![\"Africa_AgScreenShot\"](\"https:\/\/cloud.norai.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/06\/Africa_AgScreenShot-150x150.png\" "\\"Africa_AgScreenShot\\"")
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Not only does Google want to organize all the world\u2019s information, it also wants to make all that information available to everyone in the world. For the majority of the world\u2019s population, that means making it available on a cell phone, and not a fancy iPhone or Android with a Web browser either. I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n
In Africa, it is launching a suite of SMS services<\/a> today, including SMS search<\/a>, Q&A-style tips<\/a>, and an SMS-based marketplace<\/a>. The first country to get these services is Uganda.<\/p>\n The search service works like Google SMS<\/a> 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 \u201clocal time,\u201d \u201cweather,\u201d \u201cnews,\u201d \u201cmaps,\u201d \u201ctranslation,\u201d or \u201ccurrency conversion.\u201d For more complicated searches, the related SMS tips service offers answers in an automated Q&A format.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cBUY\u201d preceding the search term. Google Trader connects the buyer and seller together (each listing contains the seller\u2019s cell phone number).<\/p>\n Not only does Google want to organize all the world\u2019s information, it also wants to make all that information available to everyone in the world. For the majority of the world\u2019s population, that means making it available on a cell phone, and not a fancy iPhone or Android with a Web browser either. I\u2019m talking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[90,91,9,6,3],"class_list":["post-1779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-africa","tag-development","tag-google","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tokao.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}(from techcrunch<\/a>)<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"