Google 411

I’ve been meaning to mention this forever, and was reminded when we recently incurred a $2.00 fee for a directory assistance call, because we were foolish enough to dial 411 from our phone.  WTF?  How do the telcos keep charging for this, especially when most such requests are handled by machines?

Here is the free version, which we should have used, provided by the (still, possibly, mostly not evil) people at Google.  Just dial 800-goog-411, say the business (or category) and city/state, and they’ll give you a list of results (and connect your call):

1-800-GOOG-411: Find local businesses for free from your phone.