Voice Mashups - Using Phone Numbers as GeoTags to Get Directions
March 7th, 2008 by Dan YorkWhat if you could use a phone number as a “geotag” to identify a location and get directions? What if you could call into a service, enter in a phone number of where you want to go and then your current phone number - and get directions?
In this video episode of Voxeo Talks, Moshe Yudkowsky discusses his “phone 2 directions” voice mashup that lets you call in, enter in a phone number and get directions spoken to you based on the location associated with that phone number. Here’s the video:
If you want to try it out, just call
+1-312-252-1758
enter in your phone number and you will receive driving directions from your location to the eComm 2008 conference next week in Silicon Valley (where this app will be discussed). And yes, it will give you directions from clear across the country.
Note that there is an obvious caveat with this service - if you use a phone number that’s with a cell phone, a VoIP service or in a different region through Local Number Portability, it probably won’t work.
More information about this voice mashup is available at:
www.phone2directions.com/
For those of you developing apps, Moshe has made the source code available for those who want to create your own mashups at:
p2dir.sourceforge.net
I’ve not yet looked at it myself but Moshe indicates that he’s showing folks how to connect to MapQuest and StrikeIron (source of reverse number address lookups) in his PHP code. Since the code is open source, I’ll be curious to see what else people do with it. Note that Moshe built it for ifbyphone using their developer API. (Ifbyphone is a partner of Voxeo who is providing very cool services to small and medium-size businesses.)
You can, of course, develop your own voice mashups for free using either our hosted Evolution platform or download our Prophecy premise platform at:
www.voxeo.com/free
Meanwhile, enjoy the video, call the demo (1-312-252-1758) and let us know what you think! (And if you are out at eComm you’ll be able to see this demo and talk to both us and folks from Ifbyphone.)
Technorati Tags: applications, voip, voxeo, mashups, phone mashups, voice mashups, open source, geotags, geotagging, location
Tags: Mashups, open source
RSS Feed
March 7th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
[...] post by Voxeo Developer’s Corner Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]
March 7th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
[...] Open Source Pixels wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt What if you could use a phone number as a “geotag” to identify a location and get directions? What if you could call into a service, enter in a phone number of where you want to go and then your current phone number - and get directions? In this video episode of Voxeo Talks, Moshe Yudkowsky discusses his “phone 2 directions” voice mashup that lets you call in, enter in a phone number and get directions spoken to you based on the location associated with that phone number. Here’s the video: [...]
March 8th, 2008 at 3:25 am
[...] Voice Mashups - Using Phone Numbers as GeoTags to Get Directions What if you could use a phone number as a “geotag” to identify a location and get directions? What if you could call into a service, enter in a phone number of where you want to go and then your current phone number - and get directions? (tags: voip voxeo mashup) [...]
April 3rd, 2008 at 4:07 pm
[...] Voxeo Developer’s Corner Tips, tricks and tutorials about developing applications on Voxeo’s platform « Voice Mashups - Using Phone Numbers as GeoTags to Get Directions [...]
April 21st, 2008 at 8:50 am
[...] modify his code to make use of other web services to obtain other information. (Do note that, like other mashups using phone numbers for location, it may not always work if the number you call in on is from a mobile phone, VoIP service or is in [...]
November 2nd, 2008 at 1:39 pm
[...] Lots of discussion about accessing services from the most common platform of all, the traditional 12 button phone or handset with over 5 billion in use. Mobivox’s COO Nitzan Shaer provided some insight into the issues they have encountered and resolved involving having a "purpose driven" speech recognition capability for their service that provides low cost calling to both PSTN and Skype destinations.. IfByPhone demonstrated how to get driving directions if you know a phone number near your current location (such as on a store windwow) and a phone number at your destination using a Voxeo-hosted service. [...]