The cellphone has been put to so many uses you may have thought there was nothing more it could do. But a South African firm has found a way to turn it into a nifty "yellow pages".
The new business directory service offered to cellphone users via SMS is like having a "yellow pages" business directory covering the whole country in the palm of your hand.
iFind, which was launched a week ago, is set to revolutionise accessibility to information in a way previously dominated by big, bulky directories and online services.
Now you can find a butcher in Kuruman or a hairpiece in Bloemfontein by simply sending an SMS with key words and the area you are in to the service on 34600.
Within seconds you will receive an SMS listing shops in your area offering services matching your request along with telephone numbers. iFind managing director Fanie Venter said they offered more than 12 000 categories and more than a million products and services across the country. The service worked across all cellular phone networks.
"In many aspects this package is a world first," Venter said referring to the multi-platform options available to the user. The directory can be accessed via SMS, calling the call centre, over the Internet or through a type of session-based communication from your cellular phone called USSD.
Venter predicts SMS will remain the most popular alternative of the access options. "It is easier, faster and does not cost you a lot of money," he said. It costs R2 a message.
Compilation of the database began in September and Venter is confident that a user in even the smallest of towns will be able to use the service.
"If you are travelling and looking for a butchery in Kuruman, this service will find it for you," he said. If the service does not find what you are looking for in a specified area, an SMS explaining this will be sent to the user.
"Within five minutes the call centre will contact you to address your inquiry, because you have not found what you are looking for and still need to be helped," Venter said.
Venter boasted this was among the three biggest and most comprehensive databases in the country and by far the biggest in the SMS dimension. The R2 the user pays covers the basic network charges.
"We make our money on the other side by charging the advertisers, and we want to make it as cheap as possible for the user," he said. The current business directory market covers about 300 000 businesses. iFind says it has about 200 000 on its database.
Venter predicts this number will grow by 40 percent as more businesses come on board.
"Businesses that would previously not have listed because it was too expensive are more likely to do so now because it is so much cheaper and has the widest coverage," he said.
A business is charged about R171 a month to join the service.