Google Labs Gives Us The 411 – For Free Directory Assistance Dial GOOG-411
By Will Park on Saturday, April 7th, 2007 at 2:31 PM PST In Announcements, Services
Looks like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is hookin’ it up with free 411 directory assistance! Google labs is rolling out their experimental new service – GOOG411. Don’t hand over anymore of your hard earned cheese just to talk to a female operator (what, you don’t do that?). Just hit the obvious GOOG-411 on your keypad and you’ll be greeted by a nice lady-computer ready to give you a hand with your directory questions.
Answering some questions will help Google Labs’ find your query and present you with your results. Once you find what you wanted, the lady-computer can connect you for free or serve up an SMS text with the requested number. But, as with anything in life, nothing is really free. Expect to deal with advertising and voice recognition baubles. Granted, Google Labs has probably gotten their voice recognition tech down, but sooner or later, you’re bound to run into some problems. But for the awesome price of FREE, we’re happy deal with it.
Via: Google Labs
FREE DA has been around for awhile now. 1-800-FREE-411 has been offering this service for some time now. It is very interesting that Google is giving DA away too now. I wonder what gives.
They’re storing all our call information (including caller ID and questions) to better target advertising on Google.com searches and adsense ads.
Simply put, they want to know everything about what we’re doing at all times like some sort of overly jealous/overprotective ex gf or bf