Google SMS for quick info

Information via SMS text from Google

If you haven't tried Google's free SMS information system yet, you are missing out. For those of you with smartphones and mobile browsers, you may still be interested just for the plain fact that you can get simple information much faster via SMS search, probably quicker than you can even launch the browser on your mobile phone.

To get started, surf over to Google's SMS site and check out all of the different types of information that you can retrieve with the search codes. My most frequent are 411-type lookups using the "local" code. If I'm looking for the phone number and address for Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse in the New Orleans french quarter, I simply type "Brennan's new orleans, la" and send to 466453, the shortcode for Google's SMS service. Almost as fast as I hit send, the reply comes back with the address and phone number for Brennan's Restaurant on Royal St., Dicky Brennan's Steakhouse on Iberville St., and Dickie Brennan & Co. on Canal.

Another very useful feature is the PRICE code. I was shopping for a bark collar the other day and in the dog training section of a local outdoor supply store. They had a pretty good selection of collars, but I wasn't sure how good the prices were. By typing PRICE Innotek Bark and sending to 466453 I was sent three prices. The more specific the item description the more likely you are to get the right pricing.

Other frequently used codes are Weather when I'm traveling, Flight schedule lookups when I'm rushing to the airport, and the Q&A or Web function when I'm arguing about who was the singer on Yellow Submarine (it was Ringo).

Let me know which ones you find most useful and how often you now find yourself doing SMS lookup of phone numbers instead of using 800Free411 or 800Goog411.