AskMeNow
January 9, 2007
Another quick answer service for mobile users is AskMeNow, a service that (for 25 cents) lets you text message your question to a number and then you will get an "answer" texted back to you right away. I put "answer" in quotes because they claim that they will send you homework help, historical information, and more–and not just links. From their FAQ, this service does not seem to involve humans at all, but is rather a custom-web search of a sort. That seems pretty lame to me, and not really worth paying for. But I guess if you have text messaging on your phone but it isn’t web-enabled, this would be better than nothing. Unless your super cool local library offers text-messaging reference, in which case you’re covered for free 
January 9th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Google Mobile is a free-for-the-cost-of-a-text-message service: just send a text message to 466453 (“Google”) and within seconds, get the top Google results for your search.
I’ve used this on the road for addresses/phone numbers, and it’s come through for me.
See http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/mobile/sms for more information.
January 10th, 2007 at 6:45 am
I’ve used both AskMeNow and Google SMS and found AskMeNow much better. From what I’ve read (I’m trying to find a link) they use real humans for questions that have never been asked before, but once it gets asked it’s stored for quicker access later.
Google SMS is good at local directory assistance stuff, but I use AskMeNow for everything else. It’s also much better for directory assistance when you’re not in your home area and don’t know the zip code.
All in all, I’m a happy AskMeNow user.
February 19th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Yeah AskMeNow blows Google SMS out of the water. You can ask any question and get the answer. Google SMS is limited to a few categories of info.