Once a user decides to use the service, Google will record voice searches by the individual and link them to that particular user’s Google account. The data thus collected will be used to build a speech model for that user.

Google is still in the process of incorporating more features to improve the accuracy of the service. When voice search was first introduced over 2 years ago, it did not take into account factors like age, sex, accent or speed. These factors have now been incorporated.

To access this new facility, users will have to download the latest version of the Voice Search app from the Android market.

Users will have the option to select this service or to ignore it. Users who do not wish to use this facility can switch off the ‘Personalised Voice Recognition’ through the ‘Speech’ section of the Google Dashboard.

At present this service is only available in English, but plans are afoot to extend the service to other languages as well.

Webguild.org reports that Google is in the process of selling off Google Radio Automation. They had acquired this business for a total of $1 billion, inclusive of both cash and stock components. However this section of Google has been a complete failure right from the start as it failed to take off at all.

Now Mr. Vinod Khosla and Mayfield have raised $25 million to take over the Google Radio Automation business.

About one hundred employees working in the hardware and software departments of Google Radio Automation as well as those offering support to it are likely to be laid off.

In other areas of the company also Google has been laying off employees, and now their full time employees number 19,786 after 378 others were laid off in the second quarter of 2009.

On the other hand there are also reports that Google continues to hire highly skilled and talented professionals in some of its departments. But even this process has not been easy as the professionals have been asking for their market price, in spite of the recession and the consequent unemployment.

These demands have been putting Google in a rather tight spot as some of the older and senior employees are earning smaller amounts than what these new candidates are asking for, and that would eventually lead to unpleasantness among the old and new employees.

The audio ad service was launched in 2006 to enable the buying and selling of radio ads via Google AdWords. However, the search company now feel that in spite of investing a lot of resources, these services have not actually managed to create the kind of impact that was expected and it would be better to discontinue these services.

Google Audio Ads and AdSense for Audio will be phased out by the 31^st of May. Until then, publishers will be able to continue publishing their inventory. Google Radio Automation will be sold off to an interested party.

All is not quiet on the audio front, though. Google plans to concentrate on developing technology to deliver relevant ads for online streaming audio, where the audience numbers are increasing.

While it may be remembered that Google has also decided to shut down their Print Ads division only last month, they have stated that they will continue with their TV advertising initiatives as they can measure the audience response here and their advertisers can therefore judge ad effectiveness.

While some staff may be reassigned after the discontinuation of these services, it is expected that about 40 people will find themselves jobless as a result of this decision.

Even though Google executives maintain that they are closing the audio ads service due to failed expectations, if one looks at all their other recent cut-backs – print ads, followed closely by the closure of Jaiku, Dodgeball and Notebook – it looks suspiciously like a move to try and keep up the profit margin and tide over the financial meltdown by sticking to what they know best – search.

Studies conducted by The Pew Internet and American Life Project have found that only 65% of teens use social websites nowadays, as opposed to 78% who play online games.

Not too long ago, social networks were the hot favorite among this age group, along with email, which was used by 89% of teennagers at that time.

The latest trend, however, is to use text messaging and instant messaging instead of email, which is now used by only 73% of teenagers.

Significantly, young adults between the ages of 18 and 32 seem to be following the reverse trend, with only 50% of them playing games online while 67% access social networks.

Surprisingly though, it was found that only 10% of those between the ages of 12 and 17 years spend time in virtual worlds, which is almost the same percentage as was found a few years ago, and hardly 2-3% of the older generation do so.

Deloitte’s State of the Media Democracy Survey found that another victim of the changing times was the good old television. Studies reveal that those between 14 and 25 years of age are far more likely to use their PC for entertainment through games, music and social networks, than to sit and watch TV. This study was conducted across U.K., U.S.A., Germany, Japan and Brazil.

Searching and downloading music was the most accessed facility on the internet with 80% of youngsters using it while 73% access chat rooms social networks and message boards. It was also found that 59% of the youth use their mobile phones for entertainment, and the amount of time spent watching television is about one-third less than that spent by other age groups.

As far as advertising power goes, however, it was found that TV is the most influential for youth, followed by magazines, online ads and newspaper ads, while radio ads are fifth in line.

• Pew Internet Report: Adults & Social Network Websites
• Pew Internet Report: Adults & Video Games

A similar tool was available earlier on iGoogle. The new service, called GAudi, is presently in beta and can be accessed within Google Labs.

http://labs.google.com/gaudi

Google Audio Indexing works in conjunction with YouTube. The tool will catalog all the words that are spoken in a particular audio or video clip. This data will then be entered into a database, which users can then search for the audio or video content they require, in much the same manner as they use search engines for text based material. GAudi will provide a whole list of results, based on the keyword entered.

To start with, GAudi will only index and catalogue politically-based audio and videos.
If a user is not interested in watching the whole video, after having located it through GAudi, it will be possible for to directly reach the particular portion that is of interest, by clicking on the play buttons alongside the particular search result that is of interest.

So far Google has not provided any information regarding their future plans for GAudi. That has not stopped some users from conjuring up innovative methods to use the tool,as can be seen below:

Interesting new features of the audio ads program include:

• Budgeting on a weekly rather than daily basis
• Demographic targeting of ads
• Ad targetting by radio station
• Geographical targeting by city, state, post (zip) code or countrywide
• Pricing based on CPM – cost per thousand listeners
• Google estimates audience numbers based on Arbitron’s estimates
• Ad scheduling enabled for days of the week and times of the day, similar to CPC ads.

The full post can be viewed at http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/03/first-look-at-google-audio-radio-ads.html