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Google Launches SMS Search Service
jSpectre writes "Google's been busy introducing a lot of new things this week. The latest,
a SMS search service. SMS a message to 46645 (googl) and find
local business listings,
product prices,
dictionary definitions, and
more. Go Google!"
Yes, now i can search for pictures of naked women ANYWHERE!
-ND
The latest, a SMS search service. SMS a message to 46645 (googl) and find local business listings, product prices, dictionary definitions, and more. Go Google!"
If google were 1337, their sms number would be 600613.
This (or something like this) may be huge as people become more dependant on their mobile phones.
No one wants to navigate some funky mobile web page looking for things like numbers, addresses or other things. People want instant information easily.
SMS is pretty easy to understand - send a message and interpet the results. No clunky (and inconsistant) navigation problems.
Heck - mobile mfg's (or OS designers) could put a search service into their phone that could utilize google's offerings automatically.
Google is clearly aiming to be the information center for the connected/wired world, which makes perfect sense: after realizing that Google's value is its sheer amount of content, any service that brings people to that content is going to be pursued.
I bet, eBay and Amazon, with similar giant demographic and e-commerce content won't be too far behind (e.g. the "price check" feature is tailor made for Amazon).
With Google becoming a "proper business" now I'm actually quite amazed they're not charging for this. I would.
I know it doesn't cost them much, you pay for the outgoing and incoming messages after all, but would you miss the cost of one extra message per search? Ignoring special deals, and inter-network rates, that's about 12p in the UK.
Could probably even generate a higher per search revenue stream than the ads.
Seems like a natural, and non-evil, way to make some money to me...
Google learned from Netscape's mistakes and instead of going to the government crying about MSN is constantly working on beating Microsoft to new markets in aways that tie the new markets back to Google's old original base. Knowing how competitive Google is, one would think that Microsoft, which talked about buying them out or competing directly against them, would just accept Google's existance and work with them to save money. At the rate Google is going, it'll probably be the one battle that Microsoft can't win.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Looks like 411 just got outdated. Now I can get a phone number and address for anyone via SMS. And a text message costs what? less than 5 cents? vs a 2 dollar call to information?
I have signed up with a website that provides SMS messages with traffic updates. Since I have a long commute, it's handy to get notification that a major accident has occurred on my route home, so I can work around it. However, my (former) wireless provider--the always wonderful AT&T Wireless--decided that these SMS messages were spam, assumably because of the volume. They now block the IP address that the website is sending the messages from, despite the company's repeated attempts to correct the situation and many customer complaints. We'll see how they respond to this new spike in usage.