I met the other day Amit Desai of Dial Directions (347-328-4667). In my two conversations with Amit (the former CTO of Voxify), he’s made some very strong claims about the sophistication of the startup’s speech platform and capabilities. He also gave me some “roadmap” information that may take the service way beyond “free DA.” But for now that’s what the service is, with point-to-point directions (not to diminish it or the Free DA category in any way).

I decided to informally test GOOG411 vs. Dial Directions across category searches and a few name-in-mind searches to see how they comparatively performed. The outcome was something of a split decision.

Dial Directions doesn’t have as extensive a local database as GOOG411, which is speech-enabling its Maps database. Dial Directions works well for chains/franchises and some other categories of local businesses but it’s otherwise incomplete. For its part GOOG411 can’t deliver point-to-point directions or provide the closest business to an address. You can call GOOG411 from a landline (or cell); Dial Directions only works for mobile phones.

Using GOOG411, you can ask, for example, for “San Francisco, Peet’s Coffee” and what you’ll get is eight results that have nothing to do with your precise location. If you do a category search for “cafes” or “coffee houses” you can say an intersection or enter a zip to narrow the search. Once a business is identified, you can be connected or receive a text with the contact details. However, there are no directions.

Dial Directions can’t get you to all the listings that GOOG411 can, but it does a couple of things that GOOG411 cannot. It can give you the closest (type of business, with limitations) or business name in relation to where you are and provide directions via SMS. You can provide an intersection or an individual address and get that information. However, the limited local database (currently) makes it less valuable that it would otherwise be. A San Francisco search for “Mexican Restaurants” near “First and Folsom” on Dial Directions yielded a bunch of chain locations but no independent restaurants. A similar category search on GOOG411 (with an intersection) will provide a broader array of choices. But, again, there are no directions.

Dial Directions has some impressive functionality and the speech recognition was very accurate in my informal test. Also the management is thinking very creatively and expansively about what’s possible with voice search. Desai and his crew also recognize that a “multi-modal” solution is much stronger than a pure voice-in/voice-out approach.