Might the possibility of registering be an interesting variable? Or the possibility of paying money for the service?
Confession: I’m interested in this type of study because the second article I referenced mentioned that Google Voice seemed on a doomed trajectory, and I use Google Voice all the time.
I appreciate—I suspected as much based on the Slate article. Even before reading it, I was constantly surprised that Google hadn’t announced Voice would cost money. And Voice is hardly central to Google’s apparent mission, the way you correctly note Calendar seems central.
I’m trying to estimate how much longer it will last—i.e. when I should start looking for a different service. Given the low likelihood of five-year survival, and that the product is about five years old, I should probably get a move on it.
Ah, that’s a good suggestion: ‘is someone paying Google for this?’ This subsumes the advertising covariate I was musing about (I didn’t bring it up because looking at a bunch of the dead services, I didn’t know how I could possibly check whether advertising was involved). I’ll add that.
And yes, I would be worried about Voice’s long-term prospects, but my impression is that it won’t be going away within the next 5 years, say. They’ve sunsetted the Blackberry app, and neglected the service, but that still leaves the main service and 3 other apps/services according to my current list.
At this point I’m up to 123, so I’m not really keen on going back and recoding all of them; it’s a lot of work, and the profit variable is already a decent predictor.
Might the possibility of registering be an interesting variable? Or the possibility of paying money for the service?
Confession: I’m interested in this type of study because the second article I referenced mentioned that Google Voice seemed on a doomed trajectory, and I use Google Voice all the time.
Update: I’ve finished, and I’m afraid it doesn’t look good for Voice.
I appreciate—I suspected as much based on the Slate article. Even before reading it, I was constantly surprised that Google hadn’t announced Voice would cost money. And Voice is hardly central to Google’s apparent mission, the way you correctly note Calendar seems central.
I’m trying to estimate how much longer it will last—i.e. when I should start looking for a different service. Given the low likelihood of five-year survival, and that the product is about five years old, I should probably get a move on it.
Ah, that’s a good suggestion: ‘is someone paying Google for this?’ This subsumes the advertising covariate I was musing about (I didn’t bring it up because looking at a bunch of the dead services, I didn’t know how I could possibly check whether advertising was involved). I’ll add that.
And yes, I would be worried about Voice’s long-term prospects, but my impression is that it won’t be going away within the next 5 years, say. They’ve sunsetted the Blackberry app, and neglected the service, but that still leaves the main service and 3 other apps/services according to my current list.
You might want to distinguish between free, freemium (like Google Drive, with a free intro tier), and paid.
At this point I’m up to 123, so I’m not really keen on going back and recoding all of them; it’s a lot of work, and the profit variable is already a decent predictor.