Free local business directory assistance (from guess who)

April 6, 2007 at 12:18 pm · Filed under Mobile, Beta

1-800-GOOG-411. It’s called Google Voice Local Search, and it looks like its poised to take the sting out of your phone bill if you’re used to paying the steep charges for a simple 411 call. The new service is currently available in English only, and only to callers in the United States looking for businesses (not individuals) in the U.S.

What’s free?

• Searching (by voice) to find a business
• Connection to a business once you find it
• Having the information you find sent to your cellphone via SMS (if you’re using a mobile phone)

More information is available at Google Labs. 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411)

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Do you Twitter?

March 18, 2007 at 3:12 pm · Filed under Privacy, Events, Mobile, Social Networking

At the SXSW conference, there was a phenomena I was exposed to called Twitter. Twitter is described on the Twitter site as “A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?” Twitter allows you to let the world (or your select group of friends) know where you are and what you’re doing via phone, IM, or online. I signed up to give it a try, and, well, I’m not a Twittter.

There definitively is a movement that is not only comfortable, but highly motivated to share the details of their life. Down to the minutia. As often as not with complete strangers. Everyone has heard of Flick’r, MySpace, Instant Messaging and blogs. Twitter is focused on a different level of information provided on a different frequency of updates; quick-hits of information, where you are and what you’re doing, provided as frequently as the Twitter user wants to provide it. An Instant Messaging Blog in some ways.

I’m not a Twitter for a few reasons. First, the people in my life may use Flick’r here and there or post some interesting marketing or technology tips to their blog, but they aren’t on the edge of the curve running towards the lifestreaming movement. Second, I don’t have the desire to share minute-by-minute (or hour-by-hour) detailed information of what I’m doing or where I am with my circle of friends, never mind the Internet community at large. To be honest-I don’t understand it. More than anything, what’s intriguing about Twitter and the state of online social networking is how rapidly the online social networker’s outlook on privacy, security, and transparency is changing.

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