1-800-FREE-411

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Jingle Networks

Type	Private
Founded	2005 in Burlington, MA
Headquarters	Bedford, MA, U.S.
Key people	Scott Kliger, CEO John Roswech, President Brian Roberts, CFO
Industry	Telecommunications
Products	1-800-FREE411 directory service
Website	www.free411.com

1-800-FREE411 is an American service offering free directory assistance.

Callers dial 1-800-FREE411 (1-800-373-3411) from any phone in the United States to use the toll-free 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. Each ad is typically about ten seconds long. After the first ad, callers are taken to the main menu, where they can choose from business, government, or residential listings, or driving directions. Callers then identify their city and state, and can then search either by name or by type.

Callers can also choose to have driving directions sent to their cell phones via text message. These directions are available between any addresses or intersections in the United States, but will work only with cell phones.^[1]

1-800-FREE-411 runs on voice automation technology provided by Nuance Communications. ^[2] 1-800-FREE-411 has also partnered with Skype, allowing callers to receive listings via Skype Alerts. ^[3]

Jingle Networks aims at attracting customers away from an existing fee-based market. The Wall Street Journal described it as "inspired by the business model of Google".^[4]

Contents 1 Corporate overview 2 See also 3 References 4 Further reading

[edit] Corporate overview

The parent corporation, Jingle Networks, was formed in 2005, and received its initial funding from First Round Capital of $400,000.^{[citation needed]} By the spring of 2008 had, according to TechCrunch, "captured a six percent market share of directory assistance calls." ^[5] According to Investors Business Daily, Jingle Networks receives about 20 million calls per month. ^[6]

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.^[7] On June 25, 2008, TechCrunch repeated Jingle's press releases that they had reached per-call profitability. ^[8]

From 2005 through the end of 2008, Jingle Networks saved consumers an estimated total of $6 billion. ^[9]

[edit] See also

• 800-The-Info
• GOOG-411
• List of speech recognition software
• Speech recognition
• Tellme Networks
• 4-1-1

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• "Free 411" at Snopes.com: Urban Legends Reference Pages.
• Rebecca Buckman, "Your Listing, and a Word From Our Sponsor" at Wall Street Journal, 20 Apr 2006.
• Micharl Arrington, "1-800-Free-411 has 6% market share of U.S. 411 market" at TechCrunch.com, 15 March 2007.
• Paul Davidson, "Free 411 service goes after rivals for license fees" at USA Today," 14 June 2007.
• Michael Arrington, "Jingle Networks has now raised over $60 million" at TechCrunch.com, 23 October 2007.