By  ChannelTimes Staff
Mumbai, Sep 22, 2008 1457 hrs IST
Bharti Airtel, along with Affle, has announced the launch of SMS2.0 Search, an upgrade to SMS 2.0. The new service is likely to trigger ‘search’ through SMS option, the company said. The SMS2.0 Search is expected to make mobile browsing easier for the users.

Commenting on the launch of Search integrated SMS2.0 experience, Sanjay Gupta, CMO, Bharti Airtel, said, “The uptake of the SMS2.0 has been very encouraging, and we are embarking to take this platform to a different level – introducing search through SMS. This new upgrade service will thus allow Airtel users to Search – Airtel Live, Internet, Local search, Jobs and Property listings, from their SMS screen.”

The service was conceptualized and developed by Affle through its R&D efforts in Singapore & India. Anuj Khanna, CEO, Affle, said, “India is a very exciting mobile market, and in Airtel we have found a great partner to take our services to users. We had tremendous success with the SMS2.0 service, and with the launch of Search, we feel that the value proposition to the user is even more exciting. Our research shows that the Search behavior of users on the mobile phone is very different from the internet and hence integration of exciting local and other user relevant Search options on the easy to use SMS interface makes this experience very enticing”

The Airtel customers can download this Short Message & Search 2.0 (SMS2.0) application absolutely free. To download this service, they need to send ‘SMS2’ message to 543210.