You know those automated customer service programs that let you “say” what department you need to be connected to? Well, now you’ll be able to apply some of the same frustration–I mean capabilities–to your mobile search, thanks to the latest deal between Yahoo’s onesearch mobile platform and Vlingo’s speech recognition technology.
Part of the new relationship between Yahoo and Vlingo also includes the lead in Vlingo’s $20 million Series B round of funding (see initial coverage of Vlingo here). Existing investors Charles River Ventures and Sigma Partners have also participated in this round. Even though speech recognition hasn’t been fully perfected yet, it’s been vastly improved in the recent years, and mobile applications are quickly finding ways to take advantage of its tools.
The investment and partnership on Yahoo’s part helps solidify speech recognition’s place in mobile apps, especially for search purposes. Other search companies like Ask.com and Free411 have begun to layer in speech recognition technology for getting driving or walking directions, and ChaCha has more fully implemented speech recognition tools as part of its now mobile-centric search service.
It’s evident that speech recognition is going to be pushed as a driving force for a good portion of development regarding mobile search over the next few months, to say the least. Perhaps Yahoo will even apply Vlingo more directly to some of its other mobile applications as well. The onesearch Vlingo search tools will initially only be available to select Blackberry models. Download it here.
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