What's the next big killer app from search companies? Quickly and easily searching telephone calls for a particular word or phrase—in essence, to Google your calls—is a likely candidate. And it isn't as far off as it might seem.
In the past two years, a number of customer service calling center operators for hire, some with thousands of employees working at the phones, have invested in the technology to identify inept operators and other measures of quality control.
While that's far from a mainstream scenario, these pioneering commercial applications are nonetheless an important first step toward a future in which phone calls will be among the Web pages available by visiting Google, Yahoo and other search engines.
Indeed, Ferris Research analyst Richi Jennings said, leading search engine giants like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's MSN could introduce rudimentary searchable voice services right now.
"The big three of search could all do a good enough job of it to be of some value," Jennings said. "I do see adding into the search universe the ability to search what you said in phone calls." ...
