GOOG 411 Doesn’t Work

It’s coming after Nov. 12^th

‘GOOG 411 doesn’t work’ is the search term people will be looking for after Nov. 12^th. Google will discontinue its voice powered business directory service on this date.

GOOG 411 celebrated 3 birthdays since its launch April 6^th, 2007. Since then, people throughout Canada and the United States have been using the voice powered service to receive business information from their directory. GOOG 411 also gave its callers the option to receive the business information via text message.

Were you an often user of this service? No worries. You will still the option after Nov 12^th to send a text message to 466453 (“GOOGLE”) with the type of business and it’s zip code. For example, pizza 90210 will return a list of pizza joints from Beverly Hills.

GOOG 411 first speech recognition

As Google often does, they offered a tremendously powerful and useful service for free. Giving this service for free was a great reward for Google because from GOOG 411 the company has been able to provide a foundation for more ambitious services now available on smartphones such as Voice Search, Voice Input, and Voice Actions.

1-800-FREE-411

There is still another choice out there as a replacement for the loss of GOOG 411. Dial 1-800-FREE-411 if you are looking for another voice powered business directory service. When using this service, you must first listen to a short advertisement.

Learn more at 1-800-GOOG-411

Categories: General, Uncategorized

Tags: free services, goog 411, google, voice recognition

About Clifton Hatfield

I am a family man. My wife and I are both web developers and parents to our beautiful boys. I have been working with social networks since 2004 and blogging even longer. After building niche networks of over 400,000 members, I have genuinely gained knowledge of how they have grown over the years and have influenced the way people interact on the internet. My hobbies include writing Facebook Applications and Wordpress Plugins. In my free time, I love a glass of wine with my wife or playing in the yard our boys. Nothing means more to me than my family.

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8 Comments and Trackbacks

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  Posted by Glenn Arcaro on October 09, 2010 at 2:45 am

  I loved goog 411
  • 
    Posted by Clifton Hatfield on October 09, 2010 at 3:20 am

    Me too! But I just got a Droid X and it pretty much eliminates the need for GOOG 411. :)
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  Reply

  Posted by Matthew Miller on October 09, 2010 at 11:33 am

  So I don’t get it? Its going away but its not going away? Am I missing something. I actually still use the text feature but I have an iphone with Google App on it. It is just darn easier to text directly then to launch an app, wait for a signal, bla bla bal…. thoughts anyone?
  • 
    Posted by Clifton Hatfield on October 10, 2010 at 12:57 am

    Yes, the voice powered service will be ending November 12th but the text messaging service will continue. As the number of smart phone users grows (17% in the US), that text messaging service will still be enabled. Smartphone users can download an app, like Places.
  • 
    Posted by ACBaughman on November 02, 2010 at 10:47 pm

    Google may cause a lot of automobile accidents. It is much safer to talk than text.
  • 
    Posted by Clifton Hatfield on November 10, 2010 at 7:52 pm

    I think you are right.
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  Reply

  Posted by ACBaughman on November 02, 2010 at 11:19 pm

  I think Bing 411 will be just as good, if not better. It seems to offer more information. The only issue is that the male voice on Goog was easier to understand vs the female voice on Bing.
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    Posted by Clifton Hatfield on November 10, 2010 at 7:53 pm

    I have not used Bing 411 but I have used Free 411 but it isn’t as Google as GOOG 411 was. Thanks for sharing.