Google Search on SMS in Kenya

Google Kenya has recently launched an SMS based seratch facility for users especially in Kenya. The main idea is to send your search phase to GOOG (4664) and await the response. The catch is that the internet giant company is making use of its local partner (Mobile Planet)'s foothold on the SMS and mobile application business of the Kenyan (and East African) market for the service.

Of course, being the Google admirer that I am, I went ahead and tried the service. These were the results. First, an acknowledgement text that my request has been received and that the response will be quick in following. I had to wait for another 20 mins before the 'results' came back in. My take...? Pretty disappointing. The results were nowhere near what I was seeking. As a matter of fact it gave me some location in Russia as opposed to a software company I was hoping it would give me info about.

I agree that in sub saharan Africa SMS based applications have a big potential, but on this one, Googlers need to up the game, otherwise I believe we have better local service providers for data on SMS.