A new service has rolled out in over 1,800 citiies in the US that lets cell phone owners get driving directions between two points using voice commands. Dial Directions is as simple as dialing the service “DIR-ECT-IONS” (347-328-4667), speaking your location and desired destination (address, intersection, store or event) after which the service will send you the directions via text message.
“Whether you’re looking to get to an address, finding the nearest business chain, or attending a local event — it’s all just a simple, free call from any cell phone,” said
Amit Desai , cofounder and chief product officer of Dial Directions. “Consumers from all walks of life are giving Dial Directions rave reviews, because they find the service easy to use, accessible and free.” Event organizers can publish their event location information themselves at www.dialdirections.com making sure those who desire to attend can find the event. It looks cool and it’s free and will work from any phone. You will find the full press release after the jump.
FREE VOICE-ACTIVATED “DIRECTIONS” SERVICE FOR ALL CELL PHONES EXPANDS NATIONALLY, ALSO ADDS LOCAL EVENTS AS DESTINATIONS
Dial Directions’ Unique Service Provides Directions-by-Phone-Call to Any Address, Business Chain, or Local Event to 1,800 Cities, including Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Metro Areas
San Francisco, September 18, 2007– Dial Directions (www.dialdirections.com), today expanded its free, voice-activated ‘directions’ phone service to six metro areas, including Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Sacramento, San Diego and Washington, D.C. The service was already available in the
San Francisco Bay area, and the greater metro areas of
New York and
Los Angeles .
On any cell phone, users simply dial “DIR-ECT-IONS” (347-328-4667), speak their starting location and destination (address / intersection, store or event), and the service instantly sends driving directions by text message.
“Whether you’re looking to get to an address, finding the nearest business chain, or attending a local event — it’s all just a simple, free call from any cell phone,” said
Amit Desai , cofounder and chief product officer of Dial Directions. “Consumers from all walks of life are giving Dial Directions rave reviews, because they find the service easy to use, accessible and free.”
Dial Directions’ new ‘event’ feature lets any caller get directions to a local event from any starting point. Any organizer can have an event supported in Dial Directions simply by self-publishing the event location at www.dialdirections.com. After posting, organizers can tell their audience to get directions by dialing DIRECTIONS and saying the event name. In addition to directions, the service also provides event details, such as date and time.
Dial Direction’s new event feature gives power to event social networking by providing speech-enabled directions on any cell phone. Many event social networking tools offer the ability for event search and sharing, but all lack an easy mechanism for providing directions to the event.
"The addition of events to the Dial Directions service is both unique and valuable," said Greg Sterling, founder of Sterling Market Intelligence and analyst with Local Mobile Search. "It points the way to a broad new range of services that extend voice search well beyond the traditional directory assistance model."
The service is built on a ground-breaking technology platform developed by a team of industry experts in voice interfaces, speech recognition, and navigation – whose work is in use today by leading retailers, entertainment companies and airlines. This is the second wave of a broad set of location-based services (LBS) by voice activation to be made available by Dial Directions.
“One of our primary goals in starting this service was to make the emerging benefits of location-based services available to everyone. Before Dial DIR-ECT-IONS, you’d have to be in front a computer, own a ‘smart’ phone with Internet access and deal with complicated software downloads and applications that require a keyboard,” said Desai. “Now anyone can turn their cell phone into a ‘free GPS’ by dialing and speaking.”
How it Works
Any cell phone user can dial DIR-ECT-IONS, which is 347-328-4667, and say where they are and where they’d like to go – the service understands and texts back turn-by-turn directions. Users can give a specific destination address or intersection, ask for the closest location of any chain store, like Starbucks or Borders or an event, like the San Francisco Autumn Moon Festival.
About Dial Directions
Dial Directions provides the industry’s best platform for voice-activated location-based services. Dial Directions’ first of a kind phone service “DIR-ECT-IONS” (347-328-4667) enables any cell phone user to call and ask for directions to any address, store destination or public event, and receive directions by text message instantly. Now available in nine metro areas across the
U.S. , including
New York ,
San Francisco ,
Los Angeles ,
Chicago ,
Dallas ,
Denver ,
Sacramento ,
San Diego and
Washington , D.C. , the free service bridges the gap for consumers between the online and mobile worlds for location-based services. The company is privately-funded and made up of a team of industry experts in voice interfaces, speech recognition and navigation. For more information, visit www.dialdirections.com.
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