1-800-FREE-411 is an American service offering advertising-supported

directory assistance In telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a d ...

, operated by

Marchex Marchex, Inc. is a Seattle-based public company, founded in 2003, with more than 300 employees. Marchex is a B2B call and conversational analytics company. It specializes in using artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze conversat ...

Service

Callers dial 1-800 (888 or 866)-FREE411 73-3411from any phone in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

to use the

toll-free A toll-free telephone number or freephone number is a telephone number that is billed for all arriving calls. For the calling party, a call to a toll-free number from a landline is free of charge. A toll-free number is identified by a dialing prefi ...

service. Sponsors cover part of the service cost by playing advertising messages during the call. Callers always hear an ad at the beginning of the call, and then another after they have made their request. Callers then identify the city and state for the desired information, and can then search either by name or by business type. Free directory assistance is also available from an application for the iPhone and

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

mobile phones, and from their website. The service, provided entirely by computer and with no human operators, uses a voice-recognition database to recognize names or places spoken by the user.

Corporate overview

The original parent corporation, Jingle Networks, was formed in 2005, and received its initial funding from

First Round Capital First Round is a venture capital firm that specializes in providing seed-stage funding to technology companies. Founded by Josh Kopelman and Howard Morgan First Round typically provides seed-stage funding and focuses on portfolio companies ...

of $400,000. By the spring of 2008 it had, according to

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximat ...

, "captured a six percent market share of directory assistance calls." At that time, Jingle Networks received 20 million calls per month. Since that peak, the company has reported fewer calls, around 15 million per month, as consumers shift to

smart-phones A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, which ...

to get directory information. On October 23, 2006, Jingle Networks announced that it raised $30 million in fourth round financing from Goldman Sachs and Hearst Corporation. This came after a $26 million round in April 2006, and a $5 million round in December 2005. Also on that date, Jingle Network's CEO volunteered on TechCrunch that his company was losing on average 5 cents for every call they processed. On June 25, 2008, TechCrunch repeated Jingle's press releases that they had reached per-call profitability. Jingle Networks aims at attracting customers away from an existing fee-based market. ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' described it as "inspired by the business model of

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

". Article reprinted on kelseygroup.com. From 2005 through the early 2010, Jingle Networks guessed they saved consumers $1 billion based on an inflated rate of $2 a call for directory assistance. In April 2011, Marchex bought Jingle Networks for $62.5M in combination of cash and stock. Marchex says Jingle Networks will generate more than $26 million in 2011 revenue, up more than 40 percent over 2010. Marchex said it expects call-driven revenue to make up 75 percent of the company's 2011 revenue.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:1-800-Free-411 Telecommunications companies established in 2005 Companies based in Seattle Telecommunications companies of the United States 800-Free-411 Directory assistance services American companies established in 2005

Service

Corporate overview

See also

References

External links