Free Group SMS and Google SMS Search

I am going to talk about 2 interesting but India specific Google offerings here. Although Indians don't SMS/text as much as they used to in good old days, there are reasons to chear courtesy Google. These 2 SMS services are called:

1. Google SMS Channels - Here you can create a Channel or SMS Group and all the subscribers will be getting the channel content by SMS for free. Now this Channel can pull content from Google News and Google groups so once you point your channel to any group or news, you will be getting new content automatically by SMS. Cool isn't it? But it does not end there - You can even pull content from your or any blogger powered blog or any RSS source, but the best part is that you can use the channel to send same SMS message to all your friends and contacts. You can just create a personal channel and invite all your contacts to it and when you post message to channel via web or by SMS it will reach everybody. So practically you can now send multiple SMSes at the cost of one sms or even for free if you use web option. Try now

2. Google SMS Search - Google SMS search is plain, simple and straight-forward like all things Google. You just need to send you search query as sms to Google India No.  9-77-33-00000 and they send you search results by sms immediately. I have tried it and it really works and here is one more Google advantage for you - since this is a normal 10 digit no and not a special no, probably you will be charged for sending only a normal sms, which is as low as 10 paise with some SMS plans. So probably Google is not looking to rip you off by having a special 4 or 5 digit no. 

BTW you can use Google search for many useful things beside search like - cricket scores, Indian Railways train schedules & ticket status, PNR, horoscopes, movie showtimes, restaurant information and more. For more info you can go here.

Oh I forgot to tell you, you can subscribe to my blog by SMS from here :-)