Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Another Reason I Love Google

Every now and then I surf on over to the Google Labs page to check out Google's latest projects. I'm especially fond of this project: Google Voice Local Search. It's essentially a free 411 search for businesses (here I'm thinking restaurants, movie theaters, etc.), and it's entirely voice activated. And what I like most about this free 411 service more than any of the others is the noticeable lack of advertising. But that's because this is still in its beta stage; I wouldn't be surprised if Google sold out down the road.

I like it. I made a few test calls and tried to locate businesses in Salt Lake and Park City. As you can imagine it's pretty good with the businesses in Salt Lake, and needs some work in Park City. But what I couldn't locate by name in Park City I was able to locate by category.

Google is awesome, except, of course, for it's politics (see Chinese government, caving in to). A friend of mine in law school once said, "If Google were a woman, I'd marry her." And yes, I fully realize this does nothing to undermine the notion that law students are total dweebs.