REVIEW: Texting services return varied results

Editor’s Note: Welcome to Yay or Nay, a feature for RCR Wireless News’ new weekly e-mail service, Mobile Content and Culture. Every week we’ll review a new wireless application or service from the user’s point of view, with the goal of highlighting what works and what doesn’t in the mobile content industry. If you wish to submit your application or service for review, please contact us at rcrwebhelp@crain.com.
Application: SMS search from Google, Yahoo and 4INFO.
Running on: Helio Drift from Samsung and Verizon Wireless V710
Yay: Quick, easy search option that doesn’t require a data plan.
Nay: The information available from each provider and its format can make or break its usefulness. Multiple reply messages can be a bit overwhelming and/or out of order. Yahoo says its OneSearch service includes the option of SMS search, but often sends links in the text messages in lieu of the actual information, which is probably better for subscribers who want to rely on their browsers for search rather than SMS.
We Say: Each of these providers do a pretty good job of laying out the basics on their Web sites, which introduce and get users started with the SMS search capability.
However, if the key to using short codes is that they be easy to remember, Google and Yahoo could do a better job of pointing out their branding. They tell you the numbers you should send your request to, but I had to figure out on my own that, duh, it’s texting the search term to the alphanumeric translation of their names. 4INFO makes that obvious upfront.
All of the response times were pleasingly quick-usually around six seconds or so for a single message, although it took longer to receive the multiple messages for movie listings and they sometimes arrived out of order.
But the real test of any search is the quality of the information you get. So I pitted the three competitors against each other for several searches.
The search terms were pretty basic and sometimes carried over from service to service, such as “w” plus your zip code for local weather, or “m” for movies in a certain zip code. Easy enough to remember that I might actually use this on a semi-regular basis.
–Local weather: 4INFO provided me not only with the current conditions, but a four-day forecast of temperatures and conditions, tersely summarized and perfect for the SMS format.
Google gave me a bit more extensive current information than 4INFO, including wind speed and humidity-but only two additional days of the weather forecast. A second message told me that my default location had been set.
When I requested “w 80021,” Yahoo sent a link. However, a request with “weather 80021” gave me the information within the SMS-but it was pretty skimpy compared with the other two. Yahoo gave me only the weather conditions and high/low temperatures for today, then asked me to “reply m for more.”
–Movie listings: 4INFO replied to my “m 80021” request by offering a list of five local movie theaters and asking me to choose one for specific movie information. Once I’d replied with my choice, I received two messages containing the titles and showtimes of half a dozen movies, with the option to ask for more. 4INFO squishes their listings information together without spaces to get more information into a single SMS, but it was still decipherable.
Google’s response was a bit overwhelming: five text messages with the information organized by movie, offering more than one location to see the same show at different times. That could get pricey pretty quick if you don’t have a messaging plan. Also, the list-like format meant that information from one text, such as showtimes, was continued in the next message without an indication of which movie and theater the times corresponded with-so I ended up flicking back and forth through the messages several times to figure it out. Still, if I had my heart set on seeing a particular movie rather than wanting to stick with a certain location, the Google search is probably a better fit.
Yahoo sent a link to open rather than sending the movie information upfront.
–Other features: Depending on what you’re looking for, one or another of the options might be a stronger choice. For instance, 4INFO promises to send locations of nearby Wi-Fi hot spots on request; Google will give you directions if you type in, say, “golden co to boulder co.” Both 4INFO and Google offer a substantial list of their mobile search features and examples of how to effectively perform the searches on their Web sites. Yahoo’s service really appears to be designed more for subscribers who want to use their browsers rather than SMS for search.