"The 411 Parable": Goog411 vs Bing411 - Make sure you are playing the same game.
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- When launched, Bing411 was essentially a re-branding of Tellme's 1-800-555-TELL service.
- 1-800-555-TELL has been running since 2000 or something like that. I attended the 10th anniversary party, which I believe was in 2010.
- Microsoft didn't need to launch a Microsoft-branded 411 to collect utterances, for they had acquired Tellme and had many utterances coming in under their umbrella of services
- Tellme's bread and butter was speech recognition on the telephone and they are still in that space today, so Bing411, 1-800-555-TELL are still relevant for them.
I can also say that a lot of the speculation in the article about Microsoft's "reaction" is just wrong. But, I won't go into specifics because they aren't relevant.
I enjoyed the author's original point about making sure you are playing the same game. Unfortunately, the example used is factually inaccurate.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2007/03/14/microsoft-acquires-tellme/
[2] http://techcrunch.com/2007/04/06/google-launches-free-411-bu...
Furthermore, does the track record not show that Microsoft re-brands (assimilates) its acquisitions eventually? How do you (or the author of the linked post) know that the deployment of a Microsoft-branded 411 service was not part of this process?
Finally, everyone in the speech recognition industry knows that it requires a large sample set (utterances) to refine a speech recognition engine. If you are building one from scratch (Google), you will do anything and everything in your power to collect utterances. To think that Microsoft and everyone else in the industry did not recognize what Google was doing with GOOG-411 is preposterous.
Like the article points out, Microsoft has no shortage of utterances due to their acquisition of Tellme. Why, then, do they need to mine utterances with Bing 411? (Assuming they don't--I'm sure they do.) Bing 411 is a genuinely useful service that adds value to the Bing brand. It needs no additional reason to exist.
All this aside, the article is factually incorrect. It implies that localeze was contracted to provide Bing 411. In fact, localeze provides listings (according to the press release the article links), and are presumably one of many listing providers used. Microsoft/Tellme provide the actual Bing 411 service. I don't know for sure, but Tellme's (now Microsoft's) 1-800-555-TELL number almost definitely predates GOOG-411.
I think the point of the article is that they don't need to mine utterences with Bing 411, and that they merely did the service to compete with Google, without knowing why Google made the service in the first place.
I stopped at being presented with a dictionary definition for the word parable, down to the syllable guide thingie.
Come on, now. Respect your audience's intelligence a little bit.
In any case, it was really well known what Google's goals were. In fact it was a pretty standard feedback technique used by all automated phone voice reoognition systems.
For Bing though this is also a branding opportunity. Google has relatively little to gain in branding with their 411 service, but for Bing it still has great upside potential.
http://www.infoworld.com/t/data-management/google-wants-your...
Your article makes it seem like the fact that Google was using 411 for voice analysis was somewhat 'unknown' until 2009, whereas I would say that the knowledge was actually quite mainstream and, frankly, hard to ignore.
I would argue that assuming that the Bing team completely failed to see all the news articles and press releases (from Google, no less) about this for 2 years, is perhaps a little presumptuous? Maybe, as another poster mentioned, they are still getting value out of the 411 service?
I do agree with your point, and there are many many times I've seen companies do this, but Bing 411 vs Google 411 might not be the right example since Google's intentions were very clear, right from the start.
Disclaimer: I work on MS Office (completely unrelated to Bing & the 411 service, but still not what you would call an unbiased source)
I somehow doubt this is the case but I'm not so sure we can assume that it is not.
Phone directories may, in fact, be very antiquated but they're still a thing, the data is there and often useful. Why not index it? Why not let me expressly look-up a phone number anymore?
The blog post basically consisted of a made up example to make a point that the blog author felt was valid. Now I happen to agree with the basic point the author was trying to make, but I think it's a reflection on the really poor quality of so many blog posts where people have some idea they want to pitch as insightful and then they fail to do any actual research and/or wrap it in a made up story. The 'parable' is pretty worthless when people like Indygreg above state that the motivations that the author guessed at was completely wrong.