Google’s motto “Don’t be evil” seems to be getting substantial weight behind it today as Google is announcing life-long phone numbers and voice mail for all of San Francisco’s homeless population.
If they accept the number, homeless people could call in from any phone to receive their messages. Perhaps more importantly, having a phone number will also allow the homeless to fill out job applications and go to clinics for tests that require a phone call to share results.
You have to hand it to Google, this move looks absolutely great for them — but is there a flip side?
Well if the picture (seen below) used on MSNBC’s coverage of the story is any indication, this is also a promotional gimmick of sorts to further the company’s GrandCentral service.
GrandCentral was acquired last year by Google. The service allows users to sign up for free phone numbers that can redirect to their actual phone numbers so they don’t have to give those out on the web. Google just last week opened up GrandCentral access to bloggers (our coverage).
update: As Sean and Allen point out in our comments, GrandCentral has offered this free voicemail to the homeless before in the pre-Google days.
update 2: Google’s Matt Cutts points us to Community Voice Mail, a non-profit with a mission of providing 24-hour voicemail access to people in crisis.
[photo via MSNBC]
11 Comments
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Dave! said:
Well, um, of *course* it’s a promotional gimmick. But does that really make it any less useful to the homeless people who will be able to take advantage of it?
*Anytime* a corporation gives or does something charitable, there is a promotional aspect. Otherwise, they’d all donate anonymously.
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MG Siegler said:
Very true Dave, just thought I’d point that out for those not versed in such observations.
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Sean said:
GrandCentral offered the same promotion when it launched, so I find this to be a little funny. It worked on the PR front the first time around, so Google decided to give it another try.
What happened to the homeless that got voicemail for life from GrandCentral the first time around?
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Allen Stern said:
you do realize that grandcentral has done this since day 1 right?
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MG Siegler said:
@sean and allen - thanks guys, i’ll update with that.
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Matt Cutts said:
You might also want to add some context/background links. http://www.cvm.org/ is an interesting site, for example, about community voice mail and how it can help people.
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MG Siegler said:
@matt - thanks, good background I’ll put that in there as well.
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Aaron said:
Google’s motto is “Don’t be evil,” not “Do no evil.”
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MG Siegler said:
Thanks Aaron, good eye, I’ll fix that.
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Laura said:
What company is the free voicemail system in San Francisco going through?:
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Laura said:
What company is the free voicemail system in San Francisco going through?
4 Trackbacks
12:53 pm
Google offers free GrandCentral voicemail to SF homeless : The Last Podcast said:
[...] bloggers who wanted one (and really to anyone who cared to sign up). Today, in what is surely also a good marketing move, Google started offering GrandCentral phone-numbers to San Francisco’s shamefully large [...]
8:25 pm
Homeless voicemail: Only in the Valley - - mathewingram.com/work said:
[...] and whatnot lying around for them to wear as well, so they’ve got that covered. What they really need is voicemail. And maybe an assistant to answer the voicemail, but I can tell that Google is starting small. [...]
6:50 pm
» Daft PR from Google and GrandCentral Kevin Restivo’s Tech Blog: Thoughts on the Wireless and Consumer Markets said:
[...] The late night talk show host should create a segment specifically for companies such as Google/GrandCentral, the search and unified communications vendor that decided to score some cheap PR points last week by announcing it will give away life-long phone numbers to the poor of San…. [...]
6:52 am
Grand Central Down? said:
[...] Apparently, Grand Central (my new “go to” place for freakishly great phone service) was down for a while this past Sunday, April 13th, 2008. According to news reports the site lost power Power issue knocks GrandCentral offline — The online phone company which Google bought last year was down for most of this morning, TechCrunch reports. While the company blames a power outage on the service going down, it speaks to a larger issue as more everyday services move online — what happens if one of these services goes down? With traditional phone services, if there was a bad storm, you might lose service and understand why. With a server power issue happening in the middle of nowhere, the service can go down and you don’t even know it — you just don’t get your calls. Find our recent coverage on Grand Central here and here. [...]