Skip to main content

Google Extending Google Voice To Veterans. Why Not Throw In Some Android Phones Too?


Just about two years ago, we wrote about Google giving away free voicemail accounts to homeless people in San Francisco. While a very nice thing to do, it was also a bit of marketing genius by both Google and SF mayor Gavin Newsom. After all, they were getting great publicity for giving away something that was already free (GrandCentral — which is now known as Google Voice). We wondered if they wouldn't pull the same stunt in the future. Well, it's the future; and they are.

Again, this is actually a very nice thing they're doing, but it's also an ingenious way to promote what Google clearly considers to be one of its killer products: Google Voice. This time, they're giving out Google Voice accounts to U.S. veterans in Washington D.C. as an extension of their Project CARE program. This Saturday, Google is joining a dozen or so other Washington D.C. organizations at an event at the D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center to hand out Project CARE cards that will give veterans a unique Google Voice phone number and voicemail account.

Welcome(star star star star) Veteran(star)s. by pirateyjoeJust about two years ago, we wrote about Google giving away free voicemail accounts to homeless people in San Francisco. While a very nice thing to do, it was also a bit of marketing genius by both Google and SF mayor Gavin Newsom. After all, they were getting great publicity for giving away something that was already free (GrandCentral — which is now known as Google Voice). We wondered if they wouldn’t pull the same stunt in the future. Well, it’s the future; and they are.


Again, this is actually a very nice thing they’re doing, but it’s also an ingenious way to promote what Google clearly considers to be one of its killer products: Google Voice. This time, they’re giving out Google Voice accounts to U.S. veterans in Washington D.C. as an extension of their Project CARE program. This Saturday, Google is joining a dozen or so other Washington D.C. organizations at an event at the D.C. Veterans Affairs Medical Center to hand out Project CARE cards that will give veterans a unique Google Voice phone number and voicemail account.


As Google notes:


In today’s connected world, many of us don’t think twice about picking up the phone to place or receive a call. However, for a homeless individual, a phone number can be an important lifeline, connecting you with prospective employers, health care providers, family and friends.


Of course, giving away these phone numbers (which again, are free) doesn’t really mean much without an actual phone line or mobile device to attach it to. And Google doesn’t really explain how they’re going to serve these veterans who don’t have any access to a phone. But they do say that they will be helping them to set up the accounts, so presumably they’ll ask them if there is some other phone number of someone they know that they can attach the new Google Voice number to.


The grander gesture would be for Google to give out a bunch of Android phones along with the Google Voice accounts. They don’t have to be the next high-priced Nexus Ones, but I’m sure Google has plenty of G1s laying around, which as yesterday’s latest and greatest Android toy, Android fans are setting aside to jump to the new phones. That would be a nice little extension of bringing back the “don’t be evil” slogan.


Update: A Google spokesperson has reached out with the following additional information about the program:


I wanted to just clarify that Project CARE phone numbers are different from regular Google Voice accounts in that they don’t actually need to be linked to a working phone.  When you setup the account, people can call your Project CARE number, just like a regular phone number, and you will be able to access those messages from any computer (e.g. at the library or a shelter).


That’s good, though I could see getting access to a computer still being a bit of a challenge for some. To be clear, Google also verified there is no VoIP element to this different version of Google Voice, so you can’t make outbound calls using this system — the Android phone would be good for that.


[photo: flickr/pirateyjoe]










Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to find ideas to post new article in your blog

How to find ideas to post new article in your blog    阅读原文»   It is true that sometimes being a blogger may face situations where I would personally like to call it your brain juices got dried up as you have pretty much ran out of topic to blog and you are in crisis as your readers are anxiously waiting for your new posts but you are unable to give in. That’s when you will probably come with excuses like I just posted last week although that post was more directly towards the newbies who stop themselves from making money but it’s still pretty much the same even though you consider yourself not a newbie. The fact is that ideas are everywhere and I mean everywhere if you know where to find it and know how to leverage it. You may be surprised that sometimes these ideas are just right in front of you but you are not observant enough to convert these ideas and turn it into your blog post. Today I will share some tips on where to get these ideas and most of it is part of your dai

Over A Year After Android Launch, ShopSavvy Finally Comes To The iPhone

ShopSavvy was one of the best early Android applications. It launched in October of last year after winning one of the initial Android Developer Challenge top prizes (when it was still known as GoCart). But despite the success it has seen on Android, one question remained: When would it be available for the iPhone. Today, it finally is. Developed by the guys at Big In Japan , ShopSavvy is an app that allows you to use your device as a portable barcode scanner. You point your phone's camera at any barcode and it will read it, do a product look up, and give you information about the product, as well as where you can find it online or at nearby stores and for how much. Obviously, something like this is a window shopper's dream. ShopSavvy was one of the best early Android applications. It launched in October of last year after winning one of the initial Android Developer Challenge top prizes (when it was still known as GoCart). But despite the success it has seen on Android, o

部门心脏?

i.am.weihua.1234您好!!              生产计划与物料控制PMC高级研修班 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 课程背景: 生产计划和物料控制(PMC)部门是一个企业"心脏", 掌握着企业生产及物料运作的总调度 和命脉,统筹营运资金、物流、信息等动脉,直接涉及影响生产部、生产工程部、采购、货仓、品 控部、开发与设计部、设备工程、人力资源及财务成本预算控制等,其制度和流程决定公司盈利成 败.因此PMC部门和相关管理层必须充分了解:物料计划、请购、物料调度、物料控制(收、发、退、 借、备料等)、生产计划与生产进度控制,并谙熟运用这门管理技术来解决问题,学习拉动计划价 值流(VSM)图,从拉动计划价值流切入剖析工厂制造成本和缩短制造周期 ,提高物流过程循环效 率(库存、资金的周转率)及客户满意率;为降低或消除物流过程中的非增值活动. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 课程目标: 1、建立制定完善的生产与物控运作体系?提升准时交货和降低库存成本 2、预测及制定合理的短、中、长期销售计划?达成公司策略管理目标 3、对自身的生产能力负荷预先进行详细分析并建立完善产品数据机制协助公司建立产品工程数据 4、生产前期做好完整的生产排程和周生产计划?提高备料准确率,保持生产顺畅 5、配合生产计划做到良好物料损耗控制和备料?完善降低物料损耗机制和停工待料工时 6、对生产进度及物料进度及时跟进和沟通协调?缩短生产周期,提高企业竞争力 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 报名详情: 培训时间:2012年11月 3- 4深圳 11月15-16上海 11月22-23北京 12月 1- 2广州 承办单位:新 活 力 顾 问 培训对象:生产计划部门、物料计划部门、采购部门、 生产部门、销售部门、物流、研发部门、 PIE、IT 培训费用:3200元/人(包括资料费、午餐及上下午茶点等) 报名热线:400-623-8399 (免长途话费) 电邮: maomao@xhlpx.com QQ:120915