Yahoo Mobile’s SMS Text Message Search
Yahoo has launched an SMS Search service which lets mobile users perform Yahoo searches via text messaging. Yahoo has also expanded its mobile web search to function with WAP browsers. The two Yahoo services are available to mobile users across the United States.
Both Yahoo SMS Search and Yahoo Search on Mobile use shortcuts to help consumers find the information they need quickly while on the go. Search shortcuts are a quick way for consumers to get a direct response with specific information they want including local information, weather reports, stock quotes and more.
For example, a consumer looking for a post office could simply type in “post office” and either the city and state or zip code for where they are looking. Consumers will receive a text message with the search results directly highlighting the closest post offices.
“We know that today consumers are on the go with their mobile phone and our search services represent a new way for them to get the relevant information they need quickly by using Yahoo!,” said Doug Garland, senior vice president, Yahoo! Mobile. “Yahoo!’s search services and shortcuts on mobile devices let consumers get the information they need – from finding the latest weather forecast, to updated stock quotes, to tracking down a good place to have lunch – from wherever they are.”
More from Yahoo Search Blog :
Though many of us in Yahoo! Mobile are hip to the latest in mobile technologies and walk around with cutting edge mobile phones in our pockets, we’re still very aware that the vast majority of cellular customers here in the U.S. still really haven’t used many advanced mobile features like, you know, accessing the Internet wirelessly. Can you believe it? Thus we have a couple announcements today geared towards making the Yahoo! Mobile more accessible to more mobile phone customers.
It’s not like the U.S. is in a mobile backwater any more. The good thing is thanks to the combined marketing powers of the national carriers and shows like American Idol, most American cellular customers are at least aware of SMS Text Messaging now (which is nice), and pretty much every handset out there supports texting as a basic functionality. So today we’re launching SMS Yahoo! Search so that just about anyone with a mobile phone can access Yahoo!
If you think about an SMS message form, it’s very similar to a search box found already on Yahoo! Search. You fill out one field with your query, press a button and great results come back. Now you don’t have to fumble with bookmarks or wait for the initial Yahoo! Mobile Search form to load, you can send off your search as fast as you can send a friend a quick text message. What’s more, is that we’ve also included functionality to do the same search just by replying to an original response  say if you’ve done a stock quote search for YHOO earlier in the day, instead of having to retype the query again, just send a blank reply to one of the earlier quotes and Yahoo! will send you an update automatically.
Right now you can search for any local information by sending a query with your location or zip code like: “pizza 94025”, you can get a stock quote with: “s yhoo”, weather information: “w 94025”, dictionary definitions: “d garrulous”, horoscopes: “h aquarius”, WiFi hotspots: “wifi 94123”, and more are coming.
