Google 411

If you missed the announcement Google made that it was killing Goog 411, the free information service, then you have not yet had a chance to grieve.

The good news is two fold.

First, you can still text GOOGLE (466459) and get business information back.

Second, I seriously doubt Google will ever kill Google Voice.

Think about this, unless you’re talking to someone in person, Google will know everything going on in your life. Email, Voicemail (which is now transcribed into text thanks to Google Voice), Text Messages, Phone Conversations (surely they are saving these as text as well), etc… Google will know everything.

If they eventually add voice monitoring to register the pitch, cadence, and tone of your voices as well (if they haven’t already) then Google might be able to know things before you do based on stress, excitement or just biology…

Couldn’t you foresee your stress levels going up, or a woman’s voice changing due to hormones, and Google sends them an ad before the person even knows something has changed…? Wicked! 🙂

Google CEO Eric Schmidt even told the Mobile World Congress in a keynote address: “We can literally know everything if we want to.”

Luckily their company slogan is “Don’t Be Evil” and they have stood up to that so far.

In a hilarious hkcd cartoon, you can even seen that Google has almost no reason to turn evil…

Google We Control the World's Information Now It's time to Turn Evil