Clickable: Directory Assistance
The link for this week I think I remember hearing about a little while ago, but I heard of it again just the other day on a podcast. It is a free service by Google.
It is a replacement for American 411 directory service. You can call 800-GOOG-411 and basically do a voice activated Google search for local businesses.
I have not yet tried it myself, but I have put it into my phone in case I find myself looking for the nearest pizza shop or something.
May 24th, 2007 at 20:08:15
I gave 800-GOOG-411 a call after reading your article and spent a handful of minutes having some fun with it. In case you haven’t tried it yet, this is basically how it works: the first thing they ask for is city and state then business name or category. It returns your results by reading the top 8 matches. At any time you can select a match and it will give you the choice of either connecting you directly to the match or supplying you with further details. Navigating is just slightly tedious, and some of the more specific categories (’car wash’, for example) are a little more challenging to navigate, but the voice recognition system is fairly perceptive as long as you enunciate. This makes the experience significantly less frustrating. Overall I think it’s an intriguing and even useful service, especially when you’re far from home and without internet access. It’s been programmed into my contact list. Thanks for the tip!