Speaking Ads vs. Google Glass

As covered by MIT Tech Review, Nuance created a tool that enables customers to interact with mobile ads by voice, in other words, from now on you can speak with ads. I guess artificial intelligence still has a long way to go before we face the famous dilemma of Blade Runner (human or not?), so don't expect complicated conversations from this platform. But some consequences can definitely be drawn, one of them possibly influencing the future of Google Glass and similar gadgets. And the key to this issue is the difference between your car and the subway.

The main added value of conversation enabled mobile ads compared to oldschool IVR could be geolocation. Mostly these ads will run while driving a car anyway, because it is the situation that allows you to speak privately in a relatively silent environment.  Ads in your car will give you voice info about something you can pull over for, like a cheap menu in fuel station or a fashion sale in the shopping mall nearby. Cultural institutions will probably send messages to weekend drivers in the area.

What's even more interesting, voice recognition ads might also support the creation of a new communication tool, the long-format interactive audio content. The simplest example is online radios connected to music stores where you can listen to songs and buy them just buy saying "Hey, I like this, bill it on my credit card."

I think this is a much better direction concerning traffic safety than some windshield display innovations or, to throw another stone into the pool of the debate, using Google Glass while driving. When riding a bike, I would rather be overtaken by a driver who is speaking to a music store than one who is looking at which friend of his is actually there in the restaurant he is passing by.

But of course I don't say Google has thrown money out of the window developing the Glass technology. Many situations are ideal for Glassing, especially those where you can't use your hands AND your eyes are not interested in your environment, like in the gym, on the subway or eating a juicy burger in a really badly designed restaurant. In other words, Google Glass will create a great opportunity for peoples' eyes to escape in big cities where they are usually packed into relatively boring spaces. And voice interaction can go with you on your car trips, out to the endless golden meadows or the dark night of the highway where you can freely say whatever you want, even "shut up" if you prefer to avoid advertising and just enjoy the ride.