The massive success of Jingle’s 800-Free-411 service, which allows people to get 411 information without the outrageous fees charged by cell phone carriers and other telephone companies (up to $3.50 per call), has finally caught the attention of at least one of the big guys. AT&T acquired InFreeDA, a competitor to Jingle and operator of the 800-411-Metro service, for an undisclosed amount, and announced a free 411 service.
Jingle’s success has been significant. They have raised over $60 million and have quickly taken 3% of the U.S. 411 market. Jingle has taken over 100 million 411 calls to date. We interviewed Jingle Networks CEO George Garrick and investor Josh Kopelman back in October – listen to it here. Our previous coverage on TechCrunch is here.
AT&T’s service, which will be available at 800-Yellowpages, looks to be very similar, although it is currently available only in Bakersfield, CA, Oklahoma City, OK, and Columbus, OH. Instead of the one advertisement that Jingle plays, however, AT&T will be playing up to four ads, from 5-10 seconds each. That’s asking a lot of their customers (up to 40 seconds of ads before the information is given), but AT&T may be able to compete based on quality of information, something that Jingle has been criticized for in the past. The main product page for 800-Yellowpages is here, and the FAQs are here.
Boy we’re lucky in Aus – Telstra are legally required to operate a free directory assistance service.
I live in Bakersfield, CA, and just called the number to test it out, worked flawlessly, no outside ads or sponsors. Fast and accurate.
It basically said, “brought to you by AT&T YellowPages…by name or category? [I say 'name', then 'Target']….The number is…..”
Seems a bit harder to remember 1-800-935-5672 versus 4-1-1.
I think it’s a great idea, but the number needs to be much shorter, like 5-1-1. Or at least integrate it into the existing #121 service.
As Michael says, 40 seconds of ads is asking a lot, and would kill the service in my opinion. I would never use it if it took that long to get information.
Imagine going to Google and waiting 40 seconds before your search completed, you’d already be at Yahoo or some alternative.
Seems like AT&T is always testing something new on our city
Good article. Thanks.
On a side note, more and more phones don’t have the old letters associated with a number. My Motorola Q, for example, doesn’t. So I can’t dial “1-800-Yellowpages” on it without knowing the underlying phone number.
I was watching All in the Family over the weekend and Edith had to dial a number and she called it out “TW1-1111″ – Now that was the bomb
I got my Cingular bill today – $1.79 plus tax for 1 information call.
I still wonder how many people use “0″ for a collect call vs the 1800collect’s of the world. I agree with Andrew.
40 seconds in a car with a crying baby and people honking at you might be a bit much.
But just like how the largest sites get away with the worst intrusive ads and people still use them, I am sure ATT will believe the same holds true here.
Not sure if any of the other big phone companies provide a similar service but this sounds like a great opportunity for AT&T to differentiate itself…at least for awhile until the next big phone company comes along as does something similar.
In the end, it’s still great for the customers, us.
http://davidchao.typepad.com
My guess: Google or Yahoo(always acquisition-hungry) will grab Jingle in coming year.
-Zaid
I think google should have bought them.
As Michael says, 40 seconds of ads is asking a lot, and would kill the service in my opinion. I would never use it if it took that long to get information.
Imagine going to Google and waiting 40 seconds before your search completed, you’d already be at Yahoo or some alternative.
Voice recogniztion + any search engine = voice directory of large magnitude!
40 seconds of ads…I think not
…but good acquisition none the less
I hope similar things start taking place soon in India as well.
It’s a misnomer to call this an acquisition. Infreeda (1-800-411-METRO) has been out of service for months and was _liquidating_ the technology. I was contacted as a potential buyer and they were selling their assets at rock-bottom prices. Free directory service is a promising area but Infreeda was not one of the winners.
Success; Columbus, OH. I’ve used 1-800-Free-411 and almost always get the operator to help me, which is no problem. I don’t know if it’s just me, but the voice recognition doesn’t seem to get what I’m saying. As far as the ads go, they’re as easy to not listen to as all the other ads that I see all day long everywhere I look.
Zaid Farooqui and finke-
Google did have 877-GOOG-411. Now 877-520-Find, according to the below:
http://gesterli...d-877-520-find/
I personally am not sure why AT&T would pick a vanity number that is so long and cumbersome to dial. Agree with Michael – more and more devices do not have the underlying characters behind numbers, although a GOOD vanity number definitely contributes to a higher call volume (faster viral effect via word of mouth, smart marketing).
However, it is crucial for your vanity number to be either 7 letters or 3 memorable digits and 4 letters – to my best knowledge, carriers like Metro PCS do not support any ANIs longer than (area code) + 7 digit ANI
Voice recognition is definitely not there, but it seems Jingle wouldn’t care as much about churn rate (or quality) at this point.
My company is serving the ads for AT&T’s 1-800-YellowPages service, and I’d like to clarify a misconception about the “40 seconds of ads”.
Over 90% of the callers will probably just hear one or two ads. A sponsor ad in the beginning and then an ad after they request their number. That’s 15 to 20 seconds of time to save $1.50. A pretty good hourly rate.
However, if a caller does not have a specific business in mind, and is searching for a business in a particular category, such as “Restaurants in Bakersfield”, they can listen to up to three ads and then choose which of those to be connected to. Thus, these “extra” ads are not burdensome, but actually welcomed. They give the caller more choice and a broader spectrum of to choose from.
I was very surprised to learn of the vanity number choice. Yes, the vanity number is chosen is very bad. It is going to kill the potential viral effect likely up to 60%, and substantially increase the marketing spending. Jingle has a great phone number. I recall, back in the 90’s a telephone based yellow pages service came out using a vanity number with yellow pages wording: not much success there.
Yet you never know. A Korean telco few years back implemented free 411 service and leveraged their sales force to subscribe local businesses – and are now highly profitable running free 411 pay-per-call business model. No doubt, AT&T can definitely use their size to make this a profitable nationwide business.
Reading all these posts is great inofrmation, as we are in start-up phase for 1-800-ASSISTANT, a free directory assistance service.
Randy, your company is very interesting, would you be able to provide more information?
Randy, I may be reached at tmlong74@verizon.net
Thanks!
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