Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Goog-411 Needs to Call 911
Google's 411 service is essentially a voice activated search engine. The concept is nice but its got a long way to go for it to be adopted by the mainstream. At first I thought it was just me having issues with it but when I had my friends try the service they became equally as frustrated.
At the time we were searching for a cab company's phone number but quickly found Goog-411 to be extremely inefficient for this sort of thing and here is why:
* Goog-411 seemed to be confused by the query "Phoenix Transportation in Raleigh" and would try to give us listings for Phoenix, AZ cab companies. A typical Google search returns relevant results with the company we were looking for as the second result.
* Asking Goog-411 to find a phone number is nearly impossible.
* Goog-411 needs some kind of location identifier in order to tailor its results. Most of the time when using a 411 service its for a local phone number or address, at least in my experience.
Overall, we had pretty poor experiences with Goog-411. And while I appreciate the effort of the free service, its no where close to competing with other 411 services that actually involve an operator.
Has anyone had better luck with Goog-411?
On a side note, an idea that would be fantastic for people like myself who always end up in some silly bar bet would be a Yahoo! Answers + Goog-411 service. Where someone can call up and search Yahoo! Answers for answers to questions like "What's in an Alabama Slammer?", "Who won the 1999 HR Derby?", or "How many days did Paris Hilton spend in jail?" Not sure how you'd monetize it but I'd bet it could become popular, at least with my friends.
By Matt O'Hern at 05:57 AM | Comments (0)
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