Fonolo, a Toronto-based startup, is offering to provide short cuts through the phone menus of more than 300 companies in the U.S. and Canada.

Since everyone spends far too much time talking to a machine when they really need to talk to a human, we would have thought this particular service would have legs.

Web surfers can click on the option they want to access in a voice menu system, like "Change Mailing Address." The Web site then calls the company and sends sound signals that mimic the user's button presses. When it reaches the right place in the system, it calls up the user and connects him or her to the system.

Fonolo calls up whoever you want then enters all the numbers and when it reaches the agent, it rings you up. The beta service is free at the moment, but next year it plans to introduce paid subscription memberships with expanded features.