GOOG-411 will shut down November 12.   I am a fan of the service, an automated version of the old 411 directory assistance--with a living, breathing operator--of days past. Granted, I found myself using GOOG-411 less and less, particularly as more advanced options became available.

I last used GOOG-411 a few months ago to contact a local animal shelter after my son found an injured squirrel that had fallen out of a tree near his school. On behalf of the squirrel, which survived, thank you, Google.

GOOG-411 paved the way for today's relatively refined speech-recognition tools for Android phones, including voice search, which lets you search Google by speaking rather than typing.   In addition, voice input lets you fill a text field by speaking. And you can call a business simply by saying its name (into the phone).

Not everybody uses a smartphone, of course. If you're stuck in the flip/feature phone era, Google offers a somewhat clunky alternative to GOOG-411 and its successors. To call a business, send a text message with the business's name and location to 466453 ("GOOGLE"). Google will text you the information.

Contact Jeff Bertolucci via Twitter ) or at .