The ‘Duh’ Study Finds That Free Directory Assistance Will Soon Take Over Paid
In what has to be the most completely obvious findings, a Local Mobile Search study commissioned by V-enable concluded that free directory assistance services such as 1-800-Goog411 and 1-800-Free411 will soon completely take the market away from paid services offered by traditional service providers.
Honestly, did you really need a study to determine this? One interesting fact out of the whole thing is that apparently, nearly 70% of consumers estimated the price-per-call of traditional services to be around $1, while in reality the cost is usually closer to $2 per call. The free services are typically ad-supported, requiring callers to listen to a short audio ad before being assisted.
For future reference, guys: people, especially mobile phone users, will nearly ALWAYS opt for free, provided they’re aware of the free option.
Of the free directory assistance phone services out there, do you have a favorite? Do you have more than one stored in your mobile phone? What things make one service more useful to you than others?
I like that I can always get an operator if I need one with 1-800-YellowPages and that I can search for all types of listings in the US by specific name (like traditional paid 411) or that I can search for businesses by category (like looking up listings by categories in the yellow pages). I also like all of the directory assistance services that will send the number to me via SMS - I’ve signed up to always have numbers sent to me via SMS with my mobile provider for paid 411.
I’m sure this will sound crazy, but there are times when I’ll still pay for 411. I think there are probably other people out there, too, who would rather not listen to the ads under certain conditions. There are probably different groups of people who will use both types of service.
One last thought - services are never completely free. Someone has to cover the costs related providing the service - in this case, it’s businesses buying various types of ads. Do your readers feel like there’s a big enough advertising market to support this model long-term? I personally think the model will make it long-term.
Posted by pinetrees10 on February 23rd, 2008 at 4:04 am.