Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

You know that feeling you get when you need to get your hands on a phone number but refuse to call 411 and pay for directory assistance? Well if you haven’t heard, those days are over! It’s been more than a year since Google began offering consumers free directory assistance. Since that time the service has been improved and is now really catching on. GOOG-411 directory assistance is available from any land line or wireless phone.  If you haven’t tried out GOOG-411, you’ll want to program this phone number into your phones right away. In addition to allowing you to get phone numbers for free, it also has advanced features such as the ability to send yourself a text message directly to the phone from which you’re calling.

Free Kansas City Directory Assistance

This service is no doubt dealing a hit to the bottom lines of phone service providers like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, Time Warner, Comcast, Everest and pretty much any other local or wireless service providers. But it’s a boon for consumers. GOOG-411 even includes VOICE recognition, which is great if you’re on the road and needing safe, fast and free directory assistance. Take my office location for example. If you wanted the address of my office texted to your phone AND a link to the Google Map sent along with the text, try this… Call GOOG-411 and when it asks for the city and state, say “OVERLAND PARK KS”. Then when it asks which Business, Name or Type of Service, say “JASON BROWN PREMIER REALTY GROUP”.  At the next prompt, say “DETAILS”.  At the next prompt pay close attention, because it doesn’t mention the mapping option. The next chance you have to speak, just say “MAP IT” — GOOG-411 will then immediately text the address and a link to the map to your phone! If you have a Blackberry and can’t remember what numbers GOOG stands for, it’s 4664. So program 1-800-466-4411 into your phone.

If you don’t need a map and simply want to use GOOG-411 to get the phone number, that’s free too — including being connected to that number. Now, if you’re like me, you’re asking yourself “why would Google offer a completely free service like this, that seemingly has no financial benefit to them?” Google employee Marissa Mayer helped answer that question by saying Google needs test audio to improve another service they’re hoping to roll out in the future — a voice-recognition-to-text search engine. So the more directory calls that are placed to GOOG-411 now (i.e. test runs of their software), the more accurate their voice recognitions software will be later.  But for now, finding the closest Kansas City Target, Hy-Vee or park just got much easier and the free service is available nation-wide.

Posted by Jason A. Brown