Google has integrated voice recognition (our earlier coverage) to local search service and has expanded to 4 cities – Delhi/Bangalore/Mumbai and Hyderabad.
The service (call 1-800-41-999-999) lets you search for local information as well as movie timings – and as of now, it is not in the best-of-it’s state (tried some well known restaurant names, but didn’t work).
“It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We’re fine-tuning the service to serve you better. It is currently only available in English, Hindi and Telugu.”
Basically, voice recognition (see: Simmortel Voice, a startup in Voice Recognition space) is still being tested and if the engine fails to understand your query, your call will be diverted to Google’s call center.
As far as I know, askLaila too was testing voice recognition, but somehow never launched (you need a backup plan, a fallback optioni.e. call center – since speech recognition is still not an unsolved territory).
What’s your opinion? Check out the Local search stats for Indian Market.
Recent development in local search space:
- Yahoo India invested in CallEzee
- Helion Ventures Invested in Getit Yellow Pages
- Web18 to launch local search
Few Startups in Voice/Speech recognition space:
- Ubona [received Series A funding from Capital18, powers Tata Sky's call center]
- mScriber [review]
- Simmortel Voice [review] (and players like LatticeBridge who use Nuance’s platform)
I have been using this service ever since it was launched in Hyderabad. In starting days, most of the calls went to IVRS, but now almost every call goes to call center.
Also, earlier there was an option of being connected to your search result. Now that too has been withdrawn
I have used this and honestly speaking, it still needs to improve a lot. I was looking for Cinemax phone booking number and it provided me with some padmavati cineplex.
I used this extensively last December when my cousin moved to Hyd from US and her home had to be setup. I found the service satisfactory. Many a times it was a good starting point.
However this was all picked by call centre agents. The only time I got to IVRS, it identified “Cyber Cafe near Madhapur” on second attempt.
justdial.com does it so much better and now they have a local number to call in most cities. Why throw technology at a problem when its not giving guaranteed results. IVRS is tough in India where accent’s are so varied. without IVRS, the solution becomes a justdial replica.
It sux bigtime! it does not recognize anything properly.