4Info: Search On The Cell Phone

While searching in the web is being clouded by Google and Yahoo, there is a silent revolution going on in the mobile web 2.0 world. Couple of startups have already targeted search on the cell phone, and one of them is 4Info.

4Info is a startup based in Palo Alto, CA is targeting this niche. It is a mobile search engine service that uses text messaging for query and response. A central service provider will receive all the requests, process them and send back the answers.

Uses:
Let’s say that you have sent a courier package to your friend and would like to know the status of the package. All you have to do is, send a designated short code with the abbreviated phone number, and you will receive the status of your package. Not just for package tracking, this application has various uses including, but not limited to, sports scores, yellow pages listings, stock quotes, movie timings, city search, weather, hotel, ring tone, tv guide etc.

“In the mobile world, people want answers not links”

says Amol Joshi, 4info’s senior vice president for business operations. “Google has the disadvantage of being a Web search firm.”

Other than text searching, they have features like mobile searching and web search. You can even generate text alerts whereby the information can be automatically sent to your mobile phone as text messages. One use I can think of is a stock market ticker alert. Alerts can be generated when the stock price reaches certain value.

It’ll definitely be interesting to watch 4info, to see if they will become an accepted service.