Stay In The Know With Google SMS

The Short Messaging Service (SMS) from Google sends short, quick, text answers in response to your queries from an SMS-enabled mobile device, such as a cell phone. For example, you can look up phone numbers and addresses of local restaurants, do local phone book searches, compare prices from online merchants in Froogle to those you find in local stores, even look up definitions of words from the dictionary.

SMS has long been a common means of mobile communication in Europe. It has been available in the US for some time, but hasn't been widely used. You don't need a phone with a web browser to use Google's SMS. Since the information is transmitted as text only, without graphics, only the ability to send and receive SMS messages is needed. At present, the service is only available only in English, through major US wireless carriers like AT&T, Nextel, Sprint, and T-Mobile. Your service plan must allow for SMS messaging also. Use of SMS doesn't generally count against minutes under most plans, but both your SMS to Google and the answer received from Google will typically count towards messages allowed.

Use of the Google SMS service is free at present, though of course users will need to pay any connection and messaging charges from their wireless carriers.

Google SMS can be handy for travel in particular. For example, let's say you've arrived at your hotel, and really have a taste for Chinese food. You may be able to use Google SMS to enter "Chinese food delivery" followed by the zip code of your hotel. Google will return, usually in less than a minute, a list of local Chinese restaurants that offer delivery. This is a nice alternative to looking in a phone book, where you may not know the city, and also is handy for situations where you may not be able to connect to the Internet easily.

About The Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.sitetube.com. Visit his website for the latest on planning, building, promoting and maintaining websites.

In The News:


pen paper and inkwell


cat break through


Search Engine Optimization Tips For 2005 - Part Two

Welcome to the second part of our series of articles... Read More

Keywords Finalization Methodology

To arrive at the set of keywords that:Describe business correctly... Read More

Google is Quickly Changing...

Google is quickly changing...With the big buzz of Novembers fall... Read More

What You Can Expect From Search Engine

Search engines will be a way for you to generate... Read More

7 Steps to Prepare You for The Local Search Bonanza

At One Time Local Searches were reserved for services like... Read More

Search Engine Marketing: Are You Accidentally Hiding From Potential Customers?

You may be hiding if the search engines can't 'see'... Read More

Use Search Engines For A Guaranteed Web Site Promotion

For your web site to succeed, you must use is... Read More

How to Choose Keywords to Theme Your Pages and Boost Your Traffic

One of the most frequent questions I get asked is... Read More

Search Wars! - MSNs Opening Salvo

With all the recent publicity given to Google as the... Read More

Search Engines Are Going to Love You for This

What's the most potent free traffic source on the web?***... Read More

SEO Hints and Tips and Free SEO Tools

Do you realize that if you manage your website, SEO... Read More

DIY SEO - Part 2 Tags n Things

Part 2 Tips 4 tagsMeta tags are the descriptive tags... Read More

The Other Side of the Search Gods Abracadabra!

Thousands of servers ...billions of web pages.... the possibility of... Read More

SEO and Directories

If you are a webmaster, then you've probably submitted your... Read More

Help Your Visitors Zero in with Site-Flavored Google search

As Google has gained in their search reputation the past... Read More

Supply & Demand - Stop Attacking Good SEO Companies!

As I read the latest news online about what Google... Read More

SEO Blues

SEO, not again!, you may groan. The webmaster world is... Read More

Google PageRank Explained

1. What is PageRank? Here is what Google says:" PageRank... Read More

Search Engine Tips & Techniques

As you are building your site or getting your site... Read More

Top 5 Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

There are a lot of ways to promote your website... Read More

How To Design A Search Engine Friendly Website

There are many websites that fail to target their required... Read More

Seek Engines: What If Seek Had Bumped Out Search?

In the early days of the World Wide Web, when... Read More

Fixed Point of Reference

According to author Frank Peretti, "A fixed point of reference... Read More

Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website - Step 2: Content Creation

Welcome to part two in this search engine optimization series.... Read More

Search Engine Robots - How They Work, What They Do (Part I)

Automated search engine robots, sometimes called "spiders" or "crawlers", are... Read More

Googlebot Wont Go Home

I have 'Googlebot' crawl my site every day like a... Read More

A Simple 4 Step Approach To Have Google Crawl Your Site Today Guaranteed!

Extra, Extra Google Now Gives you feedback. By Creating a... Read More

Complete Web-Site Optimization For Search Engines (Part 1)

SEO or search engine optimization strategy now becomes widely popular... Read More

Website Optimization, Good Overall Optimization is Key

Good overall optimization, the right keyword phrases and quality content... Read More

How to Use the Google Patent to Get More Traffic

According to the recent release of the Google Patent Application,... Read More

Do Not Drop Your Web Site Off the Search Engine Cliff

If you've been feeling like Tom Cruise climbing up the... Read More

You Have More Web Sites Than You Think You Have: The Importance of Deep Submission

If I ask you how many web sites do you... Read More

SEOing A Flash Intro

IntroductionWhy does a FLASH intro need SEO? Flash, the great... Read More