In another of its attempts to capture off line search markets Google now offers a service for mobile users in India who don’t have a web-enabled phone- You can now search for information on Google using SMS! The service is currently available in New Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai.

Google charges normal messaging rates(dependent on service providers) for an SMS message. The Google SMS search service can be used for finding anything from the nearest bookstore or a restaurant in your area to movie timings, weather,currency conversion, flight status, cricket scores and a host of other things.

The query can be sent in normal Google search format to 97733 00000. One of the most useful features in SMS search is language translation. For instance, I could SMS “say hello in French” to 9-77-33-00000 to get the right French word. This transliteration is available in a host of Indian languages as well.

Google SMS Search could prove to be serious competition for the business of services such as the ones that charge a premium fee and delivering news or astrology updates or local telephonic search engines and yellow pages by sending information on the mobile phone using short codes.

The service is available for all popular cellular networks including Airtel, BSNL, Idea, Reliance, Spice, Tata Indicom and Vodafone.

Tags: Google on Mobile

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 5:21 pm and is filed under Google, Search Marketing in India. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.