I spent the early boom years in Seattle as co-founder of OpenSpace.com ('97-'00). I walked by Amazon's first office on 2nd street everyday to/from work - the company was a big part of the .com culture in Seattle. I remember arguing with "ecommerce purists" that Amazon would eventually sell via telesales. "They are in the direct response business and couldn't exclude call center sales and only focus on ecommerce." Well, it took 10 years, but I was right. I just saw my first toll free number on the site. They also offer eStara's click to talk option.
It is surprising that there is still such a narrow view of Internet marketing: web in one corner - offline in the other. National sites still either hide their contact phone numbers or do not publish them online. The (flawed) logic is that consumers shopping online can only interact online. What marketers must do is communicate with consumers in the manner they most prefer at that moment (phone, email, chat.) The "local" crowd seems to get this. They are better at using the web to drive offline conversion.
I am speaking at Search Engine Strategies (SES) in Chicago next week on the Local Track. The session is called: "The Transformation of Local in a Search Driven World." The panel will discuss offline transactions that originate online. I call this "revenge of the brick and mortar." I am a loyal Amazon user, but there are certain purchases I want to buy at local retail. Local search applications such as ShopLocal, who will be on the SES panel with me, are getting better at helping me find what's available and what's in stock. The phone will play a crucial role in bridging the last mile to the local merchant.
Here's the link to the SES session
http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/chicago/agenda2.html
Here's the copy from Amazon:
Need Help Deciding Which Audio or Video Product to Buy?
Our product specialists are available to call you Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. (CST). You can place your order over the phone or online.
or dial 866-216-1243.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
StartUp Beat: FastCall411 Introduces Mobile Service
StartUP Beat
11/13/07 – Hollywood-based FastCall411, the local pay-per-call listing and search company, has introduced FastCall411 Mobile, a wireless version of the FastCall411 platform. The company says FastCall411 Mobile will formally debut tomorrow at the Mobile Marketing Forum at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel.
FastCall411 Mobile will initially include search for more than 20 categories, including heating and air conditioning contractors, airport transportation services, carpet and rug cleaners, computer service and repair, housecleaning services, painting contractors, rubbish hauling and removal, tree services, and window and glass repair, according to the company.
FastCall 411 offers a service where users can enter a zip code and call-back number via either the web or telephone and be connected to a local business in the selected category. Within seconds, FastCall411 says its automated dialing application contacts as many merchants in the searched category as is necessary to connect the consumer to a relevant merchant who is both available and interested in providing the service, according to the company. The application will automatically dial recommended merchants until the one available merchant is on the phone and ready to satisfy the user’s need, according to FastCall.
11/13/07 – Hollywood-based FastCall411, the local pay-per-call listing and search company, has introduced FastCall411 Mobile, a wireless version of the FastCall411 platform. The company says FastCall411 Mobile will formally debut tomorrow at the Mobile Marketing Forum at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel.
FastCall411 says this new mobile offering provides the same features as its landline service, which simultaneously calls multiple, highly rated local merchants and connectis the consumer with as many available merchants as they choose. The company says FastCall411 Mobile will work with most mobile browsers and most major carriers, including Verizon Wireless, Sprint and AT&T Wireless. The service is free to consumers and will be available first in Los Angeles. FastCall411 says it will expand to other metropolitan areas in 2008
FastCall411 Mobile will initially include search for more than 20 categories, including heating and air conditioning contractors, airport transportation services, carpet and rug cleaners, computer service and repair, housecleaning services, painting contractors, rubbish hauling and removal, tree services, and window and glass repair, according to the company.
FastCall 411 offers a service where users can enter a zip code and call-back number via either the web or telephone and be connected to a local business in the selected category. Within seconds, FastCall411 says its automated dialing application contacts as many merchants in the searched category as is necessary to connect the consumer to a relevant merchant who is both available and interested in providing the service, according to the company. The application will automatically dial recommended merchants until the one available merchant is on the phone and ready to satisfy the user’s need, according to FastCall.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Find local merchants and service providers using FastCall411
Here's a great new post on FastCall411:
"...But wouldn’t it be cool if you needed to find a plumber in your area (any plumber) and instead of getting 10 numbers and then calling each one separately and possibly having to leave messages, etc, if you could just be connected to the plumber that actually picks up the phone? "
Online Tech Tips
http://www.online-tech-tips.com
"...But wouldn’t it be cool if you needed to find a plumber in your area (any plumber) and instead of getting 10 numbers and then calling each one separately and possibly having to leave messages, etc, if you could just be connected to the plumber that actually picks up the phone? "
Online Tech Tips
http://www.online-tech-tips.com
Screenwerk: FastCall 'Widgetizes'
Greg Sterling
As part of a syndication move, FastCall411 is now offering an API and widgets that can reside on partner/affiliate sites. The model, whether in mobile or on the desktop is intended to remedy the problem of local merchants not answering their phones — or calls being connected only 20% to 25% of the time.
What I’m wondering about the service is whether it works as well if you take the urgency out of the scenario (e.g., locksmith, plumber). CEO Richard Rosen spoke to me prelaunch about the most responsive and service oriented businesses rising to the top because they will typically be the ones that answer calls. Accordingly, the FastCall411 algorithm rewards those businesses by featuring them over time.
In the recent WebVisible-Nielsen local search/user survey, “friendly customer service” was ranked number one as the factor that had the “largest impact on your decision to purchase a product or service from a local business?”
As part of a syndication move, FastCall411 is now offering an API and widgets that can reside on partner/affiliate sites. The model, whether in mobile or on the desktop is intended to remedy the problem of local merchants not answering their phones — or calls being connected only 20% to 25% of the time.
What I’m wondering about the service is whether it works as well if you take the urgency out of the scenario (e.g., locksmith, plumber). CEO Richard Rosen spoke to me prelaunch about the most responsive and service oriented businesses rising to the top because they will typically be the ones that answer calls. Accordingly, the FastCall411 algorithm rewards those businesses by featuring them over time.
In the recent WebVisible-Nielsen local search/user survey, “friendly customer service” was ranked number one as the factor that had the “largest impact on your decision to purchase a product or service from a local business?”
Friday, October 19, 2007
Kelsey Group Blog: FastCall411 Grows Legs, Widgetizes For Local Search
FastCall411 streamlines the process of looking for a local service provider by letting you call a handful of them at once. The first one to pick up gets your business, which the company hopes will resonate as a good consumer experience that sidesteps issues of disconnected numbers or unanswered calls.
CEO Richard Rosen told me his data show about two-thirds of calls to local merchants go unanswered, while inaccurate or outdated local business data is a well known issue. Rosen, a former exec at Jambo and CallSource, launched FastCall last March and my colleague Peter Krasilovsky wrote about it here (also see the company’s presentation at DEMO).
What’s new is the prospect of portability in its offering. Following the same logic as many other companies such as Agendize, FastCall411 will widgetize the technology in order to gain distribution and traction around the product when it is planted on well-traveled local search sites and IYPs. Rosen is currently in talks with a handful of undisclosed local search providers and will announce a few distribution agreements soon.
“We do want to build distribution, and we have a widget that essentially lives in a listing,” says Rosen. “This [includes] a phone number and the click-to-talk widget that can dial that one merchant or more than one merchant.”
The buttons or widgets themselves will carry FastCall411’s branding, but there is still an opportunity to brand the distribution partner during the call, according to Rosen. This would involve a voiceover that tells a merchant the IYP from which the call originated, much like other call tracking services do.
In addition to proving value to the advertiser in this way, Rosen is angling the product as a good user retention tool for IYPs and local search sites that could save users from the hassle of unanswered calls and having to go down a list of providers until someone picks up. The reality of this problem would come down to lots of variables and vary across service categories, but his point is taken.
“Our pitch [to IYPs] is that ‘hey, the consumer just did a search; they called the merchant, the phone was disconnected and there is a way to create a better experience,’ ” says Rosen. But unlike other valuable click-to-call functionality from the likes of Ingenio, Voicestar and eStara, wouldn’t the option to call many providers conflict with paid listings?
The answer is yes, but for that reason (and others) Rosen is angling the product to reside within non-paid listings in IYPs. His proposition is that FastCall411 will pay distribution partners for any calls that are generated through the widget, which it then hopes to monetize.
“Our primary strategy is to extend the widget but unlike a call measurement play, we’re looking to pay our distribution partner for the calls we generate,” says Rosen. “We’re going to give you the API and the widget and as long as you generate calls — which we think we can monetize — then we’ll pay you a couple pennies a call.”
This is an interesting extension of FastCall411’s value proposition, and we’ll have to wait and see how it works in this distributed way. This will come down to the company’s ability to monetize it and how well its consumer-centric angle really resonates with IYP and local search users. The potential is certainly there.
FastCall411 Grows Legs, Widgetizes For Local Search
CEO Richard Rosen told me his data show about two-thirds of calls to local merchants go unanswered, while inaccurate or outdated local business data is a well known issue. Rosen, a former exec at Jambo and CallSource, launched FastCall last March and my colleague Peter Krasilovsky wrote about it here (also see the company’s presentation at DEMO).
What’s new is the prospect of portability in its offering. Following the same logic as many other companies such as Agendize, FastCall411 will widgetize the technology in order to gain distribution and traction around the product when it is planted on well-traveled local search sites and IYPs. Rosen is currently in talks with a handful of undisclosed local search providers and will announce a few distribution agreements soon.
“We do want to build distribution, and we have a widget that essentially lives in a listing,” says Rosen. “This [includes] a phone number and the click-to-talk widget that can dial that one merchant or more than one merchant.”
The buttons or widgets themselves will carry FastCall411’s branding, but there is still an opportunity to brand the distribution partner during the call, according to Rosen. This would involve a voiceover that tells a merchant the IYP from which the call originated, much like other call tracking services do.
In addition to proving value to the advertiser in this way, Rosen is angling the product as a good user retention tool for IYPs and local search sites that could save users from the hassle of unanswered calls and having to go down a list of providers until someone picks up. The reality of this problem would come down to lots of variables and vary across service categories, but his point is taken.
“Our pitch [to IYPs] is that ‘hey, the consumer just did a search; they called the merchant, the phone was disconnected and there is a way to create a better experience,’ ” says Rosen. But unlike other valuable click-to-call functionality from the likes of Ingenio, Voicestar and eStara, wouldn’t the option to call many providers conflict with paid listings?
The answer is yes, but for that reason (and others) Rosen is angling the product to reside within non-paid listings in IYPs. His proposition is that FastCall411 will pay distribution partners for any calls that are generated through the widget, which it then hopes to monetize.
“Our primary strategy is to extend the widget but unlike a call measurement play, we’re looking to pay our distribution partner for the calls we generate,” says Rosen. “We’re going to give you the API and the widget and as long as you generate calls — which we think we can monetize — then we’ll pay you a couple pennies a call.”
This is an interesting extension of FastCall411’s value proposition, and we’ll have to wait and see how it works in this distributed way. This will come down to the company’s ability to monetize it and how well its consumer-centric angle really resonates with IYP and local search users. The potential is certainly there.
FastCall411 Grows Legs, Widgetizes For Local Search
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Jim Forbes - the founding producer of DemoMobile - wrote a great review of FastCall411
Jim was the founding producer of DemoMobile and the editor of the award-winning Demo and DemoWeek newsletters, as well as a Sr. Editor with InfoWorld, PCWeek and other publications. He has a strong following as he writes on mobile technology and internet marketing.
More Disruptive and Category Expanding Technologies from Demofall07
ForbesOnTech -
FastCall 411, Localized Commerce and Great Consumer and Vendor Facing Features
For the last couple of years I’ve harped on the need for localized ads as a key component to any mobile search product. Localization has the potential to become a significant disruptive force in search, driving a hard wedge between those companies that skim cream off the market, and search providers who grow their businesseds from local rootstock.
One of several companies at Demofall07 that made me sit up and take notice was Fastcall411, a Los Angeles area startup that’s focusing on local search by focusing on local businesses with high availability responsiveness quotients and the consumer facing experience.
What I liked about FastCall411 most is its consumer experience. The search engine is fast enough to deliver a solid experience over a cell phone connection to the web. But that’s not even half of what sets this company apart when it comes to the consumer experience. Once a consumer locks on a local vendor, the query turns into a VOIP phone call connecting the caller to a local vendor via FastCall’s server. The vendor is committed to providing a phone number that’s available and this startup gives consumers the ability to connect to more than one number to local vendors ( important when dealing with tradesmen who list their cell phones in addition to office numbers).
What made this Demo really hit home was that immediately prior to its Demo I was also in phone mail hell, trying frantically to find an electrician in Escondido who could restore electrical power to my mountaintop redoubt. Damn the carpenters who cut a line into my home office!
Fastcall411 isn’t electronic Yellowpages for the web. It’s a service that actively partners with local merchants, ranking them by their availability to respond to consumers. And there is no charge to the consumer for the service.
But it gets better, much better. Fastcall serves local businesses, a segment that Google currently overlooks unless they happen to be the local component of a national brand.
Moreover, FastCall provides an actionable service with a straight path to a transaction.
I believe it can compete against Goog411 because FastCall is a bottom-up proposition whereas Google is a top down service that overlooks whether or not a vendor can actually service the needs of a caller. Focus on the consumer and you win.
It’s services like FastCall that most likely will provide a seasoned crop of future ad and service sales reps for Google, Microsoft and Yahoo when they realize that localized Internet ads have the potential to be a mother lode.
More Disruptive and Category Expanding Technologies from Demofall07
ForbesOnTech -
FastCall 411, Localized Commerce and Great Consumer and Vendor Facing Features
For the last couple of years I’ve harped on the need for localized ads as a key component to any mobile search product. Localization has the potential to become a significant disruptive force in search, driving a hard wedge between those companies that skim cream off the market, and search providers who grow their businesseds from local rootstock.
One of several companies at Demofall07 that made me sit up and take notice was Fastcall411, a Los Angeles area startup that’s focusing on local search by focusing on local businesses with high availability responsiveness quotients and the consumer facing experience.
What I liked about FastCall411 most is its consumer experience. The search engine is fast enough to deliver a solid experience over a cell phone connection to the web. But that’s not even half of what sets this company apart when it comes to the consumer experience. Once a consumer locks on a local vendor, the query turns into a VOIP phone call connecting the caller to a local vendor via FastCall’s server. The vendor is committed to providing a phone number that’s available and this startup gives consumers the ability to connect to more than one number to local vendors ( important when dealing with tradesmen who list their cell phones in addition to office numbers).
What made this Demo really hit home was that immediately prior to its Demo I was also in phone mail hell, trying frantically to find an electrician in Escondido who could restore electrical power to my mountaintop redoubt. Damn the carpenters who cut a line into my home office!
Fastcall411 isn’t electronic Yellowpages for the web. It’s a service that actively partners with local merchants, ranking them by their availability to respond to consumers. And there is no charge to the consumer for the service.
But it gets better, much better. Fastcall serves local businesses, a segment that Google currently overlooks unless they happen to be the local component of a national brand.
Moreover, FastCall provides an actionable service with a straight path to a transaction.
I believe it can compete against Goog411 because FastCall is a bottom-up proposition whereas Google is a top down service that overlooks whether or not a vendor can actually service the needs of a caller. Focus on the consumer and you win.
It’s services like FastCall that most likely will provide a seasoned crop of future ad and service sales reps for Google, Microsoft and Yahoo when they realize that localized Internet ads have the potential to be a mother lode.
Monday, October 1, 2007
Back from DEMOFall'07
We are back from DEMO in San Diego. First. A huge thanks to my development team. Punit (far left) and Dinesh (far right) were on board for 4 days and were a huge help. Rashmi, her husband Vic and baby were staffing booth duty. Now that's dedication! Amy (2nd from left) should easily have won "most congenial." Attn DEMO: you need to add THAT award. I added links to the blogs posting on FastCall411 to the right.
DEMO was a great experience and a great way to launch a company. We pulled together as a team (yes coding minutes before our demo). Press and VCs were top notch. Words can't describe the professionalism of the DEMO production team. I have a huge stack of VC business cards, and a full inbox of VCs asking for info. The buzz and excitement continues.
Here's our DEMO page and video of our DEMO.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Mashable: FastCall411 Wants to Help You With Directory Assistance
September 24, 2007 — 01:34 PM PDT — by —
DEMOlive saw the introduction of an innovative new method to do local business searches with the launch of FastCall411.
The idea behind FastCall411 is that using either your mobile phone or their website, you enter what you’re looking for (plumber, locksmith, etc.), enter your zip code, and FastCall411 will start calling around for you. Once they find a business that is either open or willing to take your call, the service will ring you back and connect you to the merchant.
Merchants are ranked on things such as call acceptance (tests showed that to run around 25%), consumer reviews, and their availability. Those that rank highly will become “FactCall411 Recommended” merchants.
The service is completely free to the consumer and is underwritten by participating merchants. You can access the service from traditional phones, mobile devices, their website, or widgets on participating merchants websites.
DEMOfall: Marketing 2.0, Marc Orchant
FastCall411: FastCall411 is a local search engine that taps into a database of local merchants and service providers to find the product or service being searched and creates an immediate connection using VoIP. Satisfaction data is captured as part of the process to continually rank and rate participating merchants. For immediate results, this looks like an interesting approach. In the demo, the scenario used was trying to find a plumber who is immediately available to do some work. Having just had the experience myself of needing to find an appliance repair person who could unlock my suddenly inaccessible oven the day before a large party at my home, I can immediately see the value in having an engine like this find a resource.
http://us.blognation.com
http://us.blognation.com
FastCall: One (phone) ring to rule them all
FastCall411: Now this is clever. If you're looking for a service provider, you tell FastCall what you're looking for (for example, a plumber), and then it dials up to ten plumbers at once on your behalf. The first provider to respond is the one you're connected to. FastCall also builds profiles of providers based on how responsive they are.
If you've ever dialed around for someone to handle a service need for you, you'll appreciate this for sure.
From DemoFall 2007.
COMPUTERWORLD / DEMOfall: Push comes to shove
* FastCall411 demoed its system for customers to search for local businesses. The hook: Once FastCall411 finds a list of, say, plumbers, it starts calling them. All of them. The first one that accepts the call and presses "1" gets the job, or at least gets a chance to talk to the customer, who then rates the results. Between calls that never connect and customer ratings, FastCall411 ranks or deletes the businesses.
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/n
http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/n
Friday, September 28, 2007
MediaPost: Creative Marketing Apps Abound At San Diego DEMOfall
Hollywood-based FastCall411 served up a method to connect local merchants with consumers. The consumer calls the service and puts in a request for electrical, plumbing or gardening services, and FastCall411's technology dials as many local service providers as needed to satisfy the search. After each call, consumers rate their experience with the service. The system relies on artificial intelligence to learn and record information by compiling information on merchants who answer the call, rating them accordingly. FastCall411 recently appointed to its advisory board Gordon Henry, CEO of Yellow Book USA; Milton Olin, founding partner at new media intellectual property and Internet law firm Alschul & Olin; and Mark Cannon, SVP and chief product officer at Autobytel.
http://publications.mediapost.com/in
http://publications.mediapost.com/in
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Consumers Expect Local Businesses to Pick up the Phone
Should be a no-brainer. You may recall the calling test we completed (press) this spring showing that 64 percent of businesses we called to determine if they were available to help a customer immediately -- weren't!
Combine this information with a new survey FastCall411 just released reporting that "8 out of 10 Americans have little patience for merchants who don’t answer the phone – especially after repeated attempts to make contact. And when it comes to the key demographic for buying most home and professional services -- adults 35-44 -- that figure rises to nearly 88 percent."
Here's some press on survey.
Pretty much, this is a major disconnect between the information available today in local directories and what the consumer really wants. Is this why we complain bitterly about disintegrating customer service?
FastCall411 is launching at DEMOfall2007 next week in San Diego. We are excited to show how the company is designed to connect consumers with local businesses that are ready and available to provide services.
DEMO -- a big press and VC event – will be the first time that we announce publicly how FastCall411 benefits the consumer, local merchant and publisher. I’ll send an update once we’re there.
PS. If you haven’t checked out FastCall411.com recently – we've added cool new features and polished the design.
Combine this information with a new survey FastCall411 just released reporting that "8 out of 10 Americans have little patience for merchants who don’t answer the phone – especially after repeated attempts to make contact. And when it comes to the key demographic for buying most home and professional services -- adults 35-44 -- that figure rises to nearly 88 percent."
Here's some press on survey.
Pretty much, this is a major disconnect between the information available today in local directories and what the consumer really wants. Is this why we complain bitterly about disintegrating customer service?
FastCall411 is launching at DEMOfall2007 next week in San Diego. We are excited to show how the company is designed to connect consumers with local businesses that are ready and available to provide services.
DEMO -- a big press and VC event – will be the first time that we announce publicly how FastCall411 benefits the consumer, local merchant and publisher. I’ll send an update once we’re there.
PS. If you haven’t checked out FastCall411.com recently – we've added cool new features and polished the design.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
FastCall411 Announces Two Advisors; Will Launch at DEMOfall07
Lots going on at FastCall411 - we'll be launching at DEMOfall07 (and for our friends who want to attend DEMOfall07 there is a discount code on our web site). The selection process for companies at the DEMO conference is rigorous and competitive, so we are honored to have been chosen.
We've also announced two of our stellar advisors with a press release: Briggs Ferguson and Stuart MacFarlane. Shortly we'll be announcing other advisors, so stay tuned.
You can see the entire release at Yahoo! Finance or check out some of the places that have picked up the announcement:
Start Up Beat; SoCalTech; Street Insider; TCM Net; DMN Newswire
We've also announced two of our stellar advisors with a press release: Briggs Ferguson and Stuart MacFarlane. Shortly we'll be announcing other advisors, so stay tuned.
You can see the entire release at Yahoo! Finance or check out some of the places that have picked up the announcement:
Start Up Beat; SoCalTech; Street Insider; TCM Net; DMN Newswire
Thursday, August 2, 2007
From WSJ: The 411 on Mobile Yellow Pages
Here's a article from the WSJ reviewing mobile 411 services (free and paid). According to the write-up, no one is attempting recommendations. Jingle (800Free411) reads the listing - they do not connect the caller. If the call is not connected, they can not analyze the connection rate in order to make recommendations. Thus the "cranky consumer" / Bad connections = bad experience.
CRANKY CONSUMER
The 411 on Mobile Yellow Pages
We Test Services That Search Business Listings
By SAMAR SRIVASTAVA, WSJ
August 2, 2007; Page D2
When you're out and about and suddenly find yourself in need of a pizza, a shoe-repair shop or an airline reservation, the Yellow Pages just won't do. They are heavy, for one thing, and don't fit easily into a shoulder bag.
. Pros, cons and pizza of five services. But finding a business on the fly is becoming much easier as a host of free phone-directory services have begun offering custom searches of their business listings.
Tellme Networks, a Microsoft Corp. subsidiary, this spring began offering a free version of its search services that gives cellphone and landline callers access to business listings and services far outside the traditional 411 realm, such as stock quotes and travel-related information. Google Inc. recently launched a test version for phone users of its online local business-search service.
The two new services join San Diego-based startup Jingle Networks Inc., which has been offering free government, residential and business listings since September 2005. Tellme and Google, by contrast, don't even offer residential listings.
To check whether the free services are as good as their paid counterparts -- and whether the hassle of listening to an advertisement is worth the free listing -- we tested them against the paid offerings from T-Mobile, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG, and Verizon Wireless, which is jointly owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC. We searched for business listings and tested other options when available. As a baseline test, we searched for local pizza-restaurant listings across all five services.
For the most part, the free services have ditched live operators and are powered by speech-recognition software. This reduces the cost of providing the service to between eight and 10 cents per inquiry from about 25 cents. But we found that most speech-recognition systems can only understand words and phrases. Speaking a full sentence made the search go off course.
The tradeoff: Jingle requires its users to listen to a short advertisement before the listing is provided, and Tellme and Google are widely expected to follow suit.
With eight categories -- business listings, entertainment, travel, news and so on -- Tellme's product is the most extensive. Yet our search for a pizza place close to Church Street in lower Manhattan yielded options closer to Midtown. We were offered the chance to connect with the restaurants or have the address and phone number sent via text message.
Tellme's travel service was more helpful. As per our request, we were connected to the airline of our choice and to a taxi service in our area. Other categories also worked well -- we were able to get movie listings for our area as well as news headlines. The service also offers driving directions, but it had trouble understanding our starting and ending addresses.
By contrast, the speech recognition at Jingle Networks' FREE-411 worked almost perfectly, and the menus were simple and easy to navigate. In addition to business listings, the service offers government and residential listings. Here too, the pizza listing wasn't very accurate, and the options provided were a fair distance from our location. We were able to get a phone number for our local Social Security Administration office. When we asked for a residential listing, the computer couldn't understand the name we gave, and we were promptly connected to a live operator who took down our request. After a short ad, a computer read the phone number.
We found Google Voice Local Search the simplest to use. Upon giving your location and business category, the system spits out eight options. The results are the same as a Google local search on the Internet would provide. This service gave us the option of typing in our ZIP Code, making the results for the pizza listing much more accurate. Once again, we were given the option of connecting to the business or having the information sent via text message. Overall, Google's computers were able to understand what we wanted, and we ended up repeating ourselves only a couple of times.
The traditional paid 411 options left us disappointed. While they were easier to use, the operators seemed rushed. The $1.49 that Verizon and T-Mobile charge includes three searches, but after the first one, we had to keep asking the operators to stay on the line. Still, we were satisfied with the pizza listings, as they were close to our location. We were also able to get residential and business listings without a hitch. Verizon also offers a reverse directory search, in which you can supply a phone number to get a name and address.
CRANKY CONSUMER
The 411 on Mobile Yellow Pages
We Test Services That Search Business Listings
By SAMAR SRIVASTAVA, WSJ
August 2, 2007; Page D2
When you're out and about and suddenly find yourself in need of a pizza, a shoe-repair shop or an airline reservation, the Yellow Pages just won't do. They are heavy, for one thing, and don't fit easily into a shoulder bag.
. Pros, cons and pizza of five services. But finding a business on the fly is becoming much easier as a host of free phone-directory services have begun offering custom searches of their business listings.
Tellme Networks, a Microsoft Corp. subsidiary, this spring began offering a free version of its search services that gives cellphone and landline callers access to business listings and services far outside the traditional 411 realm, such as stock quotes and travel-related information. Google Inc. recently launched a test version for phone users of its online local business-search service.
The two new services join San Diego-based startup Jingle Networks Inc., which has been offering free government, residential and business listings since September 2005. Tellme and Google, by contrast, don't even offer residential listings.
To check whether the free services are as good as their paid counterparts -- and whether the hassle of listening to an advertisement is worth the free listing -- we tested them against the paid offerings from T-Mobile, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG, and Verizon Wireless, which is jointly owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC. We searched for business listings and tested other options when available. As a baseline test, we searched for local pizza-restaurant listings across all five services.
For the most part, the free services have ditched live operators and are powered by speech-recognition software. This reduces the cost of providing the service to between eight and 10 cents per inquiry from about 25 cents. But we found that most speech-recognition systems can only understand words and phrases. Speaking a full sentence made the search go off course.
The tradeoff: Jingle requires its users to listen to a short advertisement before the listing is provided, and Tellme and Google are widely expected to follow suit.
With eight categories -- business listings, entertainment, travel, news and so on -- Tellme's product is the most extensive. Yet our search for a pizza place close to Church Street in lower Manhattan yielded options closer to Midtown. We were offered the chance to connect with the restaurants or have the address and phone number sent via text message.
Tellme's travel service was more helpful. As per our request, we were connected to the airline of our choice and to a taxi service in our area. Other categories also worked well -- we were able to get movie listings for our area as well as news headlines. The service also offers driving directions, but it had trouble understanding our starting and ending addresses.
By contrast, the speech recognition at Jingle Networks' FREE-411 worked almost perfectly, and the menus were simple and easy to navigate. In addition to business listings, the service offers government and residential listings. Here too, the pizza listing wasn't very accurate, and the options provided were a fair distance from our location. We were able to get a phone number for our local Social Security Administration office. When we asked for a residential listing, the computer couldn't understand the name we gave, and we were promptly connected to a live operator who took down our request. After a short ad, a computer read the phone number.
We found Google Voice Local Search the simplest to use. Upon giving your location and business category, the system spits out eight options. The results are the same as a Google local search on the Internet would provide. This service gave us the option of typing in our ZIP Code, making the results for the pizza listing much more accurate. Once again, we were given the option of connecting to the business or having the information sent via text message. Overall, Google's computers were able to understand what we wanted, and we ended up repeating ourselves only a couple of times.
The traditional paid 411 options left us disappointed. While they were easier to use, the operators seemed rushed. The $1.49 that Verizon and T-Mobile charge includes three searches, but after the first one, we had to keep asking the operators to stay on the line. Still, we were satisfied with the pizza listings, as they were close to our location. We were also able to get residential and business listings without a hitch. Verizon also offers a reverse directory search, in which you can supply a phone number to get a name and address.
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