You’re lost.  You’re hungry.  You’re vulnerable.  It’s at this moment in which most people sigh and resort to dialing that dreaded number on their mobile phones: 4-1-1.  Phone directory services used to be free until some business mogul discovered that it was a lucrative business plan.  Move over 411; here comes Dial Directions.

Granted 347-328-4667 isn’t as easy to remember, but it does spell “DIR-ECT-IONS” on your alphanumerical key pad.  Currently serving the greater metro areas of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and New York, Dial Directions will help you get to any street address or business in your vicinity.  After calling Dial Directions, the friendly female robot operator will ask where you’d like to go, and where you are beginning (the address or intersection). 

A short note about Dial Directions’ voice recognition technology: it’s amazing!  We spoke with Co-Founder Amit Desai, but sadly, he wouldn’t disclose the “secret sauce” that makes Dial Directions so efficient.  It’s not easy to find a voice operated service in which you don’t have to repeat “Geary and Van Ness” with varying inflection until you are understood.

After locating the nearest Starbucks or the intersection at Jones and Eddy, the operator will help you get started in the right direction, and you are free to hang up.  The directions will be sent to you via SMS text message.  Yes, you’ll be reading while driving, but you’ll also have it for future reference.

Dial Directions is a free beta service to any cell phone user.  The Alameda-based company is currently operating off of privately funded seed investments.