Free 411 for the mobile masses
Demofall If you've ever been driving around, trying futilely to find a specific restaurant but refusing to call directory assistance on your cell phone because it's too expensive, the folks at Jingle Networks may have a solution.
Their new free 411 service called, appropriately enough, Free411, is, well, just that. It's designed to give consumers a way to avoid paying the fee wireless carriers charge for 411 access--as much as $3.49.
Unveiled Wednesday at the Demofall conference in Huntington Beach, Calif., Free411, which can be reached by calling 800-free-411, is an interesting utilization of a free service that requires users to bear with a bit of advertising before getting the goodies.
In this case, the service subjects callers to a 10-second ad before providing the requested number. But the idea is that the ad--which will likely be for a competitor of whoever's number the caller has asked for, and which will usually offer a discount from the competitor--will attract the caller enough to have their call directed to the competitor.
Jingle Networks gets its directory assistance data from the same sources as phone carriers, it says, so regardless of who ends up on the line after a caller requests a number, Jingle insists the number will be accurate. And it argues that ten seconds of advertising is a small price to pay for saving money each time someone wants a phone number.
According to Jingle, 92 percent of the $8 billion the carriers earn annually on directory assistance calls is profit. That's pretty good, when you think about it. But Jingle thinks that if everyone bands together, we can take a big chunk out of that pie. So, as one Demo attendee mused later, it seems like only a matter of time before Jingle is bought up by a carrier and put out of business.