Google has unveiled local search on Mobile for Indians by means of SMS. The short code for this search is 54664. To test this service I sent a message “North Indian Food, Jaynagar Bangalore”. [See the left screen shot captured from Sent messages on Mobile]. I received 3 messages in reply and the result set consists of all the good restaurants and none ordinary [maybe they are not included in the local listing ?] The cost of SMS on Airtel is Rs 2 and incoming messages are FREE. Check out charges and operator compatibility on Google. You can also personalize this service according to your needs.
Purposely, I had misspelt Jayanagar and Google did correct it while it fetched the results for me [See screen shot on the right]. Google already has local search for the web and it includes listing from review sites such as Burrp! 🙂 So Google is now competing directly with JustDial, OnYoMo and R World – Slukeha local search. However, we find the OnYoMo WAP site much more convenient and economical if you have GPRS enabled.
