Google Launches Sms Based Services In India, Followed By Yahoo!

[Arun 795]

October 9th, 2007

Business Wire India

Search Engine Major Google has launched search services for mobile users in India. Mobile phone users will be able to search Google by just sending SMS. The tool has been released as beta service. The service will be helping all mobile users as one may not even need an internet enable mobile to search Google now. This beta offering brings the power of GoogleT Search to users' fingertips, making information available on the move, without the need of a computer or an Internet-enabled phone.

Services on offer include Local Search, Weather, Glossary, Movies, Q&A, Translation, Web Snippets, Calculator and Currency Conversion.

Google SMS will offer business listings by common locality names. If a user sends SMS regarding inquiry for any locality, the results will be sorted by distance of business from the location. Google is most used Search Engine on internet and offers many innovative solutions. Google also offers local search for online users to find business listings in a particular area. Google SMS will make use of similar technology. Users will have to pay Premium SMS rates as per their provider’s plan.

The Google SMS services will offer information about business listings, show timings and many additional services. The SMS number is 54664 or 5GOOG.

Mr. Vinay Goel, Head of Products Section for Google India is confident that the services will be very useful for mobile subscriber base in India. Airtel has 50 million mobile users and the numbers are rising every month.

The service is currently available in metro cities only and will soon be launched in other cities as well. Airtel, Reliance, BSNL, BPL and Aircel users in Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai will be able to use Google SMS services.

Check out www.google.co.in/sms for an online demo and additional features, and the attached appendix for more information on how to use Google SMS.

[Honest 836]

^^^

It can be a good service for many of those who doesn't have internet enabled mobile phones with them my dear friends.

Regards.

[Ramchi 0]

Great innovation! Goole is the way to go. Irrespective of how it is used, still this is a good one.

[saketsamir 0]

Well I definitely agree that google is coming up with some really innovative ideas, but if we think about the future, then google is going to capture the entire mobile phone market. Few days back itself we heard that google is coming up with cell phone, now this shows that first give people all the product free then make them habitual to that and in the last start charging.

This is what Reliance in India is also following. Any big business is run in the same way as google is running by giving innovative product.

[Arun 795]

Yahoo! India launches SMS search

Business Standard / Mumbai October 19, 2007

Internet media company Yahoo Inc has announced that it will be introducing the Yahoo! oneSearch SMS facility in India. Customers can avail search facilities from their mobile phones by sending their queries to 58242 and get results via the same.

Yahoo! oneSearch is a new offering from the Sunnyvale, Calif-based company that is designed entirely for mobile users. According to Yahoo, oneSearch gives users help make an informed decision, including product reviews, images of different models and where to buy.

“India is one of the fastest-growing mobile markets in Asia. Yahoo! is committed to providing Indian consumers easy-to-use mobile products and services to help them access the Internet," said Pranesh Anthapur, Chief Administrative Officer, Yahoo! India.

When it comes to internet search it is very well understandable with the amount of space both Google and Yahoo occupies but here comes another race apart from web and is the mobile search. The Indian budding mobile market is the next one that search engine service providers are eyeing for. The latest development in the corner is the ‘OneSearch SMS’ service from Yahoo.

Yahoo, the most visited web search engine on Friday add another service to its quality product and service list with the launch of OneSearch SMS service. With this mobile user can easily access any information by sending a SMS to the service number very like the web search.

It is certainly an effort to capture space of the Indian mobile market that is set for a period of fast growth. The SMS service offers consumers to find information related to news, education, weather, stock market and various others.

Besides, Yahoo has also added some more content options to its OneSearch WAP product by adding some other data content with local business directory, flight status information and Yahoo answer content.

At present the search operation is available in almost all major mobile service providers including Airtel, Reliance Mobile, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, BPL Mobile, Aircel, Tata Indicom and Spice Telecom. But it is currently limited to all the four metros but soon the company is intended to cover other parts of the country.

"The pricing would depend on as per the SMS charges by the respective mobile operators," Yahoo India's Chief Administrative Officer, Pranesh Anthapur told reporters.

In fact Yahoo in the month of May launched mobile local search as a beta version in Indian market and since then it’s in continuous effort to add more and more features in its OneSearch tool. With OneSearch SMS service the company will target the largest number of consumers by offering instant information for any search query via SMS.

Earlier in this month search engine giant Google had launched SMS Search service offering local info like restaurant location, movie timings, business listing etc. With the competitiveness from both the search service providers the wireless search business has become a horse race.

However, as far as acquisition of mobile search market is concerned the latest business research on mobile market suggests a clear signal of Google’s forward step. On one hand Yahoo emphasises more on academics that has helped in understanding public psychology and perception but on the other it is Google’s marketing strategy that puts it in the front seat.