Mountain View, California — As the unrest in Egypt is mounting, Internet service in the country is now totally shut down and there are reports that cell phone service has again been cut, but global search engine leader Google, in association with Twitter and its recently acquired SayNow, has released a special service to allow people in Egypt to send Twitter messages by dialling a phone number and leaving a voicemail, as Internet access remains cut off in the country amid anti-government protests.
SayNow, Google’s prized acquisition of the year may be widely known for helping the Jonas Brothers and the NBA leave short voicemail messages for their fans, but on Monday it served a gigantic purpose: helping Egyptians communicate with the rest of the world.
Google, which acquired SayNow just last week, has hacked together a “speak-to-tweet service” for Egyptians who still have working telephones but who can not connect with Twitter because ISPs in the country were ordered to disconnect from the Internet. The last remaining major ISP (Internet service provider), Noor Group, abruptly disconnected its service on Monday.
Even if the Internet is down, people in Egypt can still use Twitter through a new service from Google and Twitter. (Credit: Screenshot by Tom Krazit/CNET)
“Like many people we have been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground,” read a post on Google’s official corporate blog on Monday.
A novel service, which Google described was developed with engineers from Twitter, empowers people to dial a telephone number and leave a voicemail. Devised especially for those on the ground in Egypt unable to communicate via the Internet with the outside world, “Speak to Tweet” allows anyone with a voice connection to dial three international numbers and have their voice messages sent out as tweets with the #egypt hash tag added to those links.
“We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very crucial moment,” wrote Ujjwal Singh, co-founder of SayNow and AbdelKarim Mardini, product manager, Middle East & North Africa at Google, in a blog post.
Service lets Egyptians “speak2tweet”
According to the Google blog, “Anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required.” There are already dozens of messages on the Twitter profile.
“The government is spreading rumors of fear and of burglary and of violence,” said one of the messages from an English speaker. “The only incidence of theft and burglary are done by the police themselves.”
In addition to leaving Tweets, you can call that number and listen, though unlike accessing Twitter on a computer or phone, there is not a way to selectively hear only from people you follow. You can listen and read tweets here but many are in Arabic and not properly transcribed. Click here for an audio sample of a couple of tweets that are in English.
Google said in the blog post, titled “Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard,” that no Internet connection is needed to use the service.
By Monday afternoon Pacific Time, the service was fully operational with new Twitter messages every few minutes — many of them in Arabic — including commentary and reports from Egypt.
It is one of several workaround techniques that have been set up to keep Egyptians connected as people take to the streets to call for democratic reforms to the unpopular government of President Hosni Mubarak.
A source familiar with the matter said Google, whose corporate motto is “Don’t Be Evil,” was not taking sides in the crisis in Egypt, but was simply supporting access to information as it has done with other services such as video website YouTube.
YouTube has been streaming live coverage of Al Jazeera’s broadcasts of the events in Egypt.
Some other service providers have extended free international Internet dial-up numbers, and even harnessed ham radio communications systems for Egyptians.