Tricks, Hacks and Fixes for Everyday Problems.

Directory Assistance, or as most of you know a $1.99 call to 411 or 555-1212. It’s a multi-million dollar industry based on catching people when they need a phone number in a hurry. Directory Assistance costs you anywhere from $0.50 to $2.99+  for a business listing. Even though all directory assistance  information is available for free online or from a phone-book they think the ‘convenience’ of a telephone based automated assistance is worth the price gouge.  Google is aiming to change the way you look at this service. They offer a 411 style business-listing-only service that you can access from any phone in North America for free! Google also gives you the ability to search by business category. If you need a bookstore but don’t know the name, Google will provide you with the top 8 listings. Google 411 also gives you the option to receive the business’s address. There are rumours that they will be expanding Google 411 Directory to home phones in the future, but not for right now.

In this article I will highlight how to use the Google 411 service. Enabling you to never have to pay for a 411 call again, how to get maps to businesses on the fly for free, how to use Google 411 to call any business (local or long distance) for free, How to use Google 411 from a payphone to call any business for free and save yourself the quarter, Lastly, I will show you how to add your (or your friends) personal phone number to the Google business directory allowing you or your friends to call each other for free from any phone in North America.

Never paying for 411 for a business listing again.

Google 411’s service is free to use in North America. Simple by calling 1-800-GOOG-411 and following the voice instructions you can get your business listing information for free! This works from all telephones but remember, if you are calling from your cellphone it will use your normal airtime minutes. Instead of re-writing all the instructions, I will simply post Google’s official instructional video and diagram.

Two other cool features that Google 411 offers; Calling Google 411 from a cellular phone will text message you the phone number and address after the phone call is completed. Another feature Google 411 has is called ‘Map It’.  After you receive your listing information on the phone, say ‘Map It’ and it will text message you a Map to your location as well.

For more information you can check out Google’s 411 site

How to call any business (local or long distance) in the United States or Canada for free.

Google’s 411 service has another unique feature: after calling 1-800-GOOG-411 and receiving your business listing information, Google gives you the option of connecting your phone call to that business for free. This is very handy if you don’t want to write down the information and would rather just be connected directly the business. Google does this by placing the call through its own VOIP servers. Because of this, it doesn’t matter if the business listing would be a local or a long distance call to you, Google is paying for all of the charges, pretty cool eh? So if you are in Vancouver and the business you want to call is in Quebec you can call them for free if you go through Google’s 411 service. Even if I know the number of the business that I want to call, I don’t want to pay long distance charges (because I’m kinda cheap :p) so, instead of calling the business directly from my phone I call Google 411 and get Google to connect the call. Sure it takes an extra 30 seconds, but the call is free!

Free payphone calls to any business.

By taking advantage of the fact that you can make free phone calls from a payphone to 1-800 numbers, and Google’s 411 service is a 1-800 number, you can call 1-800-GOOG-411 to get 411 information without using any money. Google connects the call for free using there own servers after you request the business listing. So, even though you never put a quarter into the telephone Google will connect your call for free!

Google’s information page states that “…calls from pay phones are currently not supported.” But, I live in Victoria, British Columbia and I used it today to call 3 different businesses and it connected every call I tried, without me putting a quarter in the payphone. If you are curious I called: Russell’s Books in Victoria, EB Games in Hamilton Ontario, and a random Tim Hortons in Quebec.

Try it out for yourself and let me know how you fair. I’d love to hear if it’s only specific phone companies payphones that Google has blocked. Maybe, Google only said it doesn’t support calls from payphones to avoid angry telephone companies from crying fowl.

Using Google 411 to call or receive calls from anyone in North America for free.

This is a neat little trick you and your friends can do to call each other for free provided you both live North America. Basically, you are adding your personal phone line to Google’s 411 business directory allowing people using Google 411 to call you for free. Google 411 pulls its information from its Google Maps business database. So, add yourself to the Google maps business directory by following the instructions here. Be sure to put the phone number that you want people to reach you at, your real address (because Google may verify your address by sending you a post card), and a fake business name. Be sure to note the business name you used when adding yourself to that directory.  I suggest that you try to make your information in Google maps as un-appealing as possible to reduce the amount of random calls. After you have been added to the directory your friends can call 1-800-GOOG-411 and ask for the business name you entered yourself as and the call to you will be connected for free!

That’s it, and remember “Don’t be Evil”.