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Article Analysis
//Google Poised to Become Your Phone Company- by Ryan Singel//

The article // Google Poised to Become Your Phone Company // by Ryan Singel discusses the recent acquisition of Gizmo5 by Google. Gizmo5 featured Voice over IP calling that is similar to Skype. It offers free PC to PC calls and a U.S phone number rental that rings a user’s computer. Their website claims to offer cheap computer calling to anywhere, no per call connection fee, and be compatible with Google Voice. Gizmo5’s software instant messaging service was already compatible with Google’s talking instant messaging application. Google announced that it had taken over Gizmo5 on November 12, 2009 for a reported $30 million. The current version of Gizmo5 offers Call- Out and Call-In available for about $6 a month including voicemail service. Although Gizmo5 eventually took that offer down it did save users up to 90% of what they would pay with an actual phone carrier. By integrating Gizmo5’s technology with Google Voice it creates a smart call management application that provides one number for phone numbers. This combined with Google’s Talk voice and chat client creates one influential phone service. What makes this acquisition even more interesting is that Google is preparing to offer their service for free. If this plan eventually follows through it will have an immense impact on the monopoly phone service providers that exist. Google is trying to avoid U.S government regulators by ensuring users that their service is not a replacement for a landline since you need a phone service from another company to actually use it. You are able to forward calls to the Gizmo5 number providing you already have a mobile or landline number. Google plans on making money by generating advertising revenue. Instead of hearing a ringtone users will hear advertisements. A free ad supported phone service in the future does not seem too “far fetched” for Google.

__Works Cited__

Singel, Ryan. "Google poised to become your phone company." //CNN//. 13 Nov. 2009. Web. 16 Nov. 2009. .