Dial Directions is a mobile directions service that delivers point to point directions to your mobile phone. To get directions to any location, you dial d-i-r-e-c-t-i-o-n-s (347-328-4667), say where you are, where you want to go, and get directions between the two points sent to your mobile phone via SMS. Their eventual plans for monetization include inserting small text ads into the SMS messages.
Today Dial Directions is announcing national coverage and extending their mobile directions platform to deliver directions on demand for any event.
While Dial Directions was already available in the San Francisco Bay area, and the greater metro areas of New York and Los Angeles, they are now expanding to include: Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Sacramento, San Diego and Washington, D.C.
The other announcement, event directions, has been available upon special request (Like TechCrunch 9), but is now opened up to self-service. Now anyone can list a keyword and address for an event with Dial Directions. Attendees can get directions to an event by calling and asking for the event by title. The service is now live for TechCrunch 40. All you need to do is call in and say “TechCruch”.
In addition to directions, the service gives event details, such as date and time. Later on, organizers will be able to record a greeting that callers will hear. Event listings also have a grace period which will announce the details for upcoming events and tell callers if events have passed.
This adds a third option to the list of ways to request directions supported by calling into Dial Directions. The other two service options find directions by point or the nearest location of a chain store. Dial Directions plans on adding more options in the future. There are several other richer mobile directions options including TellMe, Yahoo, and Google’s mobile applications. However, Dial Directions is banking on their feature set and accessibility on any phone that can make a call as a strong competitive advantage.