A new service called Kwiry launched today that lets you text yourself things so you don’t forget them, and then e-mails you a link to search results for the same terms. Huh? That was our reaction too. Nick Gonzalez covered the site earlier today on MobileCrunch:
The product is pretty straight forward. It lets you SMS reminders to yourself while you’re on the go. Hear about a new band, product, or restaurant, but don’t have anywhere to save it? Just message the reminder (i.e. Alicia Keyes) to K-W-I-R-Y (59479) and the service will email you a list of search results related to the message. The “Kwiry’s” are also saved to your online account, where you can organize and review your previous messages or those of your friends.The product’s dependence on SMS is designed to make it work with the large number of “dumb” phones out there. However, my sense is that a product designed for collecting reminders on the go has a rather narrow use case. When I hear about something I’m interested in, I have several more options before SMSing a new service. I can simply remember it until I get to my computer, write it down, or search for it immediately. Google has an SMS product that works even on my “not-so-smart” Katana.
The Matrix anyone?
Right… That’s what I use Twitter for…
it’s interesting – i looked at the name and had no idea how to say it – so i said it outloud and it made sense query – lol – im slow.
One more candidate for the deadpool? i think so…
We all have a very high end tech tool called “the brain” that can remeber things quite well, if you realy need to:)
And if that don’t work, i just pull out my Treo hit memos and type it in. (try to do that quickly on an iphone)
Seriously?
I have a much easier method: I write out a note with what I want to remember, photograph it with my camera phone, sync it with iPhoto, make adjustments to the brightness and contrast so that it is easily readable, print it out on my laser printer, and put it up on my note board. And, if I’m feeling especially “green,” I hold off on throwing out the original note until I come across a recycle bin.
how do they make money?
sell your phone number to telemarketers?
i don’t know if an entire company can be made of this? but I do this ALL the time – send messages to myself as stuff I want to look up later when I’m out and about….
Stupid 2.0
It’s interesting , thanks for this info http://www.vhxn.com
Jan-
They can’t sell your number to telemarketers. It’s not legal for telemarketers to solicit you on your cell phone. They would get the crap sued out of them. Thats not to say they couldn’t sell your email address… I don’t think that would be illegal or to email ads with your search results. This is just a damn stupid service.
…rmbr pck up ritalin @ dstore…
This is beyond ridiculous. There are gazillions of methods to remember things that pop into your head and this one is far more complicated than almost all the other ones. I don’t see the point at all…
I like it. Integrates with Netvibes, which I use.
Would make for an interesting extension to Mahalo. Adds to distribution at least.
I’m gonna go against groupthink here and say that this is exactly the kind of service that I need. I’m often in situations where I gotta write something down, except there’s no pen and paper and the only thing I can write on is my cellphone, which is an old Nokia 6100. So I write an SMS, but instead of sending I save it. The downside is that I have to remember to check my phone after I get home. Which I keep forgetting to do.
Kwiry is the only Web 2.0 service presented on TechCrunch in the past month or so that has “clicked” with me. Don’t write it off. It might not fit your lifestyle and you might have an excellent memory, but I don’t and it fits my lifestyle perfectly.
“Just message the reminder (i.e. Deadpool) to K-W-I-R-Y (59479)”
The use case is important. It might be useful on “dumn” phones right now because mobile phone web interfaces suck. People like full search result listings and saving search history, and that isn’t available on SMS search right now.
However, people like instant results. Google might come up with something that updates your search history when you use Google SMS search. And Google knows how to market. I doubt many people will ever hear about kwiry.
While the concept is fairly good (I send myself messages daily), it is to late. I have an iphone, so I just email myself the note and save a text.
@20 Dave
Ditto. I always email myself notes. For example, Watching 60 minutes on Sunday one of their stories caught my attention. It had to do with a pharma company. My interest was to take a closer look so I pulled out my blackberry and emailed myself without scrambling for my laptop or a pen/paper.
I have not looked at this website but I’ll be interested to see how they make money.
Jott anyone? Does the same thing but you use voice instead of SMS.
i am one of the first alpha testers, and i use the service regularly. i’ve been able to find obscure information, videos, music, etc., with ease. hopefully the service will soon be able to integrate outlook tasks and [for friends] enterprise CRM systems…
not everyone has the time to search while on the move. when you kwiry, all the information you think of searching throughout the day is easily accessible in one spot when you are ready for it.
So let me understand this correctly… this is a reminder service for people with memory problems.
How will this target audience remember this handy dandy 59479 number? And why would they also remember this catchy and meaningful website query … oops … qwery no…it was kweenie … o darned it. Do I need another reminder to remember this too?
Way to go scott!
For additional details check out VC Cafe’s post: kwiry launches viral platform, connects offline world with online (http://www.vcca...ld-with-online/)
If we are talking about useless services, let me show you another one: http://www.stripemania.com
NO!
Why not use jott?
Think it’s a great idea, actually. Best part is that it’s agnostic to where you want to retrieve the information. I use an iPhone also and do send notes to my email … but I can’t also get those on Facebook, Netvibes, etc. It’s just plain useful. Brilliant in its simplicity.
Hey, thanks for all the comments about our service! I’m Ron, the company’s CEO and co-founder. It looks like people have a lot of different opinions about the service (even MobileCrunch itself who posted two articles about us today!). See the second one here with a different take: (http://mobilecr...s-you-remember/)
I realize that there are people out there who remember everything or always carry a pen/paper or smartphone with them, and kwiry might not be right for them. However what we’ve found is that a lot of people do forget things…. things like songs or restaurants your friends recommend at dinner, books you want to read, or stuff from your favorite magazine that you want to learn more about or buy online.
kwiry uses the one device we always have on us to create reminders as soon as we find something we want to remember (smart phone users can email reminders to save@kwiry.com). When you get back to a computer (where you can surf in a full browser) you can access search results for your kwirys with one click from our website or your e-mail. We’d really encourage people to try kwiry out before they form an opinion.
I’m happy to answer any specific questions that aren’t covered in our FAQ by email at ronf@kwiry.com.
I think that this is a good idea – I don’t carry a PDA or notebook and often send an SMS reminder to myself on my “dumb phone” – but would prefer to have the ability for this to be sent as an email because the SMS’s can get easily lost. The search results are an interesting touch.
I won’t be using it personally as I’m in New Zealand, otherwise I would definitely give it a go.
I think TechCrunchers need to remember that just because they might not fit a target audience, it doesn’t mean that it’s bad idea.
@31, This is very true.
TC readers are a certain demographic. Most of the mobile phones out there are not smartphones. What are the stats?.. I could be wrong, but I heard today somewhere that 90-95% of the phones currently in use do not have mobile web browsing activated. Someone tell me if I am.
I find it easier to kwiry a number of things, then access the information all at once when I have a spanner.
Of course, this is my opinion, but the many reviews on kwiry today have been rather positive.
As well, you may find reviews in Engadget Mobile, VentureBeat, Geek.com, mocoNews, MobileCrunch, bub.blicio.us, GoMo News, The Unwired.
The newest review just came out on Mashable.com.
I send myself reminders all the time and I ended up writing my own forwarding service because by default AT&T sends all the messages with NO SUBJECT line. So when I get home and check my mail all I see is
408-555-1212
408-555-1212
408-555-1212
My forwarder takes the body and puts it in the subject so instead when I get home I see
[SELF] Pay Rent
[SELF] Call Becky about Party
[SELF] Put trash by curb
My point is, I see some value to a forward service for the messages. Even though my phone can email me directly the mails are much less useful without subjects.
I do this all the time! Except I added a contact to my phone’s address book that is my email address and I send an SMS to my email address. Sometimes I want to remind myself to do something when I get to a PC or email someone, etc… However, I don’t see why I would need anything more than the ability to send myself an email from my phone, which I already can do by sending an SMS to my email address. What do they do that is different???
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ok well. i would totally use this too. i usually call my voicemail at the office and leave messages for myself.
trust me. in some professions. this makes complete sense
I think it’s a great idea. You think sending yourself an email or a text message is a good solution for remembering something? That’s just crazy… this looks like a great service.
With billions of text messages being sent every month text messaging is obviously a feature people are comfortable using but very few companies have harnessed it. Kwiry’s association with advertisers and media companies to provide an exclusive viral platform to drive offline audiences online seems to lug a strike.
Sending yourself an email or a text messages!!! But what about people having I phones??
Parul
http://www.bhopu.com
Re the various people who think this idea is a waste of time, aren’t ideas like this exactly what the long tail is all about?
A small percentage of people are going to find this extremely useful and most of us won’t. Ron I hope you can make some good money from that percentage as a reward for all your hard work.
Yes, this service, like most services can be duplicated in many other ways, but this one is just more straightforward for those people who aren’t tech and don’t read Techcrunch 12x a day like those of you who are reading this!
-Andrew
Thanks! Just signed up for the service, I REALLY like their site design and their tutorial walkthrough is short and concise.
I shall be kwirying (new verb) from now on.
I think kelly is either blond or works for kwiry. Or both of course
I love this service. I can’t think of another company out there providing a solution that integrates web and SMS so well for the general public. With all the aging baby-boomers, this might make a killing as a memory-aid
And my comment to some of the comments on this thread: Get out of your bubble! Yeah, great… you have a iPhone or have devised some complex way to send messages to yourself. awesome. I think this product directlly hits youth, the +40 crowd and everyone in the middle who owns an SMS capable phone.
Erm, this has to be a dead duck. No, really…
Who needs a web site to sit inbetween the process of texting yourself reminders?? (I do this all the time if I’m away from my puter).
Take out the notional “reminder service” and you’ve got a Twitter clone, but less cool :-/
I thought of that!
I thought of that!
i dont know what u ppl are talking about “bad idea”??
clearly you dont part from your beloved pc’s and go on the road at all – where you sometimes u need stuff thats not accessible readily.
This is great. Sure it might not be the next you tube, but who gives a damn.
I think the service is awesome. There have been SO many times where i need stuff with me but dont have the time or patience to write it down.
So texting it to myself is like KING plus it gets stored in your email.
Twitter Obviously does not do the same. And no i dont wanna pay $50/month for a data plan to access my email.
Do other ppl here at TC use cellphones? I mean away from your computers?
- To the creator: i love the idea. market it to the facebook crowd and you’ll be a hit.
Thnx u man !…
mmm nice service, but it work outside US?
My homepage.