Comments on: Google launches 800GOOG411

By: Got Wills

Got Wills — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:51:08 +0000

800-Goog-411...

After reading Om Malik’s and Michael Arrington’s posts about GOOG411, I decided to give it a try. The voice was a little hard to understand at times, but it worked rather well, listing the pizza joints around my place ordered by distance, h...

By: Norma Burkholder

Norma Burkholder — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:37:33 +0000

It is a wonderful service….BUT HOW DO YOU CORRECT A PHONE NUMBER THAT IS NOT CORRECT IN YOUR LISTING?

By: Google & The Big Ideas

Google & The Big Ideas — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 14:42:52 +0000

[...] competitors. Of course, many were way late to the market. The iGoogle effort is a perfect example. Google’s 800GOOG411 voice search service came to market much after TellMe and other startups such as Jingle Networks’ 1-800-FREE411 had [...]

By: Brett

Brett — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:35:56 +0000

In the end, free411 and google are exactly the same–placement (for businesses) will be determined by the all might dollar.

I had a free411 marketing guy stop by my business trying to get me to signup–too pricey….

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 04 May 2007 23:45:31 +0000

Interesting that no one is really comparing the Goog-411 number with the established free 411 company, 1-800-Free411. Goog-411 has business listings, while 1-800-Free411 has business, residential, and gov’t listings. Both run on speech-recognition technology, but only 1-800-Free411 has live operator support in case what you’re searching for has a very unusual or hard to pronounce name. AND, 1-800-Free411 is doing category search now: http://www.free411.com/about/pressreleases/p20070320

I understand that people get excited when Google rolls out with something new, but in this case their number is nowhere near the best in the free 411 field.

By: LUX.ET.UMBRA

LUX.ET.UMBRA — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 05:17:10 +0000

GOOG-411...

Google is at it again. Now they have a free 411 service that apparently will be advertisement based but current trials have not shown up with any ads (yet). To try their experimental service, just do the following: To try......

By: Joshua

Joshua — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 05:08:22 +0000

Om,

Did you confirm that Google is using Nuance Speech recognition ?

Thanks, Joshua

By: » Google Launches Free 800-Number Local Search » InsideGoogle » part of the Blog News Channel

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 07:45:21 +0000

[...] Google has launched a free local search service that you can access via 1-800-GOOG-411 (800.466.4411). It’s simple, does only one thing, and isn’t perfect, but it could be the start of a very useful service. You call, give your city and state, followed by a business name or category, and the automated voice starts giving you search results. Sometimes, if it isn’t a dictionary word, the voice guy has trouble making any sense, but the voice recognition seems very solid. [...]

By: Joshua

Joshua — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 05:59:13 +0000

Om,

Did you find out which speech recognition technology Google is using ?

Thanks, Joshua

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:30:04 +0000

Just a note: Nuance and Tellme are not necessarily mutually exclusive; Tellme has been using Nuance technology from day-one and is still using it, though it might change in the future.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:30:30 +0000

Bad luck, Aditya, it works for me. The best thing is the fake “bo-be-do-boop-de-boop-doop” sound it makes while searching for the listing. I laugh everytime.

By: Aditya

Aditya — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 17:25:48 +0000

I tried the service yesterday and i had a terrible experience. the call quality was bad (not once but thrice) and voice recognition was poor.

was it just me and my luck?

By: Ron Perry

Ron Perry — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 03:57:36 +0000

On a related note, I heard about an interesting company in LA that has a beta call connections service that connects calls to Google and Tellme free-of-charge. The service seems to be accessible at 800-555-5555 for callers in Southern California, and at 310-800-5555 from outside that area. They also have an interesting travel connections portal if you say “travel”. Call their number and check it out.

By: Steve Morsa

Steve Morsa — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 14:08:08 +0000

Om--well; depending on whether or not Microsoft/TellMe and/or Google/Nuance decide to assert them (which wouldn't be surprising given the obvious importance of this space); it looks likely that another "IP war" is likely to be waged over this/these technologies.

TellMe has no fewer than 12 issued patents; while Nuance has 31.

Also wouldn't surprise me if others have applicable patents--both issued and pending--as well.

By: Simon

Simon — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 21:25:04 +0000

Entirely voice activated sounds better than the 118 services in the UK, some of which are outsourced to Asia. Nothing wrong with this in principle, except some operators haven’t heard of Scotland.

By: Randy H

Randy H — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 21:16:03 +0000

It will be interesting to see how Google's new free-411 service competes against AT&T's 1-800-YellowPages. Two giants going against each other. Google has Internet coolness and lots of cash, but AT&T has a world-class telecommunication infrastructure, great partners (VoltDelta & Apptera) and trained operator back-up.

I wonder how all the other phone companies are going to respond. Will they just watch their paid-411 volumes slip away or will they all get into the game and we'll have a dozen choices for free-411? Good for consumers and more targets for advertisers. Everyone wins!