Google frequently have a new service they offer out and is the normal with Google, they start the thing in Beta, send out invites and finally after a long time, they let the world and his dog sign up. The best example was Google Mail, this used to be Invite only at one point and now anyone can join. A few recent services though have been released in the USA but have not made it at all to the UK. Is there a reason why Google feel only the USA can benefit from these services or is there other reasons?
Google Voice
Google Voice gives you one number for all your phones, voicemail as easy as email, free US long distance, low rates on international calls and so forth… If you are in the UK though and head to the website – this is what you get:
The reason that it is not in the UK is how the phone system works in the UK – if I call someone from my land line, I pay the connection fee and the cost of the call. If I call using my mobile, the same happens, all the costs sit with me. To my understanding, in the USA – this is not the case and probably why they cannot offer me the same Free Service.
Google Music
“Upload your personal music collection and access it instantly on the web or any compatible device without the hassle of wires or syncing.” – This is then Google offering a cloud service were you get to upload your entire music collection and then using another computer, a phone and so forth – you can listen to your music anywhere. To my understanding, the UK will not allow people to have there collection on-line as this breaks some sort of copyright and thus why as of yet the UK cannot sign up to try it out.
Google Plus
This is Google’s answer to Facebook and no matter how much I try and apply – they have closed invite’s yet many of the USA people I know or have read on-line seem to already have this service. As proven with say Skype, unless everybody uses the same thing, then the service is liable to fail. Facebook has a strong hold so google need to let more people in quickly.
Frustrating
For a company to tease people with some limited invite service means that the thing can fail – look at Google Wave and Google Buzz. By the time I got an invite and had a chance to try it out – nobody was online as they had moved on or they did not have an invite themselves.
