There’s a new free interpreter phone service available, and though it’s only available in six markets at the moment — Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC — it promises to be national by the end of the week. In those markets the service can be accessed by calling 1-888-855-0811.
The languages? This service offers Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. I wasn’t able to test it, because it’s not in my market, but here’s how it’s supposed to work — someone calls the new service (it’s called “Your World. Your Language.”) and selects their preferred language and a business category. A human interpreter comes on the line and helps the caller communicate with the business.
The press release says “Your World. Your Language. allows limited English speakers to access a host of key commercial, retail and entertainment businesses anytime and at no charge,” and according to the site’s frequently asked questions, “consumers who call for assistance are referred only to these participating businesses.” It’s not clear if someone called trying to reach a specific business — their doctor, for example — would be able to use the service to communicate, since there would be no referral involved.
I got a note last week about a new Web site that lists businesses that are kid-friendly. At the moment it only focuses on thirteen major geographic areas, including Phoenix, Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Denver, Chicago, New York City, Washington DC, Atlanta, Orlando and Miami. You can get results from other areas, but they won’t be comprehensive. (The site does plan to expand to over 25 markets by the end of the year.)
Still with me? Great. The site allows you to search by city/state, or by zip code with a mile radius. You specify what category you want (hotels, kid-friendly restaurants, afterschool activities, shopping, camps, etc) or search by keyword.
I searched for kid-friendly restaurants in Phoenix. I got 27 results, mostly from chains. The result lists shows the name of the establishment and the address, but not the phone number. Clicking on the name gives you a little additional information including the phone number, and an option to download the menu. (The menu is in PDF format.)
This is a quick way to narrow down on places that are more kid-friendly, but I found myself missing information on local shops (I seemed to find a lot of chains), and more information on the individual location pages. And why not embed the maps right on the individual location page, instead of in a pop-up window?
Personally I’m not into getting up at zero AM and staggering to the mall. I’d rather stay home and shop online. I don’t have to worry about a place to park, and I don’t have to worry about someone smacking me in the head with a shopping bag.
Amazon is aiming for people like me with its online Black Friday deals. You can get a list of the today’s shopping deals — one every hour — at the hourly lightning deals page.
Amazon is also doing its Amazon votes promotion, which allows customers to vote on items they want to see heavily discounted. (The product with the most votes gets the deep discount.)
And finally, as this is a Web 2.0 Black Friday, Amazon has a widget for today’s deals. Check it out, and happy shopping!
