SMS Google
I've written about the need for much better mobile search in the past, noting that it needs to be somewhat different than traditional search. Someone doing a mobile search isn't sitting in front of a big screen doing stuff on the screen, but they're likely to be out doing something else. The search is likely to have something to do with that "something else" they're doing, and needs to better fit into that experience. One element is that, instead of having to call up a search interface, run the query and wait for the results to be displayed, it's a touch faster to just be able to send off the query as text message. The new meta-search engine IceRocket lets you do that with email, and now Google is getting into the game as well, launching a beta test of a system to let you SMS Google with a query. Yes, it's only a small step up from calling up a search interface, but it does lower the hurdle ever so slightly, and moves mobile search one small step in the direction it needs to go.
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