February 2009

February 2009 By Eric Berkowitz In most associations, conscientious Board members answers the phone. How great is that? This is nationwide ordinarily jump on any opportunity to save money. In and it is absolutely free! the Regency Tower, the Board members are all afflicted with an unrelenting compulsion to aggressively hunt Following this intriguing anecdote, the storyteller down these opportunities. For eight years, President recommends clicking on a link to Dott Nicholson-Brown applied tactics she learned while “http://www.google.com/goog411/” and watching a researching inventories for the U.S. Army to save the brief demo of the free service. The message closes with association $millions. After spending 14 hours in the the admonition to “Put 800-GOOG-411 in your phone to office emotionally lambasting vendors into trimming get telephone numbers of people anywhere free.” prices, she walks the premises turning off lights in unoccupied areas. Assistant Treasurer Bill Tannenbaum Although seemingly scripted by a third rate PR successfully tortured the workers comp insurance wannabe, the point is well taken. A quick trip to carrier into issuing overcharge credits by plastering the web site revealed the engineering behind this them with enough evidentiary documentation to cause new service. In a nutshell, GOOG-411 is Google’s permanent brain damage. Dee Lanzillo doubled the new 411 service. With GOOG-411, you can find size of the gym using in-house labor and home cook- local business information completely free, directly ing. When Iris Anastasi found the following little tidbit from your phone by calling 1-800-466-4411 (1- and sent it to the President, Dott labeled it “Good Info” 800-GOOG-411) anytime. Currently, GOOG-411 and promptly distributed it to the immediate world. is only available in the US and Canada for US and While riddled with what sounds like marketing hype, Canadian business listings and English is the only the email was embedded with the following message: language supported. GOOG-411 can be used from any personal or work phone, whether it is a This is something you will want to have and use! I still remember fixed/landline phone, mobile phone or VoIP (web- when the telephone company charged me $1.50 to get a phone based) phone. However, calls from pay phones are number from information! My compliments to Google! Just leave it currently not supported. If you are calling from a up to Google to come up with something like this!!! mobile device, GOOG-411 can even send you a text message with more details and a map simply Here’s a number worth putting in your cell phone, or your home by saying “Text message” or “Map it.” Keep in phone speed dial: 1-800-goog-411. This is an awesome service mind that features like the text messaging or map- from Google, and it’s free -- great when you are on the road. ping commands will only work from a mobile phone. Residential information is not available at Don’t waste your money on information calls and don’t waste this time. You should not use GOOG-411 to seek your time manually dialing the number. I am driving along in my emergency help, since the service is not able to car and I need to call the golf course and I don't know the number. provide your location information to emergency I hit the speed dial for information that I have programmed. service providers. If you have an emergency, The voice at the other end says, “City & State.” I say, “Garland, please dial “911” or your local police/fire Texas.” He says, “Business, Name or Type of Service.” I say, department. “Firewheel Golf Course.” He says, “Connecting” and Firewheel Continued on page 3 2 Directory...Continued GOOG-411 service. Google also claims to You don’t need a computer, an Internet con- use your phone number to distinguish you nection, or even the keypad on your phone from other users, and ultimately, to better GET THE or mobile device. GOOG-411 is voice-acti- personalize the service. To improve the vated, so you can access it from any phone voice recognition capabilities of the service, (mobile or land line), in any location, at any they collect and store a copy of any voice WORD OUT time (except for pay phones). While your commands you make. Google doesn’t di- telephone company may apply usual con- rectly link the stored copy of your voice tractual charges for making a phone call or commands with your caller ID and these are ON THE receiving an SMS (Short Message Service automatically rendered anonymous after six or text message), you will not be charged months. While they seem to guard against any additional 411 fee for the service. privacy abuse, they operate GOOG-411 STREET using certain third party services. They Using the service is largely intuitive. Just call admit to sharing your data with these third 1-800-GOOG-411 (that's 1-800-466-4411) parties only if necessary to operate the and say where you are and what you’re service. AND GIVE looking for. GOOG-411 will connect you with the business you choose. Since you will Upon connecting to a business through the be speaking with an automated system, GOOG-411 service, your caller ID informa- YOUR these hints will help: At any point during the tion will become visible to that business. Al- call, you can go back by saying “Go though Google maintains that they will not back.” Similarly, you can start over by say- share your information with anyone except BUSINESS ing “Start over,” or pressing * (the asterisk). in the limited circumstances as outlined in When you are prompted for your query, their privacy policy, there are a couple of use the full names when describing the city ways you can control the way they collect A FRESH and state and business name or business and store information from your calls. First, category (for example, “Nick’s Italian to delete any information they’ve associated Restaurant Fort Lauderdale Florida.”) If with your phone number in the past, press VOICE! you’re having trouble finding the exact the star (*) key at the beginning of your name of the business, try saying a category. next call to GOOG-411. When presented For example, instead of saying, “Nick's Ital- with the privacy menu, press 9 to delete ian Restaurant,” just say, “Italian Restau- past information associated with your SAVE A SPACE IN THE rant.” To enter a zip code, either speak the phone number. To confirm the requested numbers or enter them with the keypad. To deletion, enter the given confirmation code spell out a business name, press the (1) key when prompted. You can also press star (*) GALT OCEAN MILE’’S and use the keypad to spell the name. to cancel and return to your search. After you’ve called GOOG-411 several times, After receiving results, you can elicit addi- you’ll stop hearing the introduction to enter tional information. To get more details, say the privacy menu. However, you’ll still be ONLY TRUE NEWSLETTER. “details” and to get help, say “help.” If you able to press the star (*) key to access the are using a cell phone, you can also re- privacy menu. ceive an SMS by saying “text message” or WHETHER FOR a map link by saying “map it.” GOOG-411 To avoid having any information associated uses listing information provided by Google with your telephone number, you can block Maps. Of course, texting will only work if your caller ID before you call. With many your mobile phone has text message func- phone services, you can do this by dialing A MONTH OR TWELVE, tionality. *67 prior to dialing the phone number. In most cases, you can also block your num- Corporate or commercial network operators ber through the menus on your mobile can use GOOG-411 to provide 411 serv- phone. For specific details on how to block WE CAN HELP. ices to their employees and customers under your caller ID, contact your service the certain conditions. First, users should be provider. directed to 1-425-296-4774 instead of 1- 800-466-4411 and no additional charge In summary, you don’t have to pay for stan- may be levied for using this service. Also, dard directory assistance anymore. 411 is Google reserves the right to suspend or ter- on the house, at least in the US and minate access to the service at any time, Canada. Given Google’s predisposition for provides the service “as is” and does not global outreach, it is reasonable to assume guarantee service availability. Corporate or that this service will ultimately extend to the commercial network operators are responsi- rest of the planet. For additional information ble for insuring that their users are aware of and a box of other free services, you can GOOG-411’s privacy practices. access the Google Mobile Help Center, the Google Mobile Help Forum or the Google For those of you whose fear of identity theft Mobile Blog. Give this free service a try by borders on paranoia, Google adheres to programming the number into your cell the US Safe Harbor privacy principles. To and/or home phones. By the way, some operate and audit their service, Google col- goofball on the blog explained that when lects and stores the phone number, along his outgoing phone service is suspended with the time and duration of your call and due to late payments, he places all of his the options you select each time you use the calls through GOOG-411.

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