Google

Google — have your people call my people

Google has been rolling out some cool features for some of its products, like the recent “search public events” addition to Google Calendar — which hasn’t really gotten a lot of notice — and now the “click to call” option in Google Maps, which connects you to a business if you search for one. Just click the word “call” and type in your phone number.

Of course, it took someone at Valleywag all of about 10 seconds to figure out that this makes for great pranking material, since you could connect anyone with just about any business (massage parlors, etc.) Very funny. Still, I think this is a pretty cool feature — although I did wonder why on the page the Google blog linked to, the only business without the click-to-call link was the one advertising on the page.

Marshall at TechCrunch says this is part of a previous deal with Skype. Everyone has been working on click-to-call, including Google’s trial of it with its AdWords search advertising — and a deal with eBay to offer it there as well — plus Microsoft is launching it as part of its Windows Live mobile search, and Yahoo is also said to be working on it. And the deconstruction of the telecom market continues.

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