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So I read yesterday that Google is now offering phone calls via Gmail. Then I went home, signed into my Gmail account and got this big notification pointing over to my list of names that said make a call, or something to that effect. And subsequently was confused.
Does this mean they 
want to be Skype? Or beat Skype at its own game? And is this going to do something for the company’s revenue? I want to know Google, what does this all mean?
Not that there’s anything wrong with Google being Skype, I just need to sort my little head out with this so someone, please explain to me why this is all happening! Is there an e-commerce goal/benefit in all of it?
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Well. I was one of the few who got a beta invite probably 2 years ago now when there were still a lot of bugs/hangups, and just dropped using it vs. my Skype. There are some cool features like it can transcribe and send text of your voicemail. Now this scares me a bit…is Google indexing and building a database of this transcribed text much like your g-mail serves ads relevant to content in each e-mail? That is one of my guesses. They may not directly serve ads in any way, but maybe use it to build a further profile on users tied to your ip/computer to use elsewhere for further targeting? Use this as one further datapoint to hone in on relevant ads?
Hmmm – all good points and thanks for clarifying! I’m sure more info on this will come sooner or later. There’s lots of online “profile” building going on in the name of personalization in our business so I’m curious to see where it all leads.