Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Google india extends search option to cellphones

If 1990s had been the era of search engines, 2000s is the era of refined searches. And Google, which has been a synonym for search engines, on Tuesday introduced Google SMS for mobile users in India. This beta offering brings the power of Google Search to the users' fingertips, making information available on the move, without the need of a computer or an Internet-enabled phone.

"A search for sushi in Hyderabad with the keywords - sushi Hyderabad - on the Internet browser will bring up 75,000 results. On the other hand, Google SMS will just give you the name of restaurants and their locations where sushi is served in Hyderabad. The results are refined and brings up the precise product a customer is looking for," said Mr Vinay Goel, head of products, Google India.

With Google SMS mobile messaging service, users can get business listings, movie show times and more simply by sending a text message to the shortcode 54664 [5GOOG] from their mobile phones. This service is currently available on the Airtel, Aircel, BPL, BSNL and Reliance networks, and has relevant local data for mobile users in Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai. Carriers' premium text messaging rates apply.

"Searching through Google SMS is simple. For example, a user seeking information on pizzerias in Andheri West can text message, and a list of pizza restaurants in that area will be delivered to his or her phone within seconds. Google SMS allows for searches by common locality names, and ranks results by proximity to the specified location. The service also saves time by saving a user's location, so they don't have to type their location every time they search," Mr Goel said.

Google has been giving immense importance to mobile space and especially after information trickled out about engineers working on Google phone; expectations in the tech world have been fuelled.

"India's mobile space is huge and Google had always looked at India as one of their high priority markets. Over 25 billion SMSes are sent in India every year and we would leverage on this," Mr Goel added.

The users would be charged between 80 paise and Rs 3 per SMS depending on the operator, he said, declining to give details of the revenue sharing arrangement between Google and telecom companies.

"After receiving the feedback from the four cities, we will launch the service across the country," Mr Goel said.a

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