Google by Text Message!!!

[budney]

I received this in a email from a good friend, and though I should share this with everyone. Let me know if it works. I don't have text messaging on my phones.

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Get the 411 with 46645

SMS stands for Short Message Service, and Europe and
Asia have thoroughly embraced this text messaging
technology. Using your phone to send and receive text
messages is a newer phenomenon in the U.S. Now we're
getting into the fray with Google SMS. It's a way to
access Google for precise information from your mobile
phone or handheld device (like a BlackBerry).

Google SMS is a handy way to, say, get a listing for a
nearby restaurant, find the definition of a word, or
look up the price of a product, an area code or Zip
code. You can even use Google SMS to calculate a tip.
If your phone is enabled for text messages, just send
your query to this 5-digit US shortcode: 46645. (It
corresponds to GOOGL on most phones.) Your query
results are sent as text messages, not links. Learn
more about using Google SMS on our help page or by
sending a text message with the word 'help' to 46645.

-- Benjamin Ling
Product Manager, Google SMS

[jones]

Your carrier says Cingular, all GSM phones have Text Messaging, no exception.

[viewfly]

Pretty neat! Thanks for the tip. Better than going to the google web page from the phone's browers. It's very quick too.

It does work. And yes, every one has text messaging, tdma or gsm. Price is $0.10 per message unless you sign up for a package of minutes per month.



http://sms.google.com

Best,

[budney]

I should of been more clear on my above post. I know every phone has pay-per-use SMS, but the code isn't on my Cingular line, need to call them today. And my T-Mobile phone was charging in the kitchen at the time.

[Shizam76]

Do you have to use certain words? I asked what the tip was for a bill that is $27.53. It texted me back it was unable to get the information...it didn't know what I was asking.

[budney]

I think may be you need to ask the percentage of that $27.53. A tip is normally 10- 20% of the bill. It didn't know what percentage of the bill you wanted to leave for a tip.

[jones]

Google Rolls Out Test of Short Message Service

Thu Oct 7, 8:36 PM ET


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc. on Thursday announced a new test service that allows people to use mobile phones or handheld devices to tap Google's Web search via text messages, or short message service.



Called Google SMS, the service is the newly public company's broadest push yet in the mobile market and comes as Google and its rivals in the hotly competitive Web search industry race to expand their reach.


Outlined at http://sms.google.com, it delivers business and residential listings, product prices and dictionary look-up.


Mountain View, California-based Google is not taking a percentage of the 5-cent to 10-cent per-message charge levied by mobile carriers, nor will advertisers influence results.


"In all of these cases you do not pay to be included," Georges Harik, director of Google's incubator Googlettes said, referring to the businesses that show up in the SMS listings.


"We're not charging anything for the service and we have no plans to do so in the near future. We're trying to see if this is compelling enough to get people to use it," he said.


With the service, a hungry tourist in San Francisco could find a Chinese restaurant by sending Google a text message that reads "chinese san francisco ca" or by including a ZIP code locater such as "chinese 94104." Google would then send back a text message with information from Google's local search.


Shoppers could pull pricing information on 4-megapixel digital cameras from Google's online comparison shopping engine, Froogle, by sending a message that reads "price digital camera 4mp." Google Local and Froogle are also in beta.


Google SMS currently works with the top six U.S. wireless providers including Cingular Wireless, Verizon Wireless and Sprint. The service does not work outside of the United States as Google as yet to expand its local search services overseas.


Text messaging, which works on most mobile phones now on the market, is still growing in popularity in the United States but has been widely used in Europe for years. While analysts were not blown away by the widely available technology, they said the move would probably be good for Google.


"It gives people that are heavily reliant on Google's services the ability to extend the use beyond their PC to their phone," said Yankee Group senior analyst Linda Barrabee.


Analysts said Google is certain to face competition in the future as mobile providers upgrade their networks and use the Web to deliver increasingly sophisticated information to mobile phones. For example, maps and menus could be shown on phones via the Internet, one analyst said.


Nevertheless, IDC research manager Keith Waryas, said such changes take time. "This is probably going to be quite a valuable service in the short term."






google

[Shizam76]

Originally Posted by budney

I think may be you need to ask the percentage of that $27.53. A tip is normally 10- 20% of the bill. It didn't know what percentage of the bill you wanted to leave for a tip.

Okay...I typed in "15% of 27.53" and it told me.

It wasn't really a bill....I was just testing it out.....I usually leave 15% for good service....20 for supurb service

[bobolito]

The only problem I see is how often do you know the zip code you are in when you are traveling and need this information?

[weldor]

I just wondered if anyone can tell me why this won't work on my Cellular One phone with Western wireless, I have text messaging enabled and can use it to text another phone but when I try the Google service I get a message failed screen??

[viewfly]

Originally Posted by bobolito

The only problem I see is how often do you know the zip code you are in when you are traveling and need this information?

As explained on google/sms web page, you can type in the city, state instead of zipcode:

pizza 10013
pizza new york ny

Both work.

BUT... if you type in 'g zip code city' it will return the zip code for you!!

Shizam76
I hope you don't need to google to find 15% for a tip...use the phone calculator!

[bobolito]

Nice....much more useful than I thought...

I typed "Cingular 07502" and it gave me the two closest Cingular stores.
I didn't know there was a Cingular store right in my town.

Sprint users must be glad Sprint is finally doing SMS. I wonder if this works on Nextel, the only other carrier without SMS.

[Shizam76]

Originally Posted by viewfly

Shizam76
I hope you don't need to google to find 15% for a tip...use the phone calculator!

LoL ....no I didn't need it. I just wanted to test it out, to see what it was all about and what it would do/say. Pretty neat

[AnthroMatt]

The Google page also states the service will not (or may not) work with ported numbers.

As for me, I tested it out on my non-ported number on T-Mobile and it does not seem to work. I never got a reply SMS.

[AnthroMatt]

How funny. A couple days later and I get multiple messages that "the service is temporarily down."

[Shizam76]

Originally Posted by AnthroMatt

How funny. A couple days later and I get multiple messages that "the service is temporarily down."

Matt--Was that today? I just tried it from my Cingular phone and my work T-Mobile phone and got SMS'ed back.

[AnthroMatt]

Yeah. I tried it on Saturday and today I got those error messages. I'll try again right now.

[AnthroMatt]

Well what do ya know...it worked! Nice!

[PDXMatt]

Well, bugger. It is not working for me today.

[AnthroMatt]

Originally Posted by PDXMatt

Well, bugger. It is not working for me today.

A work in progress I guess...