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Text Messaging 101
SuzyQ
Community Leader
Community Leader

I'm starting this thread, hoping others will chime in and share ways they have found to use texting to access various information and services WITHOUT incurring Premium messaging charges, or data charges (for those of us still stubbornly holding out for NO DATA, or who have the limited 25 MB plan).

 

With unlimited texting (and I do recommend unlimited - it's too hard to keep track and stress about overages!), there are many ways to access information typically available via the internet, on your computer, but without accessing the internet on your phone.  I'll start with two of my most used and we'll see how this goes....

 

FACEBOOK MOBILE - When you are logged in to your Facebook account, way at the bottom of the page in tiny letters, is a link called Mobile.  It will bring you to a page with many possibilities - I use the one on the left - Facebook Text Messages.  It's all text, no internet required on the phone.  You can update your status, receive a text when your friends update theirs (you choose which ones, or all), you can comment on their updates, "like" their updates.  You can upload pictures to your album.  All text.  :smileyhappy:  Facebook verifies your mobile number with a confirmation text; just be sure it IS a Facebook confirmation - I got slammed with a Premium service sign up thinking it was Facebook's confirmation - just read the messages carefully.

 

GOOGLE - Google via text message is just awesome.  Text your question to 46645 (GOOGL).  Within seconds you have a text back with the answer.  You learn how to refine your "questions" to get better results, but this is a very handy use of text messaging.  Need the score for the playoff game in progress?  Text Score Saints to 46645 - it comes back with score, quarter, and time left.  Need an address?  Text Staples, San Francisco - and you'll get a list of nearby stores with addresses and phone numbers.  After a few searches locally, Google asked me to set my default location - so now all I have to do is text "carpeting", and I get three pages of local carpet stores, with addresses and phone numbers. 

 

PS--800-GOOG411 is also a very cool tool - it's a FREE information call, and it will dial the # for you too, for free...unlike other 411 services.

 

OK peers - share your favorite TEXT ONLY, free, and useful tools you have discovered!

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