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Google To Shut Down 411 Service
taco8982 writes "After three years of providing free directory assistance in exchange for voice samples, Google has announced plans to shut down the GOOG-411 service, in order to focus on 'speech-enabling the next generation of Google products and services across a multitude of languages.' The service will close on November 12th."
Never even heard of it. I wonder how many dozens of obscure Google services there are out there
It seems like smartphones are making voice calls obsolete. GOOG-411 is a victim of http://www.google.com/
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
I for one am sad about this. I'm one of those holdouts who still doesn't have a (i|g|smart)phone, so it was nice to be able to call Google up to contact the restaurant I want to get reservations at, or anything like that. I can understand why they canceled it (they get way more voice data from Google Voice, I'm sure), but still, I'm a bit sad.
Maybe I'll finally get a more intelligent phone now...
Nuance and IBM hold so many patents in the voice recognition field it's not even funny. With MS suing Android for things as innocuous as "syncing", I wonder what, if anything, Google is doing to protect or aid handset makers from this type of litigation. As I mentioned before in a previous post, a simple list showing all applicable patents and necessary licenses would help give a heads up to Android device makers.
Goog411 was amazing! No ads, good results. Thankfully I have a smartphone, but there were still times that Goog411 was faster than using my smartphone.
I guess I will go back to 1-800-Free411
Yeah, if you have an Android phone, Goog-411 becomes kind of redundant, as the phone has built-in voice search from Google - one touch on the icon, then speak what I want, and up it pops in the built-in browser. Can even use the maps feature to locate what you want at a convenient location without having to actually know where such-and-such street is (that is, Goog - 411 would give you a list of results, with addresses, but what if you don't already know where all those addresses are? Sure nice to see them on a map).
However, not everyone has a smart phone, and it really is a shame that the service will no longer be available for them - I used to use Goog-411 pretty frequently before getting my G1. I'm afraid just not enough people knew about Goog-411. Or perhaps they were happy with the number of users, but just decided it cost too much and as a company, didn't provide any revenue. "Free" things don't usually seem to last forever - you need *some* kind of revenue to support any service, no matter how cheap it is to provide it to the customers. Since they didn't make you listen to an ad, there was no apparent revenue stream (well, sometimes I do remember hearing something like this service brought to you by broadband.com, or something like that, so perhaps they got a little revenue from that).
Goog-8675309
I had a bad feeling about Google 411. It used to be one of the options when you called your own Google Voice account -- you pressed 2 to find the number you wanted. Then Google deleted it out of Google Voice without any notification that I ever saw. I use it all the time with my old "dumb" cell phone. It's a great service, and I'll be sad to see it go.
Greg Raven
As long as there's any left, I'll take mine first.
I just confirmed Microsoft's original 1-800-CALL411 number works as well. If you used the Google service, this is a decent alternative.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
I guess you're REALLY gonna miss it then. :-p
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
In other words, google is making it a lot more complicated and inconvenient. My current WinMo phone does this better. Let's compare.
Currently, if I want to reach a company, I use one type of interaction: voice interaction. It goes like this:
1. I tell my phone, "Call GOOG 411." My phone asks me if I want to call "GOOG 411" or whatever and gives me a chance to confirm or correct myself.
2. I ask GOOG 411 for "Company X, Anytown USA"
3. I listen to the results. Google gives me a chance to verify them and correct myself.
4. I say which result I want. Google calls the business for me.
All that without taking my eyes off of what I'm doing (walking, driving, doing the dishes, taking out the trash).
Soon, when I want to reach a company, I'll have to do a more complicated routine:
1. Launch Voice Search (VS for short).
2. Ask for "Company X, Anytown USA."
3. Voice Search terminates.
4. To review the results on the screen, I have to take my eyes off what I am doing.
5. If they're incorrect, I'm out of luck. My current VS session has ended and I need to start over.
6. Assuming I found what I wanted, I try to remember the phone number of the business I want to reach.
7. I launch Voice Actions (VA for short).
8. I tell Voice Actions to dial the ten digit number I've hopefully remembered.
9. VA doesn't ask me if it understood me correctly. I watch the screen to see if has. If VA got it wrong, I have to launch VA again.
This is ridiculous. Notice how Google has made me take twice as many steps to reach a business. Notice how Google is forcing me to mix three types of interaction: -Voice interaction to initiate search and make the call
-Screen viewing to check the results
-Touch interaction to scroll through the results
What a step back in functionality this is! I hope Google is paying attention and fixes this. Until they do, I have good reason to stick with my WinMo phone. It does hands-free stuff better.