p2pnet - rss feed: Google phone number for homeless folks
p2pnet news | Freedom:- Under the credit where credit is due heading, Google has come up with a plan which’ll help homeless people in San Francisco keep in touch with the rest of the world
“Every single homeless person in the city will be given a life-long phone number and voicemail, should they choose to accept it,” says KNTV-TV, going on:
“Google is partnering with San Francisco to provide the service to homeless individuals and to shelters and agencies so they can distribute the numbers to their clients.”
Homeless people would be able to call in for their messages from any phone.
“It just seems exactly like any other voice mail,” the story has Craig Walker, senior project manager of Google, saying.
“There’s no stigma attached to it that ‘hey this is a temporary thing’ or ‘this is an 800 number.’ It’s really just a local number owned by the user.”
The program is ready to start immediately, he adds.
“Is it a publicity stunt at the expense of the homeless or a real gesture of hope?” - Blorge.com wonders.
Fair question. Google isn’t exactly well-known for making genuinely altruistic, non-self-serving, gestures.
Meanwhile, “GrandCentral’s Project CARE initiative, which provides permanent telephone numbers and voicemail services to the homeless, has partnered with San Francisco’s Project Homeless Connect (PHC) to support the city’s homeless as they get back on their feet,” says Walker, adding the ultimate goal is to, “provide these invaluable services to cities and shelters across the country”.
Also See:
KNTV-TV - Google Gives All SF Homeless Free Voicemail, February 28, 2008
Blorge.com - Google helps the homeless with free voice mail, February 29, 2008
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February 29th, 2008 at 10:27 am
So this means that Google now wants to create a searchable database of homeless people.
I think this might be a good gesture for some tax deductions but it might also be a part of googles master plan to have a database on everything and everyone on the plantet
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:52 pm
I think so, since Google is create many new ideas from map searching, it could be possible to build a database for homeless people. However, I think the ideas is good in order to get this people to connect. Homeless people have a new future in a technology provide by Google. Where this could make a big change which this group of people could be a spy or somethings that will help up Google Map too.