Not only does Google want to organize all the world’s information, it also wants to make all that information available to everyone in the world. For the majority of the world’s population, that means making it available on a cell phone, and not a fancy iPhone or Android with a Web browser either. I’m talking about $10 cell phones with not much more than voice and SMS capabilities. If Google can reach people, especially in developing nations, with SMS, it can reach everyone with a cell phone.
In Africa, it is launching a suite of SMS services today, including SMS search, Q&A-style tips, and an SMS-based marketplace. The first country to get these services is Uganda.
The search service works like Google SMS in North America. You text a search term, and it responds via SMS with the result. Searches can be narrowed by using specific keywords such as “local time,” “weather,” “news,” “maps,” “translation,” or “currency conversion.” For more complicated searches, the related SMS tips service offers answers in an automated Q&A format.
But the most interesting application is Google Trader, which allows people to post items for sale and jobs via SMS. Other people can search for them by texting the service with the word “BUY” preceding the search term. Google Trader connects the buyer and seller together (each listing contains the seller’s cell phone number).
Update: Google created these particular apps in partnership with the Grameen Foundation, through its newly-launched AppLabs project. The mobile suite of SMS apps also includes Health Tips, Clinic Finder, and a Farmer’s Friend database.
Brilliant! thats why i love Google.
I genuinely believe that people interested in ‘helping Africa’ should so so by investing in the place and enabling the people.
I hope other people and companies will take this cue to be more effective and not hope to save the continent by Tweeting, getting followers by donating mosquito nets and using charity as a marketing tool (I am talking to @aplusk and those that think it is the way to go.)
I am hoping my dear Nigerians can use the Internet to liberate THEMSELVES (legitimately)… We of course will welcome any support that will enable us do so.
You might want to read my blog post
http://oonwoye....he-way-forward/
In africa, go internet by computer is a hard work to do. SMS is a very cheap way to connect with people. It is a fantastic idea! The only problems left are speed and content limitation. Since SMS only shows 100-200 chars , buyer should receive multiple messages to get all of sellers’ messages. En…
http://www.tophotdeal.com
for coupons.
One of my friends have http://www.chaupaati.com/ which has been doing this for more than an year now in India.
Google has already launched this service in india sometime back . Very few (Only IT) people know about this and use this .But I do genuinely believe that If Google can take this to the common man then it can make a big difference . It has also launched another service in india named “Google SMS Channels” .
http://tekunik.blogspot.com
To me this is a good idea. I assume google knows the growth of mobile phone in africa. Google just have to talk a lot about this new tool
This is not new at all. A guy in China has already developed the sms as a farming product transaction platform for farmers in China to trade. The farmers in China do not have computers to access the internet but they have mobile phone to connect with each other. There are about 0.8 billion famers in China. The founder takes a transaction fee out of each post and he has already made billions out of it.
There has been a lot of talk about these typed of things in the mobile health space. Getting the correct health information to the masses of under developed countries can help stop the spread of disease.
Take a look at what the UN is doing here:
http://bit.ly/151s7L
Where are the ads?
They may never have ads, this is more about social business than anything else. Google can sleep a little better on their billions at night knowing they have done some good. It really is a new way of thinking for business and it really excites me to see them going down this road.
The poor of the world (those that make less than a dollar a day) need more power and as we all know information is just that. This will have a major impact on their lives.
Next step is to get a cell provider to run as a social business in Africa, not sure if there are any yet?
How do you subsidize the cost from carriers to maintain the SMS exchanges from a social business?
You may not need ads. Revenue accrued by the user sending an SMS can be shared with the network operator & google.
We have had this serivce “@lookingtobuy” and “lookingtosell” for over a year…and we even if an ecommerce system to close the purchase loop…and you can use micro payments.
We just can make it through thte google reality distortion machine to get the word out.
I am glad to see creative use of this type of technology in a developing country. Not everyone can browse your site with a large flatscreen monitor — and many can’t even browse it with a smartphone. SMS is much more universal with wider reach, and I love how more remedial technologies can sometimes have the potential to trump the ‘cooler’ technologies simply because they are more useful to more people.
We already have google SMS search in Nigeria. We’ve had it for a year now. It’s certainly nice to have, but it’s utility isn’t that much. Rather limited actually. You get one result that may not be what you want.
This sounds like an app called Mobile XL that’s (I think) already live in Africa. I think the services might be slightly different, but the same basic stuff is available.
fyi: there is a payment system being rolled out to Africa via cell phone first because apparently that country has a high adoption of cell phones
FYI: Africa is not a country.
There is nothing brilliant about this other than this appears to be my teams Google 10^100 submission. See Submission below and judge for yourself.
TITLE: HOPE IMPACT submission date 10.17.08
10. What one sentence best describes your idea? (maximum 150 characters)
Hope Impact is an ebay meets Twitter mobile-based marketplace to
create efficient economies and fuel economic development in the
emerging world.
11. Describe your idea in more depth. (maximum 300 words)
Background:
There is a growing body of evidence that shows increased access to
communication boosts incomes in the developing world.
Our mobile marketplace would allow people to specialize and increase
productivity – 2 fundamental economic ingredients to increase wealth..
~60 percent of the 2.5 billion people worldwide who use mobile phones
live in developing countries, making cell phones the first
telecommunications technology in history to have more users there than
in the developed world.
Cell phone usage in Africa is growing almost twice as fast as any
other region and has ~250 million users.
In addition, the community payphone, an innovation unique to the
developing world, has helped bring mobile phone usage to the poorest
areas of the world.
Product Description:
Users can send to others within a geographic radius or other affinity
network what they have to trade or sell on any given day.
The user interface is centered around two fundamental questions.
1. What do you have?
2. What do you want?
It is possible to subscribe to any product or service provider, and
the listings can easily be searched by various criteria, including
geographic location, price point, and product characteristics.
Optimal prices are set by bidding within an efficient marketplace of
real-time supply and demand. An additional feature of the platform
would be a banking and payment system.
Business Viability:
African cell phone market is worth ~ $30 billion.
Investment in information and communications technologies in Africa
has also improved dramatically, totaling $8 billion in 2005, up from
$3.5 billion in 2000.
These figures reflect an increasingly vibrant private sector
investment environment which has been stimulated by the opening of
most African telecommunications markets, coupled with the
establishment of independent regulators in almost 90 percent of the
countries in the region.
12. What problem or issue does your idea address? (maximum 150 words)
Access to market information through mobile phones can provide rural
communities with invaluable information about centers of business, and
the value of their goods and services.
Buyers and Sellers would no longer have to spend weeks at a time
roaming across the country in search of markets for their fresh
produce, consumables, and other goods and services.
Consider a group of poor fishermen in the Indian state of Kerala
studied by Robert Jensen, an associate professor at Brown University.
They increased their profits by an average of 8% after they began
using mobile phones to find out which coastal marketplaces were
offering the best prices for sardines. Yet, consumer prices for fish
dropped 4% because the fishermen no longer had to throw away the catch
they couldn’t sell when they sailed into a port after all the buyers
had left. “That’s what economic efficiencies are about—everyone is
better off,” says Jensen.
http://www.afri...&Itemid=336
13. If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most
and how? (maximum 150 words)
Rural communities in Africa, India and China would benefit the most.
This is a user created, bottom-up solution that allows individuals to
find resources, trade resources, fill market voids, establish markets,
find customers, market their goods and services with efficient access
to information that does not exist today.
Grameen Foundation was pleased to work with Google in developing the AppLab initiative that created these services which are mainly targeted to poor Ugandans. More information on AppLab is available at http://tinyurl.com/gfapplab
We should also mention the mobile services which are already in the market. For example tradenet has been around for years.
Read here http://ictupdat...ketplace-mobile
or visit http://tradenet.biz
Truthfully there are many companies in Africa already tackiling the mobile marketplace. And Google as well as Microsoft have been in Africa a long time.
Africa also has many startups including the producers on MXit (11 million mobile users and 250 million messages per day!)
This is quite innovative, especially as it applies to Africa. I believe such features have been in existence for a while now in developed countries. I do hope it’ll not be an avenue to scams. Way to go Google!
Wow. When I first came across this post I was thinking this is just another hoaxx to get more money for Google. However, having read the article, this idea would help third world countries hugely. I mean, for example in Africa, where farmers are far away from any telecommunication services, they can use a cheap cell phone to find anything they please, including today’s farming market just in case they feel they’re being ripped off for something! This is revolutionary and will benefit all those involved! Great idea and great post!
This is old news almost a rip off http://emergic.org/. yes SMS is the way to go in third world.
Peace. literally.
This is a great idea, considering how crazy the use of cellphones and SMS is in Uganda. Way to go Google!!
So awesome!
How do they plan to advertise their services in these countries? Internet advertising is a no no, since, as pointed above, internet access is very limited.
Google will have to resort to radio, print, billboard advertising to let people know of the service. If it relies on blog posts and word of mouth, as it does with its other services, doubt there will be much user pick up.
Does anybody else here think that Google does a truly shitty job of marketing its products? The average guy on the street knows of nothing other than Google search, GMail and Google Maps. All its other nifty features get buried somewherere
Yahoo already have this in place and are creating revenue out of it. Yahoo has this shortcode 58243( in India) where the user can send search queries.Its called ONESEARCH
This is great, it saves time. i heard about it from the capital gang, i didn’t know it will be here this soon
@mrzod, Africa is a Continent not a country. Don’t be ignorant.
I think it’s a brilliant idea by google. Only thing they need to be cautious about is the security and privacy of the different parties using it. This great tool could also be used by thugs in Africa who are seeking to take advantage of innocent users. I would be cautious before I put my info out there.
Brilliant idea by google.
Also, worth mentioning text2land.com service that allow you to send sms to landline phones.
Great idea Google, Africa needs such innovation.
WOW, I’ve just used it to send an SMS requesting information on the nearest clinic and its so accurate. It gave me the address and the phone number of the clinic.
This is definitely a big step for IT in Africa…
This has already been created long ago (in tech terms) in 2005 by the MIT graduate Kamal Quadir and founder CellBazaar.com … for the 4 billion making $2/day or less, the more the merrier. We could lay claim to this idea, too. But we’re trying to involve more technology in Africa, not squabble about who’s idea it is to help the suffering and starving masses. Go google!
I highly appreciate the system of reaching the population by use of phone sms. Like in Uganda, the greater population especially in nothern Uganda the majority are poverty strickened as a result of wars.This will help in passing vital information to the people.
Thank you Google.
Quilinous Otim
SOCIAL DEVELOPER/WORKER
I highly appreciate the system of reaching the population by use of phone sms. Like in Uganda, the greater population especially in northern Uganda the majority are poverty strickened as a result of wars.This will help in passing vital information to the people.
Thank you Google.
Quilinous Otim
SOCIAL DEVELOPER/WORKER