[infoshare] Fwd: [VICUG-L] FW: Farewell, GOOG-411
- From: Rachel <rachel720@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: infoshare@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:23:38 -0400
Farewell, GOOG-411 - NYTimes.com
Pogue's Posts - The Latest in Technology From David Pogue
October 14, 2010, 12:04 pm
Farewell, GOOG-411
Oh, it's a sad day in techland.
On November 12, Google will turn off 800-GOOG-411 forever.
It was one of the best, juiciest, most useful services in all
phonedom.
It didn't cost anything. It didn't require a smartphone. Its
accuracy
was uncanny.
In case you missed it, GOOG-411 is a free, voice-activated
directory-assistance service. You say the business name or
category you
want-"Freestyle Gym," "taxi," "Sakura restaurant," "hospital,"
whatever-and the city and state. In one second, the guy's voice
starts
reading a list of the best eight results.
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You interrupt him by saying, "number two" or whatever. Then you
can say
"details" to hear him read you the address and phone number. Or
you can
say "text message" to have him text you the information. But if
you just
hang on, he connects your call for free.
You never actually hear the phone number. But why should you
care? You
just want to call the place, right? It's like having a little
assistant
dude back at HQ connecting your calls-and if you're driving,
which you
often are when you use this service, never once did you take your
eyes
off the road. Or even write anything down.
People who knew about GOOG-411 adored it. But Google is about to
turn it
off forever.
The blog gives no explanation. Instead, it simply says "Goodbye
to an
old friend" and suggests that you use one of Google's
voice-driven tools
on an Android cellphone instead.
Well, that's great if you have an Android cellphone. What about
the 95
percent of us who don't?
I asked Google why Google pulled the plug. The PR person's
(non)-reply:
"Our focus is to provide the most value that we can for our
users. In
this context, we see the combination of speech technologies with
the
increasing growth of smartphones as a better opportunity to
provide more
value for users, so that is where we've chosen to focus our
efforts."
I wrote back: "Thanks for the information. But if Google's focus
is to
provide 'the most value,' then certainly a service that works on
100% of
phones provides more value than one that works only only 5% of
phones.
Is there a more plausible reason?"
The reply this time was no more helpful: "GOOG-411 showed that a
fully-automated service could connect callers and businesses all
over
the country. We will continue to invest in voice recognition
technology."
Sigh.
The real answer was one Google search away. Here's Google's
Marissa
Mayer, talking to Infoworld in 2007 , when she was Google's vice
president for search: "If you want us to build a really robust
speech
model, we need a lot of phonemes, which is a syllable as spoken
by a
particular voice with a particular intonation. So we need a lot
of
people talking, saying things so that we can ultimately train off
of
that. So 1-800-GOOG-411 is about that: Getting a bunch of
different
speech samples."
In other words, GOOG-411 was never intended to be a permanent
exhibit;
it was a phoneme-harvesting operation for honing Google's voice
technologies.
Anyway, if you intend to soldier on in the post-GOOG-411 world,
here are
your options:
* Use Google's even older, text-message version of GOOG-411,
which is
still available. You can text, for example, "home depot dallas
tx" to
the address 46645-that is, GOOGL-and you'll be texted back with
the
information. Unfortunately, that's nowhere near as quick or as
hands-free as GOOG-411.
* Use the Google Mobile App. It's available for Android, iPhone
or
BlackBerry. You speak what you want, just as with GOOG-411 ("CVS
pharmacy San Diego"), and you're shown the best matches on a map,
complete with prominent, one-tap phone numbers.
Unfortunately, it's not hands-free and it works only on those
three app
phones.
* Use Microsoft's competing service, 800-BING-411.
BING-411 is a renamed version of TellMe, which Microsoft bought
in 2008
for about $1 billion. (You can read about the service here . Or
read my
original 2001 Times review .)
It works very similarly to GOOG-411, except it also offers
turn-by-turn
driving directions, news headlines, travel info, cheap gas,
horoscopes,
weather for any city, traffic, sports scores, movie information,
and so
on. (Say "Tell me my choices" at any time to hear this menu.)
This service would seem to be a natural successor for Google's
service-it works from any phone, for example. It does, however,
take
more steps to get to the information you want. A typical call
might go
like this:
Darby: "Bing 411. Say a city and state." Me: "Cleveland, Ohio."
Darby:
"Cleveland, Ohio. Is that right?" Me: "Yes." Darby: "OK. What
business
or type of business are you looking for?" Me: "Home Depot."
Darby: "OK,
Home Depot. What street is it on? Or say 'I don't know.'" Me: "I
don't
know." Darby: "I found nine locations. When you hear the one you
want,
just say it. Brook Park Road. Center Ridge Road. Mayfield
Road..."
(To get to this point on GOOG-411, you could have just said,
"Home Depot
Cleveland, Ohio." It would have read you the listings
immediately.)
Me: "Mayfield Road." Darby: "OK. There are two numbers for Home
Depot at
3460 Mayfield Road, rated 2 stars. The first number is
216-297-1303. The
second number is 800-887-3395. Now you can say, 'Driving
directions,'
"Share this listing' or 'Connect me.' You can also say 'Repeat
the info'
or 'Start over.'"
And so on.
At least you can interrupt Darby at any time, cutting the
conversation
short. (Yes, that's her name. I actually met her once. She's
the voice
of TellMe and about a million other voice-activated
customer-service
lines.) Also, you get a text to your cellphone automatically when
you
identify the listing you want, which is handy.
Note that Bing lists (and identifies) advertised search results
first,
which is annoying (but may mean that this service will carry on).
Then
again, if all you want is a phone number (and are willing to
listen to
an ad to get it), services like 800-FREE-411 are still around.
GOOG-411's fans will miss it dearly. But BING-411 will get us
through.
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