WordDial 1.0

A company named 'web-publishers' has released a new mobile phone application called 'WordDial,' which is not to be confused with the name of the New Zealand company (WordDial) that operates a vast internet directory comprised of dotcom wordnumber portals. Web-publishers, according to its website, specializes in 'interactive data driven web applications.' But its app for the iPhone does exactly the opposite of what you'd think an app a-la-'WordDial' would do. The downloadable iPhone feature, which costs US$0.99, does the simple task of converting text to a number. Their sample inquiry is

'type your text, eg "1 (800) MY-APPLE" and click the "Get Number" button. WordDial will convert it into a phone number, tap number to dial.'

More, including screen shots, can be found on the 'WordDial' webpage.

What is really needed is the opposite to the WordDial app, a feature such as 'allnum:,' the Google operator developed for its Google Number Search protocol. The allnum feature still works, and if you are ambitious enough you can set your mobile hompage to http://www.466453.com/search?q=allnum%3A and successfully translate just about any NUMERIC inquiry into its WORD equivalent. Visit the link, and add a 'wordnumber' like 262966 and you're provided with a lightning fast link to Amazon.com. Just don't try any word or name that wasn't on the internet in 2000. Why? Well, that's a long story...(that you can read about in our archives).

Give voice-activated directions a rest: use your thumbs

IAC Search & Media, the parent company of ASK.com, announced on Thursday (Jan. 3, 2008) that it has incorporated the voice-activated technology developed by Dial Directions (Dialdirections.com) into ASK.com's mobile directions service. The press release asserts that "voice input is a natural complement to the Ask.com Mobile Directions" portal and is an improvement (over typing on a mobile device) because it 'eliminates typing addresses, which can be slow, error-prone and, in some cases, unsafe.'

Now wait a second. Typing addresses on a mobile device may in fact not be more difficult. If you think of all the hard-to-pronounce street and city names out there, you'd be certain that ASK.com has not 'figured it out' and users will be wasting away minutes speaking s-l-o-w-e-r and s-l-o-w-e-r before eventually giving up. You can be certain that a percentage of the time ASK.com won't recognize peoples' pronunciation of cities or streets in the U.S., for example cities named by the Native American Indians or early Spanish settlers. Try getting directions to or from Wewahitchka, Florida, from ASK mobile's speech-activated directions search engine...just try.

As we blogged about earlier this week, automated voice-based search directories aren't perfect and neither are automated voice-activated directions services. Unless you're using a live person (e.g., ChaCha), text input will always have to be incorporated into any form of mobile search and only the folks at Google have figured out a way to make texting truly fast, easy and simple.

Using Google Number Search technology to type addresses *can be* (if the technology was applied) quick, error-free and quite safe as evidenced by this simple sample query, '10 3696464 787338,' which spells a popular address on your keypad:

http://www.google.com/search?q=allnum%3A10+3696464+787338

Google simply needs to fold-in GNS into Google Maps Mobile and as a result it would be far more accurate, easier to use and safer than ASK.com's voice-activated directions service.

Marketing wordnumbers for use with GOOG411

As automated voice-based search directories grow in popularity, businesses with exotic and hard-to-pronounce names may be at a disadvantage. For instance, if you call a typical automated voice search directory and want to find the phone number for a restaurant called 'Oaxaca' or 'Ame' or perhaps a nightclub called 'ThéâtrO' or 'Babalúu', you may have a pretty hard time getting the voice recognition software to understand you. 'Voice searching' instead by generic categories such as 'restaurants' or 'nightclubs' might also be a lost cause since it may be too onerous to listen through the long list of results.

Goog411 - Google's free voice search service for business telephone directory information - is the only automated (sans a live person to help you) voice search directory with a unique feature that provides users with the ability to search for the name of a business by entering its wordnumber. A wordnumber is constructed by spelling a word using the numbers on your keypad, such as 9256278 for Walmart or 8294 for taxi.

Businesses with hard-to-pronounce names might circumvent voice recognition obstacles by marketing their wordnumber for use in combination with Goog411. (This is assuming that customers know how to spell the names of the businesses they frequent.) How would this work? Since Goog411 works by first narrowing the search to within the user's preference of city and state, a restaurant or club named 'Babalúu' in a certain city will likely be the first, and possibly only, result if the user entered its wordnumber, 2222588. Goog411 conveniently offers to connect the user to the telephone number and also to 'Map It' (receive a SMS message with a link to a map).

Babaluu's customers don't even need to memorize the wordnumber - customers only need to know what to do after calling Goog411. "For reservations, call 1-800-GOOG-411 and press the numbers that correspond with the word Babaluu" might be part of the restaurant's marketing message on advertisements. Certainly branding the wordnumber might even work if the wordnumber is easy to remember. Registering the dotcom wordnumber at 2222588.com, which would redirect the user to the business homepage, would be a natural extension of this idea.

There are literally thousands of companies in every country that may lose business because automated free voice search directory services will be stumped by callers who - for a myriad of reasons - are stumbling with the articulation of business names. The wordnumber is the perfect solution.

'Spell with keypad,' Google says. And the mobile world awakes.

Google has breathed the first gust of air into its master mobile plan. It has spoken the simple, unassuming words ' spell with keypad ' and, without knowing it, millions of mobile phone users have been audience to Google's quiet initiation into the greatest technological revolution that the world has ever seen. What is so significant about those three words? On Google's cheatsheat page for GOOG-411, the free (ad-supported) directory assistance service launched by Google, it discusses the option for users to enter a business name or category by using the cell phone keypad. The exact prompt, after you call 1-800-GOOG-411 and utter a city and state and press 1, is:

To spell the business name or category using your keypad just enter one number for each letter. For example, to spell Taxi, you'd enter 8-2-9-4 and just leave out spaces and punctuation.

Folks, this is no normal text messaging. This is the world of wordnumbers. Google wants you to ' spell with keypad ' by pressing each key just once. Press the number equivalent of each letter you want to spell with and, tada! Google uses on its web cheatsheet the example of 'TOYS would be 8697.' In this case, the 8697 is the wordnumber for Toys. The actual domain 8697.com would be the dot com wordnumber.

So what's the big whoop? Firstly, Google is actively using its Google Number Search (GNS) technology in an active application (finally). Google Number Search was a mobile search experiment that enabled users to search the internet using wordnumbers. Google shut down GNS in 2000 after poor uptake of the technology but has kept the domain, 466453.com, which was the dedicated domain for GNS searching. GNS is what interprets numeric strings entered in the GOOG411 application into words that it matches against yellow pages directories. Google has for long maintained quasi-inactive applications of GNS, for instance the operators ALLNUM and NUM, which work in all Google search products - Jamptap was the first to report on the existence of those operators.

Secondly, Google is using an updated GNS lexicon for GOOG-411. The NUM and ALLNUM operators are still linked to a lexicon of common words, company names, etc.. that hasn't been updated since 2000 (i.e., the wordnumber for Cingular doesn't work with NUM or ALLNUM).


The real truth - so we think - is that Google is planning on relaunching its Google Number Search system. This ' spell with keypad ' mention is a rare one for Google. It indicates a whole lot. It means that Google is ironing out the kinks in its GNS and furthermore testing the waters to see if end users will take up the idea of a wordnumber - entering in numbers as replacements for letters on a mobile phone keypad - for mobile search. If Google sees - based on the data they record, keep and analyze - that users don't mind spelling out search entries with numeric tapping, then there is no reason to believe that Google won't start prodding mobile search users to do the same thing. That is where the revolution will happen since mobile search could one day capture a market many times larger than the PC search market and the advertising revenue potential is unthinkably large. The problem has been the fact that texting on mobile phones is very cumbersome. Google holds the key to solve that mobile search problem. It lies in three simple words: spell with keypad.

In case you may be wondering, the dotcom wordnumber for Toys is taken by Worddial.com

Baidu listed on WordDial SEARCH portal

Update: (11.21.2007) Baidu has fallen to last (sixth) place at 732724.com

WordDial, the New Zealand internet company that owns more numeric domains than there are books in a typical local library, has a new client: Baidu, the Chinese search giant. Recent news has indicated that Baidu is stepping up its mobile efforts and, as Jamptap just discovered, Baidu has bought its way into fourth place on WordDial's premiere SEARCH portal. The Baidu link appears below those for the three U.S. search engine giants (Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo) and above ASK and AOL search.

WordDial's SEARCH portal is one of thousands of portals set up by the company that allow quick access to mobile friendly sites from users' mobile keypads. The premise behind the site is that of the wordnumber. A wordnumber is the numeric equivalent of a word using a phone keypad as the frame of reference - for instance the worddnumber for SEARCH is 732724. WordDial owns a staggering number of dot com worddnumbers for generic words, most of which will take users to relevant hyperlinked directories/portals.

WordDial doesn't just own dot com wordnumbers for generic words. It also owns the same for phrases, places, and even some brands. For instance WordDial owns the dot com wordnumber for Yahoo (92466.com). (It - owing to an agreement with Yahoo - forwards all traffic from 92466.com to the SEARCH portal (732724.com).) WordDial also owns the dot com worddnumber for Live (5483.com) and that portal - owing to an agreement with Microsoft - has a link to Windows Live Search for Mobile/MSN Mobile above a link to a Vodafone site.

WordDial, however, doesn't own the dot com wordnumbers for Google (466453.com, which is owned by Google and goes to Google.com), and also ASK and Baidu.

The idea of the wordnumber dates back to the early days of the internet. It was in 1999 that Google launched its Google Number Search (GNS) that prompted users to visit 466453.com and type in urls or search phrases as wordnumbers. The basic functions are still written into Google's search technology as operators ALLNUM and NUM. Jamptap has long speculated that Google will relaunch its GNS product again in the future. When it does, enterprises like WordDial will pat themselves on the back for being patient with a userbase that that has largely ignored its efforts to popularize (and profit from) the wordnumber.

Great frustrations on an un-shoestring budget

Eric Schmidt of Google at 2007 third-quarter earnings call:

"On the mobile search side, our mobile searches are increasing rapidly compared to a year ago. They are growing more quickly than non-mobile searches. They are still a very small percentage of total searches, which is of great frustration to us...' [Emphasis ours]

Here's the answer to your troubles, Schmidt:



Remember Google Number Search?

Anyone can type FASTER on a normal cell phone than on a IPhone

Use Google Number Search.

Technology, sad to say, is going to the wrong uses. The .COM button that appears on the IPhone's keyboard (when in browser mode) should be on regular cell phone handsets.
Apple should realize that its QWERTY and 'smart' keyboard is a thumb-soring exercise in futility.

The wheel has already been invented...and Google, smirking, is sitting on gold, waiting to re-release GNS.

92466.com vs. 466453.com

The big news here on Jamptap, which has had a lame existence over the past year for no other reason than the big Internet companies have lacked the courage and ingenuity to try something new, is that Yahoo has apparently signed a lease with Worddial for 92466.com. WordDial bought 92466.com before Yahoo could. And this apparently pissed Yahoo off (when they found out) because Yahoo proceeded to buy every 92466 in every TLD around the world. When you typed in 92466.com on your mobile browser until this week, you were forwarded to the SEARCH (732724.com) page of WordDial, which provided links to Google, Motionbridge, Live search and others, but not Yahoo.

WordDial was smart. And Yahoo was holding out, but in the end knew that WordDial would never sell 92466.com to them. WordDial is a company based in New Zealand that owns over 1 million numeric domain names (dot coms) and has been developing a simple technology to allow easy access to information on the web using just the numbers on your phone keypad. They have little intention - although I can't be sure of this - of selling, since their business model is about 'content partnership,' which is a fancy term for charging fees to be included in a mobile directory listing. So...when I checked today, just days after the launch of Yahoo's new mobile search application, 'OneSearch,' there was one new link on the top of the list at 732724.com: Yahoo.

Brilliant. Yahoo knew that it needed to survive by at least matching Google at its mobile services, even if that meant paying whichever asking price for a content partnership agreement with WordDial.

So, where are the headlines? There aren't any and probably won't be any. This whole numeric domain thing has never had much success, yet. Google tried it in 2001 with their Google Number Search. Google's GNS was not used very much and so Google stopped updating a crucial part of their servers that link to GNS searches, which can still be performed if you type a series of numbers after allnum: or num: in Google. But Yahoo knows the wave of the future. Yahoo will never be a downloadable application that is menu-driven. Yahoo will always require the user to type in Yahoo in their browser. When it comes to cell phones, key-pad input is a big deal. It is cumbersome. But it is very easy to switch to number-mode and start pressing numbers, instead of multi-tapping to type out letters in a domain name. Thus, while Yahoo(.com) is 11 keypad taps, 92466(.com) is 5 presses. 466453.com is a 'savings' of 7 taps over Google.com. If you think of the millions of mobile users that will be accessing Google and Yahoo each day in the near future, they could be cutting their key pad entries in half using the numeric domains 466453.com, and 92466.com. A search engine that doesn't follow suit could lose customers for no other reason than it would take users an extra 5 or 6 keypad presses to get to that search engine's homepage.

So, the fight in the ring between Yahoo and Google is more vigorous than even it appears in the presses. Will both companies begin to advertise these numeric domain portals? Will other internet companies follow suit? Will domain speculators start buying up numeric domain names?