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Google enters the VoIP arena [www.google.com]

Google has launched a VoIP service of their own, called Google Talk to allow users to chat on the net. They enter an arena busy with large search and portal companies who already have their own voice messaging services Yahoo's Messenger, MSN's messenger and of course Skype (see the page for current providers).

Where do they go from here?

I'd suggest they have two possible destinations (neither of which are necessarily exclusive).

Delivering wireless access to all of the US.
Video on demand.

Both suggestions need lots of bandwidth, which they seem to be buying up according to a Business 2.0 article (and reported on News.com previously). Business 2.0 suggest that they are heading for offering wireless internet access across the US. The internet does appear to be becoming somewhere to search for essentials, such as places to eat and stay. Perhaps they have calculated that offering a "local search" for mobile devices with ads would be worthwhile, especially as mobile devices become more common.

On the other hand, moving into Video on demand would take advantage of their existing search and large-scale data storage skills.

More concretely they could be simply trying to cut costs and decreasing their reliance on internet infrastructure.

I'd suggest as a mid-term strategy towards video on demand they will be following some of the strategies already followed by Yahoo - i.e. offering subscription music downloads to use up some of that bandwidth. In the past Google have said that they are interested in testing video uploads and downloads. Why wouldn't they test the water with music downloads?

With messaging moving from text to voice, surely the next step for all voice messaging companies must be video messaging (and leaving/storing video messages)?

Posted by Michael Bluett at 17:27

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