Google just bought a company that many of you, myself included, have never heard of called SayNow. Founded in 2005, SayNow has racked up $7.5 million in venture capital funding from various organizations, but what exactly do they do? According to All Things Digital, SayNow was used by celebrities to leave messages for their fans. You, as a fan of someone like Britney Spears, would call a number and then hear a message she recorded. The whole point is that you’d have to dial in over and over again in hopes that you’d hear something new. In the enterprise space SayNow built a product that made conference calls easier, but again … how exactly are either of these features innovative enough that they warrant a company acquisition? Maybe Google wanted the talent? Possibly, but we don’t know much about Nikhyl & Ujjwal, the two co-founders.
Voice isn’t sexy. In a world where voice usage is on the decline because blasting out a text message or email is easier, people get offended when you call them and interrupt whatever it is they’re doing. That being said, the search engine company has a lot to gain if they get more and more people using their Google Voice (GV) service. For starters, none of the American operators offer multiple SIM cards to shove in two separate devices, giving both the same phone number. Google solves that. No one offers voice mail transcription either, but GV does. Could Google one day simply call up T-Mobile or Sprint and ask them to use their network in an MVNO type deal and then start competing with the likes of Verizon and AT&T?
It’s very possible, but far too early to speculate on at this point. Google’s already trialing out connecting communities to high speed fiber lines, and many moons ago they tried giving free WiFi to whole cities, so it becoming an operator the next logical step?