.