An increasing number of companies are now competing to offer you free phone-related services. Many of these are extremely useful and will work with any mobile or smartphone. Our complete directory of these free phone services can be found at smartphonemag.com/bestphoneresources.asp. Here are some of the best.

ChaCha

Dial 800-224-2242 (800-2ChaCha) or send a text message to 242242 with your question, and one of ChaCha's human guides does a quick search and within two minutes sends a text message to your mobile phone with the answer. ChaCha works best with specific questions, such as, What is cytoplasm? What is the weather in Naples, Florida? What was last night's final Chicago Cubs score? Where is a great Italian restaurant in Manhattan? And it has to be a question that can be answered within the 160-character limitation of a text message.

Google SMS

Text a query to 466453 (GOOGLE), and get a text response: news, weather, sports, glossary, movies, stocks, Zip Codes, directions, maps, flights, area codes, products, airline, translation, calculator, airports, currency conversion, and more.

Live Search 411

Dial 800-225-5411 (800 CALL-411) and say the city and state, then ask for the business or business category. Say "Connect me," to instantly connect to the business. Ask for a text message with a link to a map of the business.

Google 411

Dial 800-466-4411 (800-GOOG-411), say the location and type of business, and Google 411 will connect you. Say "text message" or "map it," and you'll receive a text message with more details and a map.

TellMe

Dial 800-555-8355 (800-555-TELL) for news, weather, sports, stock quotes, business listings, directions, movie times, horoscope, and more.

Dial Directions

Dial 347-328-4667 (DIR-ECT-IONS) and ask for directions to any address, store, or event. Dial Directions asks you for your start and destination, and instantly texts back turn-by-turn directions.

YouMail.com

YouMail claims to be the only generally available, free, customizable cell phone voicemail service that lets you set up many outgoing messages and tailor them to specific contacts. You can manage all of your voicemail activities from the YouMail Web site, including record greetings, listen to voicemail, and e-mail blast voicemail messages to friends. You can choose between standard voicemail notification, text message, or e-mail notification. You can listen to voicemail messages, forward messages on to other people, or reply via SMS without ever having to dial into their voicemail service. YouMail now includes visual voicemail, which lets you access your voicemail via your device's browser. And like the iPhone, you can see all your messages at a glance and can choose which ones to play and in what order.

GrandCentral.com

GrandCentral lets you consolidate all your phones to a single number that rings all your phones. Or via a Web interface, you can choose which phone rings based on the individual caller or a category of callers, such that, for example, all business callers could be routed to your cell phone. The service includes centralized voicemail that can be checked from the Web site or through a phone, as well as call screening and name-based caller ID, blocking of numbers (including automatic blocking of telemarketer numbers in their database), call recording, the ability to switch lines during a call, and individualized voicemail greetings based on the caller. As of this writing, it's in beta and is available via invitation only.
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