One of the things that makes the GOOG-411 directory service awesome — besides the fact that it’s free — is that cool “bippedy-bippedy-bippedy” sound it makes while searching. And now, for the first time ever, the man behind the “bips” (and the voice of 1-800-GOOG-411) breaks his silence to talk about that famous sound.
“We call it the ‘biddy-biddy-boop’ sound,” said Bill Byrne, whose official title at Google (GOOG) is senior voice expert. “The technical term is the ‘fetch audio.’”
The fetch audio is precisely what its name implies, the sound the service makes to let you know that it’s working on retrieving the information you’ve requested. Putting the fetch together, however, isn’t as easy as you’d think.
“The system working sound is a particularly difficult sound to do. You have to have just the right tone, the right mood, the right signal. It can’t be busy or too monotonous,” explained Byrne. “It has to be a quick noise to evoke efficiency. It can’t be too uniform, like a ticking clock.”
Byrne has been designing audio interfaces used by people to interact with speech services for the past 10 years, and in that time, he’s gone through a lot of different tones and sounds. While it would be fun to say he locked himself in a room for weeks to come up with the perfect prompt, the truth is much more simple. “I needed something quickly,” said Byrne. “So I decided to just imitate the various sounds I had worked with over the years.” It was supposed to be a placeholder.
But the human-mimicking-a-machine, “biddy-biddy-boop” sound stuck. In fact, what you hear is the original recording (with a little engineering to lower the volume and add fades). It beat out numerous other ideas, including “Jeopardy”-like hold music, and (gratefully) an aborted attempt at replicating human conversation (as in an automated voice telling you “One sec, I had it right here” as you hear papers rustling in a simulated “search”).
Byrne and his team wanted something “different than an over-produced jingle,” he said. “We wanted slightly playful, within Google branding experience, and not corny.”
The evidence proves that Byrne made the right choice. “All the user data and studies show it’s overwhelmingly a
piece that people tend to enjoy,” he said. It’s become so popular that his co-workers now ask him to perform it.
But Byrne doesn’t want the sound to be around forever. In fact, he’s trying to get rid of it — but it’s all for your benefit. “The goal is to get rid of the noise to get rid of any latency,” he said. In other words, as GOOG-411 improves, its searches will become so quick that Byrne’s biddy-biddy-boop sound will be a thing of the past.
43 comments so far
2:02 AM PT
I tried Microsoft’s 411 (1-800-CALL-411) service and it seems much better than Google’s.
4:49 AM PT
You mean we actually have to USE GOOG-411 to hear the sound you’re writing about!?
Good grief.
Surely the WAV file (or equivalent) MUST exist somewhere out here in Net-land that can be linked to.
6:15 AM PT
Hey Herman,
I actually requested a pristine audio file from Google (twice), but they never sent one.
8:03 AM PT
Fear not. The audio file does exist in their google groups site. http://goog411.googlegroups.com/web/1-800-goog-411.mp3?gda=Y0TV50MAAAB7GA88RxiKfMmJbBD-l3LOftcXfMw_zBUSWbpHeV8HeGG1qiJ7UbTIup-M2XPURDTr3bKJgB1KeNxedXzzC5fjaRO12GarSki7FMoIuUXfNA
Enjoy.
8:12 AM PT
I switched from FREE-411 to GOOG-411 when it came out to avoid the ads but the service has a long way to go. I would say that 75% of my queries go unrecognized or they deliver the wrong data. It also seems like their data is out of date.
Right now the biddy-biddy-boop is the best part of the service.
8:13 AM PT
[...] ‘Biddy Biddy Boop’ November 10th, 2007 GigaOM has a nice article on the origins of the ‘fetch audio‘ sound for Google’s GOOG-411 service. This is [...]
9:04 AM PT
Here’s a funny story - I was sitting in a conference on Thursday and my phone began vibrating. I looked down and it was Goog-411 calling me - I had programmed the number into my phone. I had used it once to look up something maybe 2 months ago. I was in NYC and showed it to the guy next to me and we had a good laugh as I explained I have no idea why Goog-411 was calling me - maybe to suggest a restaurant because I had checked out some in NYC on Google maps earlier, I suggested. I didn’t answer it, but I wish I had - it didn’t leave a message.
9:50 AM PT
The sound is stupid and wierd.
1:40 PM PT
This is news?
A grown man that makes noises like a 5 year old child flipping his lips…
Someone save us.
2:05 PM PT
I don’t like the sound.
2:18 PM PT
i really do not like it. i have almost zero luck. I have to end up calling 411
4:42 PM PT
stoopid ……. an’t believe i spent 5 minutes (and another 2 writing this) … derp!
5:01 PM PT
Sounds like what the Orbitz interstitial looks like…
7:49 PM PT
Lots of potential but it still needs lots of work. Lots of people in that room workingon the project.
7:59 PM PT
Anyone got a copy of this sound linked anywhere else? “The google group’s bandwidth has been exceeded.”
8:13 PM PT
I think GOOG-411 has a lot of room to grow - but as a fresh start for Google, it’s not bad at all.
8:43 PM PT
Chris,
Pls grow up and stop stupid, glaringly idiotic posts just because you want to praise GOOG.
Never mind even “covering” Live’s 411 service, forget comparing it, but you want to go the length of praising the stupid sound on Google’s service. Gah, please, give us a break! What’s the point of this ridiculous, idiotic post? You want to go next smell Google’s fart and comment how good it was?
I sometimes hate Om and his team for this Google fanboyism for the most part.
9:09 PM PT
Google has a fart? Why am I always the last to find out?!
9:24 PM PT
wow, the google backlash is getting stronger. i must admit i’ve never used microsofts 411 service, but i’ve never had goog411 miss a search, usually i get the top result.
9:46 PM PT
I rather like the one that they didn’t use…”hum, now where did I put that, (paper shuffling noise) oh here it is!”
10:10 PM PT
Well I’m not five years old, but I still like to hear funny or different sounds. I thought it was interesting it was a real person doing that. And yes, the system does need work. They don’t seem to understand English real well yet. This was a fun thing to do on a Saturday night though. I wonder how many calls they got because of this little page.
11:00 PM PT
I called just to hear it and put this post into perspective, I heard nothing but a repeating of my query and then the result. I wish I’d never clicked this.
11:09 PM PT
that sound sucks. this article sucks.. I just wasted time and all I got was some crappy biddy biddy boop!! and they’re about to bomb Iran creating lots of biddy boop in the world.
11:31 PM PT
Thanks for posting the link to google groups, but alas it thinks I’m a virus or worm when I click on it!
I would just call the number, except I am overseas until Feb :( So I guess by the time I get back, I will have forgotten, and will never know what this bippity thing is all about…
12:07 AM PT
Give the man a break. I wish you’d never clicked it either, Morgan.
And by the way, you generally hear the sound when you tell the machine something it doesn’t understand.
12:41 AM PT
GOOG-411’s “Biddy-Biddy-Boop” « GigaOM
One of the things that makes the GOOG-411 directory service awesome — besides the fact that it’s free — is that cool “bippedy-bippedy-bippedy” sound it makes while searching. And now, for the first time ever, the man behind the “bips” (an…
1:26 AM PT
I just don’t get how special is that sound … kind of pointless to post about this ….
3:07 AM PT
it sounds like something Emo Philips would mutter while taking a wizz……….which makes me laugh.
7:41 AM PT
Jai,
re: http://goog411.googlegroups.com/web/1-800-goog-411.mp3?gda=Y0TV50MAAAB7GA88RxiKfMmJbBD-l3LOftcXfMw_zBUSWbpHeV8HeGG1qiJ7UbTIup-M2XPURDTr3bKJgB1KeNxedXzzC5fjaRO12GarSki7FMoIuUXfNA
Google Groups Home Help | Sign in
Joe: Write intelligible sentences.
8:34 AM PT
wow, you have alot of trolls here chris, i feel bad for you.
i never have a reason to use any 411 service but i found the article interesting because i understand the importance of this guys work. and its google, they do so much good its hard not to be interested in all the things that make them unique.
people don’t care to think about what research goes into the devices that they interact with to try making the experience as pleasant as possible, and since you cant make everybody happy the few that end up unsatisfied feel some need to hate and be loud about it as if they represent everybody or are the center of the world.
either way, keep up the interesting articles.
i am sure google will keep improving the service with time.
9:04 AM PT
I didnt like the music. Its crap.
:(
9:18 AM PT
How much were you paid to call this sound “cool?” It sounds like a child imitating a 1960’s sci-fi movie computer, poorly. If that is what they wanted, they should have searched for a decent sound from a library.
12:10 PM PT
TellMe (Microsoft) service is much better than Google’s. AND it will continue to be better for years to come, unless Microsoft screws it up. When MSFT shelled out $800M, they bought a “business” that was generating a few hundred million of revenue per year with large enterprise accounts. I’m sure that many people will find it as a surprise but this is one area that Microsoft is beating Google….. I know it’s hard to believe, eh.
If GOOG wanted to become the big daddy in the voice space they would need to acquire Nuance.
1:40 PM PT
For all the people posting how much time they wasted reading this article, do not forget the time you spent crafting your witty comments.
Goog-411 works fine for me but has a heavy American accent when pronouncing Spanish restaurants.
1:58 PM PT
Please reup the sound to like megaupload or something.
3:25 PM PT
Funny that they thought about and decided against imitating a human. Telstra’s phone system in Australia uses voice recognition, imitates a human (complete with typing noises) and is an insult to the intelligence of every caller.
11:09 PM PT
i always thought that sound was static or something awful like the voice screwing up. i never thought it was supposed to be a feature. they should change it to something nice.
12:07 AM PT
hmm, so the two good things about GOOG-411 are this fetcho sound thing and the fact that its free, eh?
Great article, Chris. Articles like this help put to the rest every bit of doubt that GigaOm readers may have about you guys just being groupies on Apple and Google, and nothing more.
For whatever it’s worth, I’ve tried both and Microsoft’s free 411 service (1-800-CALL-411) is much better, it’s free and it doesn’t have any funny sounds. I just works.
4:42 AM PT
[...] Botnets Digg: Say hello to the enormous bubblegum wall (PICS) http://digg.com/users/supernova17 GOOG-411’s “Biddy-Biddy-Boop” How Nintendo’s NES Zapper works Posted by andy Filed in Drill Bits, Show [...]
9:39 AM PT
[...] Google-411’s “Biddy-Biddy-Boop” - charming & funny [...]
8:12 AM PT
[...] En voici d’ailleurs une très belle démonstration de Google. [...]
5:09 PM PT
[...] percent of publisher RH Donnelley’s market capitalization over the last 12 months. Although Google’s free 1-800-GOOG-411 service may attract some share of the directory assistance business, the crux of the problem lies [...]
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[...] here, here and [...]
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