The Biz

“For nearly 35% of the population who may never have access to a computer, this (telephone) may be the only way for accessing information,” Prasad Ram, head of Google’s research and development in India, stated at the Computer Society of India conference last week.

Recently, Google launched GOOG-411, a voice-activated service that let's you find nearby businesses by saying where you are and what you're looking for. You can access GOOG-411 from any phone (mobile or land line), in any location, at any time. For free.

The Mint reports that "Previous attempts at building local voice response systems by firms such as HP Labs India, the Bangalore-based research unit of Hewlett-Packard Co., have had limited success. HP Labs tested a voice response system it developed for Indian Railways that allowed callers in cities such as Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata to ask for train arrival and departure timings."

The challenge for Google is that a regular web search produces thousands of matching results, and while most users only scan the first page ( the top 10 results ), an appropriate solution is found easily and quickly.

Voice-based search differs significantly as information relayed back to the user will have to be presented in a more consumable format, such as just page titles being read back to the caller, or perhaps a voting system whereby after a result was selected, the user would be prompted to hit #1 for a "thumbs up" or #2 for "thumbs down".

A voting system would give power to the caller to identify is the results and let Google refine the most popular voice-based search queries.

Can you see performing searches by calling Google?

How would you like the results presented to you?

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