I noticed this first on Google–though I’m sure Yahoo! and Microsoft will get it in place soon enough–a development in online maps that impresses me as the most truly useful since they figured out how to show driving directions. Click to call in Google Maps means when you search for a location and then look for nearby businesses (hotels, hardware stores, pizzerias), you can have Google make the phone call to any of those businesses for you.
The first time you have to enter your own phone number but the Big G stores it for future use (in a browser cookie, so using a different PC means re-entering it). The House of Larry and Sergey also picks up the cost of the call, local or long distance, although cellphone airtime charges are on you. Calling residences through Click to Call doesn’t seem to be a possibility, at least for now, and according to the related privacy party they don’t store your phone number or who you call any longer than necessary, presumably this is the same standard as with storing search history.
One could argue that mashups, like Zillow or Chicago Crime, or the addition of satellite images were huge innovations and I wouldn’t disagree, but none of them seem as fundamentally, generally useful as searching for businesses by geography and with one click getting them on the phone.
BillSaysThis 