Search Marketing Communications

Clicking through to a BusinessWeek article today, I noticed what I thought was an ad for Google Voice.

Call Me Google

After closer inspection, I realized BusinessWeek is testing a “voice comments” feature for their Byte of the Apple column.

When I first saw the ad, I had no idea what it offered. Even after several minutes of playing around with it and clicking on the learn more link did I realize the BusinessWeek page had refreshed with the following explanation page:

In the three years or so that we’ve been producing this blog, we’ve learned one thing: Opinions about Apple always run strong. Our readers love to leave lots of comments agreeing or disagreeing with our posts here. We thought we’d try a little experiment using Google Voice to give you the ability to tell us exactly what you think in your own voice.

Here’s how it works: Click the Google Voice widget over to the right, and enter your phone number. Your phone will ring, and when you answer you’ll be prompted to leave a message just like on a regular voice mail system. We promise not to share your phone number with anyone else for any reason. But if you leave us a voice message you do so with the understanding that we may publish the audio of your message here, especially those that are insightful, clever or funny. So give us your best, but be nice. All calls go straight to voice mail, so don’t expect anyone to answer in person. We hope you enjoy this feature and that it adds to the quality of our always-interesting and ongoing conversation about Apple.

Understanding what the ad offered, I then gave it a try.

I entered my Google Voice telephone number in the fields provided and clicked Connect.

Connect Call

Within a second or two of clicking connect, I reached a voice mail box where I heard Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek explain why they are testing the Google Voice product.

I was then urged to leave my comments about their Byte of the Apple column.

This is the first time I have noticed a website of any kind incorporate voice commenting into their user engagement mix.

Although I don’t have any comments about their Apple column per se, I do have one question about the Call Me Google Voice messaging product: When can I get a Call Me Google plugin for my WordPress blog?

Isn’t this type of audience interactivity something every publisher would want for their website?

Tags: Arik Hesseldahl, BusinessWeek, Byte of the Apple, Google Voice Call Me, User Engagement, Voice Commenting, Voice Comments, Wordpress Blogs

This entry was posted on November 23, 2009 at 5:58 pm and is filed under Arik Hesseldahl, Blog, BusinessWeek Blog, Byte of the Apple, Google Voice Call Me, User Engagement, Voice Commenting, Voice Comments, Wordpress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.