FREE Resources

Free Resources

-Quick Information-

Cha Cha - dial 800-224-2242 (800.2ChaCha) or text 242-242 (ChaCha), ask a question, and a real human will text you an answer within minutes.

Bing 411 - dial 1-800-246-4411 (800 bing-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. Also includes traffic reports, movie times, and weather.

1-800-Free411 - dial 800-373-3411 (800-FREE411), listen to a 10-second ad, and then ask for the listing you want by following the voice prompts. The service also offers weather and horoscope information.

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

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, product, airline, translation, calculator, airports, currency conversion, and more.

-Voice Mail/Messaging-

YouMail is a full-featured voicemail system that replaces your carrier's voicemail system and allows you to individualize outgoing greetings for every person who calls your cell number. You can manage all of your voicemail activities from the YouMail website, record greetings, listen to voicemail, and e-mail blast voice-mail messages to friends. You can choose between standard voicemail notification or text or e-mail notification that provides you with a running log of your incoming voicemail callers and their return numbers.

Bitbom lets you schedule free text message reminders to your phone. You can schedule online or via your mobile phone.

-Many Phones, One Number-
 
Google Voice gives you a single phone number that rings all of your phones, saves your voicemail online, and transcribes your voicemail to text. You can even set your Google Voice number to ring specific phones during specific periods. Other features include the ability to listen in on messages while they're being left, block unwanted callers, and make cheap international calls. 

-Ringtones-

AT&T labs has a page where you type in text, and then it automatically converts that text to speech and gives you a file you can put on your phone to use as a ring tone - which might be useful if you want to create a custom ringtone with the caller's name. You can tweak the pronunciation, insert pauses, etc. Languages include English, Spanish, German, Italian, and French.

PhoneZoo lets you convert your MP3s to custom-length ringtones and forward them to your phone. Plus they offer thousands of free ringtones from other users.

 

-Mobile Blogging/Web Sites-

Wirenode offers a service for creating a mobile blog.

Zinadoo offers mobile site creation and hosting, as well as a design gallery, site interaction features such as click to dial, and more customization options.

-Social Networking and Games-

Mocospace is a social networking and game site for smartphone users. You can meet people, chat in public or private forums, set up your own private forum, share and download wallpapers, photos, and videos from your device, and more.

 

itsmy.com is a mobile social networking site offering private messaging, browsing userprofiles, up-and downloading of user generated content, and updating and enhancing one’s private mobile web space. It claims to be the biggest game community on the web. Point your mobile browser at m.itsmy.com.

-Social Bookmarking-

PhoneFavs is a social bookmarking system designed and optimized for mobile phone users. The service enables you to keep an always-available list of bookmarks for web sites that can be easily viewed on a mobile browser. You can store, organize, and share bookmarks and access them on any device. The site has three main services: online bookmarks or Favs, a handpicked mobile link directory, and a "mobilizer," which automatically adapts standard web pages for improved viewing on smaller screen devices.

Mobleo.net lets you easily organize and manage your mobile bookmarks from your desktop computer and share them if you choose. Other features include the ability to display selected links from your del.icio.us account on your mobile phone.