Google Launch SMS Search Service

Google recently launched a new SMS search service, in which you text your search query to a phone number. Google will then reply to your phone with search results for your query. Below is what Google has to say about it’s new service:

” Text message your search query to 466453 (‘GOOGLE’ on most devices) and we’ll text message back results.

Personalized SMS saves you time by saving your location. We’ll automatically save your most frequently used location for future queries. You can also text ‘set location’ followed by a city & state or zip to save a new location. Try it out on our demo! ”

This is something we haven’t tried yet but are currently discussing trialling as a test with a couple clients. This isn’t going to work without consumer knowledge/uptake, so we are concerned about a potential lack of volume. It is an interesting mobile search solution as it almost seems like an ‘old school’ solution – instead of using the mobile web this solution uses the tried and tested SMS channel. As texting has a much larger consumer acceptance than accessing the web on one’s mobile, it just might work…. At least until people start accessing the web on their phones as much as they text….