Free text message search
November 17th, 2005 | by mbhunter |A reader brought word of an interesting service to my attention:
I am a big fan of the bargain hunter site.
I just found this… an easy way to save $2.00 when getting directory assistance from your cell phone. Just send your question as a text message, ex. “pizza chicago” or “pizza 60608″ to the number 2SNAP (27627) and you’ll get the results back in seconds.
Works all over the US. They also offer the option to connect the call for free. Since text messages only cost like 5 cents you save a bunch. Really easy… as long as you’re not driving at the time, in which case it can be tough to text! You can find more info at UpSnap.com.
Hope this is useful … Keep up the great work!
If you find what you feel is a great resource, please contact me about it and I’ll be glad to look it over and post about it!
I checked out UpSnap.com, the company that provides this service. The way it seems to work (please also check the site for yourself):
- Companies pay to get included in a search directory accessible by text messaging.
- You sign up for the service (free) and send them a text message with your search term (no charge from UpSnap but your cell phone service provider may charge you for the text message).
- You get phone numbers that match your search criteria and location, and (optionally) callbacks from merchants.
- There are no directory assistance charges — just the charges for the text message (no minutes) and the callback if you get it (it doesn’t say, but I imagine this uses minutes).
Because the merchants pay to be included, you get the service for free from UpSnap. In their privacy policy, it states that they may collect information from you and, with your permission, use that information to deliver targeted ads to offset the costs of the free text results service. I have not yet heard back from them regarding when they deliver these targeted ads in relation to when they deliver the search results — as in, do they give you an ad just before the search results, or do they give ads at unrelated times during the day? When I do, I’ll update this post.
Also, you’re getting results from a subset of the merchants that offer a particular service or product — specifically, the ones who paid to be listed in the directory. The merchants may be the best choice overall, or they may not. Just realize that they got on your cell phone display because they paid to be there. If you’re in a metro area, you have a better chance of getting a quality establishment because there are likely to be more merchants listed under the same keyword.
Does anyone have experience with this service? We’d all love to hear.
