August 29, 2006 at 11:55 pm · Authored by Ewan · Filed under Mobile Services

I had a note from Paul Chandler to let me know about SMSprice.co.uk.  It’s a really straight forward, simple service that solves a direct problem for anyone interested in querying Amazon prior to buying a book.  [Remember I did a piece on Mobsaver.com  / Frucall a while back?  SMSprice.co.uk is similar, but serving a UK audience.]

Witness Mr C, quoted on the SMSprice.co.uk site:

"Fanastic, I was about to buy a £41 Java book in a High Street shop,
while I was still in the shop I found it £12 cheaper at Amazon, Thanks"
Mr. C, Bucks.

It’s a really, really valuable facility. All you have to do is quickly register — then, when you’re out and about wanting to do a price query, simply text the ISBN number to the SMSprice.co.uk number.  (It’s a long MSISDN number, so texts used come out of your monthly bundles).  Quick as a flash, you get a response back.

If you’d like to give it a go, check out the online form here.  Just bang in the ISBN of a book sitting on your desk and give it a go.  Seriously, if you’ve got a few mins, try it out!  Support our mobile developers!

You get back the following in the text message reply from your query:

• Online price
• Online availability
• Average customer rating
• Number of reviews the rating’s based on

Cool!  I did it with Tom’s Mobile Strategies book:

Very cool.  Interesting that it’s cheaper new than it is used, eh?  :)