Google has announced a new test service that allows people to use mobile phones or handheld devices to tap Google's Web search via text messages or short message service.
Called Google SMS, the service is the newly public company's broadest push yet in the mobile market and comes as Google and its rivals in the competitive Web search industry race to expand their reach.
With the service, a hungry tourist in San Francisco could find a Chinese restaurant by sending Google a text message that reads "chinese san francisco ca" or by including a ZIP code locater such as "chinese 94104." Google would then send back a text message with information from Google's local search.
Outlined at http://sms.google.com, it delivers business and residential listings, product prices and dictionary look-up.
Mountain View, California-based Google is not taking a percentage of the 5-cent to 10-cent per-message charge levied by mobile carriers, nor will advertisers influence results.
"In all of these cases you do not pay to be included," Mr Georges Harik, director of Google's incubator Googlettes said, referring to the businesses that show up in the SMS listings.
"We're not charging anything for the service and we have no plans to do so in the near future. We're trying to see if this is compelling enough to get people to use it," he said.
Analysts said Google is certain to face competition in the future as mobile providers upgrade their networks and use the Web to deliver increasingly sophisticated information to mobile phones. For example, maps and menus could be shown on phones via the Internet, one analyst said.
Nevertheless, IDC research manager Mr Keith Waryas, said such changes take time. "This is probably going to be quite a valuable service in the short term."