GOOG-411 goes live

Stephen Withers
Monday, 15 October 2007 07:27

IT Industry - Strategy

Google's phone-based automated local business search has gone live.

Users may dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (presumably North America only), give their location, and then the type of business they are looking for. Using speech recognition, GOOG-411 provides a list of matching entries and then connects callers to their choice.

No charges are involved apart from any associated with the original call.

Mobile phone users may also opt to receive a map showing the selected business or an SMS containing more details.

GOOG-411 was first offered in April as a Google Labs project. Since then, it "has successfully served millions of callers," according to product marketing manager Jonathan Matus.