Free Phone Look-Up, Thanks to Google

Google is offering free informations calls which may take a huge chunk out of the billion dollar market.

The United States logs 2.6 billion 411 calls a year creating $9.3 billion dollars in sales.

You can access Goog-411 by dialing 1-800-GOOG-411. The system is completely automated and does not rely on human operators . Results are spoken back to you or sent via text message. The free information comes from the Google Maps database.

According to the Google Labs site, "Using this service, you get fast access to the same local information you'd find on Google Maps. You don't need a computer, you don't need an Internet connection, and you don't even need to use your cellphone keypad."

Industry analyst believe this large scale free approach to information services could transform the market. Already companies, such as 1-800-Free411, have bitten into the pay for information market. Pay for information services cost $1 per call on average.

Companies pay at least 16 cents per call when human operators handle 411 calls. Google might be able to get that number down to 2 cents per call while still generating income via ads for local businesses.

The search engine giant has been testing it's voice recognition technology since 2002.

Goog 411 works from land lines or mobile phones. Mobile phone users can have the information sent to them via text. When callers dial in they ask for the business by name location The Google network pulls up the information and sends it to the caller. No humans have contact with the caller.

The Google lab website cautions that the service is still experimental. "Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We're fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing our user's requests and at finding the businesses they are looking for. It's currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings."

Google's 2006 revenue was $10.604 Billion The company has over ten thousand employees and is based in Mountain View, California. Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Bin while they were still students at Standford University. Currently the company is in cooperation with Time Warner, MySpace and NASA ad others.

Sources: www.pcmag.com,http://labs.google.com/goog411/about.html,www.wikipedia.com