Marchex announced this morning that it was buying Jingle Networks, operator of free directory assistance service 800-Free-411, for $62 million in cash and stock. Founded in 2004, Jingle Networks also has a pay-per-call mobile ad network. Jingle's 800-Free-411 competed with GOOG-411, which was closed down last year, and Microsoft's Bing-411, which is still operating. However Jingle was the leader in the "free directory assistance" segment. At one point I called free-DA "local-mobile search for the rest of us." That was before the dramatic growth of smartphones, which have continued to ero [...]

Related Topics: Microsoft: Bing 411 | Search Ads: Pay Per Call | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing | SEM Industry: Acquisitions

Get in, get out. That's the idea behind the new Windows Phones: get access to content quickly and "get back to your life." Personalization and simplicity are also key themes of the new Microsoft mobile experience, which officially launched this morning with speeches from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega. Without mentioning Apple or Android, de la Vega lauded Windows Phones as offering a "breakthrough experience"  . . .  "unlike anything you've ever seen." As the iPhone heads to other US carriers (i.e., Verizon) AT&T is shifting its focus to embrac [...]

Related Topics: Google: Mobile | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing 411 | Microsoft: Bing Maps & Local | Microsoft: Bing Mobile | Top News

Yesterday Google announced that it was shutting down 800-GOOG-411, the free directory assistance (or voice search) service it launched in April, 2007. Back in those days the mobile landscape looked very different than it does today. It was challenging to conduct searches on most mobile phones and the iPhone was in its infancy. The first Android handset, the G1, was still almost 18 months away. The conventional wisdom was that "free DA" would become a booming segment in mobile, with lots of usage and potential ad revenues. Many of the large telco-incumbents that provide traditional, paid 411 [...]

Related Topics: Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing 411 | Microsoft: Bing Mobile | Microsoft: Bing Voice Search

A new report finds that mobile search and answers service ChaCha beat Google and Yahoo's voice search tools in terms of overall accuracy and reliability across a range of query types in a controlled study. The study was conducted by Albright Communications/MSearchGroove in January of this year. The report, which can be downloaded from the ChaCha site, was sponsored by ChaCha but the authors said, "While ChaCha sponsored the study, it was fully removed from the planning, testing, analysis, and reporting of this work." The methodology was very specific and relatively elaborate. I summarize it [...]

Related Topics: Google: Mobile | Google: Voice Search | Microsoft: Bing 411 | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Yahoo: Mobile & Go

Tellme has been in the speech, automated directory assistance and "voice search" segment for a decade. Two years ago the company was acquired by Microsoft for roughly $800 million. Since that time the two companies have been working on integration and developing next-generation services. Tellme powers Microsoft's LiveSearch 411, among other services. Today, two years to the day after the acqusition, Tellme made two related announcements about improved speech technology and an upgraded mobile user experience. (Here's the enterprise-facing release.) On the consumer side of the equation, Tellm [...]

Related Topics: Microsoft: Bing 411 | Microsoft: Bing Mobile | Top News