Back in 2007 Google launched 1-800-GOOG-411, a voice-powered directory assistance service that connects you quickly to businesses across the U.S. and Canada. On November 12, 2010, they shut down the service.

GOOG-411 was the first speech recognition service from Google and helped provide a foundation for more ambitious services now available on smartphones, such as:

• Voice Search - search Google by speaking instead of typing.
• Voice Input - fill in any text field on Android by speaking instead of typing.
• Voice Actions - control your Android phone with voice commands. For example, you can call any business quickly and easily just by saying its name.

Our success encouraged us to aim for more innovation. Thus, we’re putting all of our resources into speech-enabling the next generation of Google products and services across a multitude of languages.

If you don’t use a smartphone, and you’re trying to call a business, you can send a text message with the name and location of the business to 466453 ("GOOGLE") and we’ll text you the information, or on Gmail you can use the new phone-calling features to call any U.S. business free of charge. Also, if you don’t have the free voice search app pre-installed on your Android smartphone, you can download it here.

Thanks for all the calls, and keep an eye out for all the innovation to come.

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The GOOG-411 Team

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