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Google Quietly Decommissions Click-to-Call from Maps

Google quietly decommissioned their experimental click-to-call services from Google Maps. Previously, you could use the “call” links beside phone numbers in their search results:

Google Maps Click to Call
(click to enlarge)

It’d be nice if Google would officially mention when they remove such features from service, even if they were considered experimental. Quite a number of people reported using the feature, and some were even reliant upon it for making things like personal long-distance calls from within companies that didn’t allow employees to do so, or where long distance was actively blocked. Google didn’t announce the change on the Google LatLong Blog where you might expect, but instead stated it in a response to a user’s question in the Troubleshooting section of the Google Maps Help Group:

Google Maps Click to Call Gone
(click to enlarge)

Of course, the service was introduced free, and no one can ever expect a free ride forever, and perhaps cell phones make click-to-call less attractive to users. Though, I would’ve expected they’d first see if they could get such a service to pay for itself through advertising before throwing it out altogether. For instance, each call could’ve been prepended by a brief audio ad or they could be displaying ads along side the call/maps interfaces while users were connecting through. Perhaps they just had trouble working out call quality issues.

For those users seeking a good voice-over-IP (”VOIP”) solution, I guess they can sign up for Skype.

Update: I see this has also been reported by Grant Robertson at downloadsquad.

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Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 07/20/2007 | Permalink | Email | Print

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Trackback | Comments (1) | Comments RSS | Filed under: Google, Maps Click-to-Call, Google-Maps, voip

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