Google working on new advanced Person Finder service for business use
The Google Person Finder, a free service to track missing persons, was created by Google volunteers in response to the Haiti earthquake in January 2010. It was used again for the Chile earthquake, the Yushu earthquake, and the Pakistan floods, and is currently supporting those affected by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
Inspiration for commercial opportunity found in back alley
Although the Person Finder has been incredibly helpful, Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Google, felt that this service had a lot more potential. Given the company’s mission of organizing the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful, he realized that the service needed to be connected to something else that people want to find desperately: Money.
In an interview with the the Wall Street Journal last Friday, Rosenberg revealed how Google found out how they could make the Person Finder interesting for business use. “At first, we were thinking of helping people to find someone from some huge company. But that wasn’t gonna be very profitable. So, then one day when I was walking my dog in a dark back alley, I witnessed some mafioso beating a guy up. I asked them, why are you guys so rough on this man, and they told me he owned them a truckload of money and it took them years to track him down. That’s when it hit me: These are the people that could really use our help to find people, and would gladly pay for that as well!”.
Overcoming the challenge
Rosenberg quickly set up a team for the new project, called the Person That Owes Me Finder. The team spent months on the street, observing first-hand how the Mafia in various states and cities work when dealing with persons that have been less than forthcoming in financial matters. Ben Goodger, lead developer on the project, wrote on his blog, “It was depressing to see what they would try to find someone. They’d dress up as Mickey Mouse and sneak around in a mall, hide between hippos in a zoo to observe visitors, or use helium balloons to float over a suspicious house. Absolutely ridiculous”.
Goodger and the team worked hard to develop a solution to this specific problem. The business case was crystal clear, said Rosenberg in the Wallstreet Journal interview. “There’s mafia everywhere. Here in the US, all over Italy ofcourse, China, Japan… and they all have the same challenge: Where’s that asshole that took the loot from our last heist? Considering the substantial amounts typically involved in these scenarios, paying a small percentage for assistence to find that person quickly, efficiently and mercilessly makes perfect sense.”
New service brings dramatic improvements
The new service makes getting your money back a breeze for everyone.
The Person That Owes Me Service is still in beta, but anonymous test pilot users from the Chicago mob have reported finding loot-hiding individuals over 71% faster. The service integrates with existing Google services for greater efficiency. Targets can be followed around town on Google Maps; their GMail accounts can be searched for clues about the location of the stashed loot; Analytics can show how much of the loot was already spent on which websites; and Calendar and Docs allows for easy collaboration with co-mafioso to plan capture of that filthy rat.
The new service will be available soon, after the development team has ensured the service cannot be used to track down Google executives.
