You’re familiar with the text answer services popular in the United Kingdom, yes? The concept being you text any question — anything at all — and a team of researchers quickly find the answer to your question and send it back to your handset, billing you around £1 (prices do vary) per answer.

Not only is it phenomenally helpful it’s also hugely entertaining, particularly when you’re sat in the pub with friends and wanting to know the answer to something.

I once sat on a boat going down the Thames River through London with a chap from The Guardian. We spent most of the journey pondering how many Badgers would fit inside the Empire State Building. Texperts worked out the answer in about 2 minutes. Heh.

I’ve traditionally used Texperts because, frankly, they got me young. I do know a lot of people who also thoroughly enjoy AQA, often for their frank, direct and funny retorts to stupid or questions-with-no-right-or-wrong-answer.

Ask Terry is a newly launched service by ROK Corporation (see the launch story).

I thought it would be interesting to check out the services by comparing answers to the same set of questions. Since Ask Terry is football-only, I decided to make use of the Liverpool FC vs Besiktas football match this evening to fire questions to all three services about the subject.

So: The contenders…

Texperts - www.texperts.com, shortcode 66000 (UK only)
AQA - www.63336.com, shortcode 63336 (UK only)
Ask Terry - (no site that I could find), shortcode 81089.

But, before we begin:

1. There’s no winner. There can’t really be. I think it’s all about judging the answers and making up your own mind.
2. I screwed up rather monumentally with Ask Terry. I didn’t get one answer (apart from the repeated ‘thank you for texting TalkSport’ message) and I was starting to think ROK had, unusually for them, knocked out a particularly shoddy service….. only for me to notice that I didn’t quite read the instructions. If you want to text Terry, you have to put his name in front of the message. I didn’t. I just texted directly. No wonder I got nothing back. Ergo, Ask Terry is disqualified from the head-to-head by my own stupidity. However maybe they should change that around. If you’re a regular AQA/Texperts user, you won’t be used to having to put keywords in front of your messages…

Anyway, on with the show. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions - I think we had about 40 suggestions (thanks!) and most of them were from frustrated (and now elated, I imagine) Liverpool fans criticising Rafa, the Liverpool Manager.

19:08pm
- Question One: Who’s going to win the Liverpool match tonight?
(This was sent before the match began)

I sat with baited breath waiting for my handset to beep.

19:11pm
3 minutes later, AQA’s response arrived:

Liverpool will beat Besiktas 2-0 tonight. Crouch will score. Liverpool have a lot of work to do but they will qualify from their Champions League group.

Nice! A confident, positive prediction.

19:14pm
6 minutes after my text was sent, Texperts responded with:

Bookmakers are favouring Liverpool for the win the most common odds are 1/4 for a Liverpool win. Besiktas are long odds to win. Alonso, Agger are injured

I always remember delightful Sarah McVittie making it very clear that Texperts never, ever gives their own opinion. They always source it and in this case, they’ve used the bookies. Good choice. I liked the ‘Alonso, Agger are injured’ bit.

Ohhhkay.

19:20pm
- Question Two: What year does the lease on Liverpool FC’s new stadium expire?

This is a particularly annoying question I reckon. I whacked it off to both services and waited.

19:25pm
Five minutes later, Texperts were there with this answer:

Liverpool City Council approved a 999-year lease on the Stanley Park Stadium (the “New Anfield”) in September 2006. Expires 3005.

Wow. Goodness knows where they found that out.

I tapped my feet a little as I waited for AQA.

19:36pm
Sixteen minutes later, AQA’s response arrived:

The lease on Liverpool FC’s new stadium will expire in 3005. The club were granted a 999 year lease of part of Stanley Park in September 2007

There’s a discrepancy there in the dates between the two responses — however it’s quite possible that both answers (Sept 2006 vs Sept 2007) are in fact true. Good enough for me!

19:43pm
- Question Three: Why is Rafa Benitez [The Liverpool FC manager] continuing to play people out of position and ignoring Peter Crouch?

19:46pm
In just 3 minutes, AQA knocked out this one:

AQA can’t understand Rafa Benitez’s selection policy. He is an intelligent man, but his tactics have become frustratingly negative.

That’s succinct — and a very quick reply. Nice.

19:49pm
6 minutes after I sent question three to Texperts, my whopper arrived:

Rafa’s rotation style has drawn much criticisms. He likes to play a big man up front, but he has also a number of striking options as well. Crouch works best with another forward lying deep running on to the ball, but Liverpool’s other forwards aren’t adept at this style so Rafa prefers to plaay the likes of Torres or Kuyt up front with men like Babel or Pennant wide in a 3. However Crouch starts in tonight’s crunch game with Voronin playing off him.

That must have taken a good few minutes to type, let alone research so kudos for Texperts to getting stuck in there. Fantastic.

19:56pm
Time for another arse question.
- Question Four: What’s the most amount of goals Besiktas have ever scored in any match?

20:05pm
Texperts got back quickest with this response:

Biggest win for Besiktas was in 1989-1990 season. They played Demirspor & won 10-0! Goals from Ali Gultiken (4), Metin Tekin (3) Feyyaz Ucar (3).

Informative and speedy, I reckon.

20:18pm
Twenty two minutes later and the AQA answer arrived:

Besiktas record win was in the 1989-90 season vs Adana Demirspor: 10-0 Ali Gultiken (4), Metin Tekin (3) Feyyaz Ucar (3) were the goalscorers.

I think both services must have used the same data. Interesting that Texperts got that answer out in 9 minutes, whilst it took AQA almost double the time.

Ok, final question. I decided to leave it a few hours before sending question five just in case the people who were answering these footie questions went home or switched off.

00:43am (i.e. almost 1am)
- Question Five: Liverpool vs Besiktas — which club manager has the best looking wife?

A bitch of a question particularly as Besiktas is not very well documented online compared to the likes of Liverpool Football Club.

00:49am
Texperts responded with:

Sorry we were unable to find a picture of the Besiktas manager, Ertugrul Saglam, so Rafa’s wife Montse wins by default. No charge for this answer.

00:49am
In the same minute, AQA responded with:

AQA thinks that Rafael Benitez has the best looking wife. Montse, a Doctor of Law born in Ourense, has 2 daughters with Benitez

So there we have it. It was a game of two halves.

Now, then, now then, who comes out trumps?

Well, I don’t think it’s possible to ’score’ the responses unless you look at speed of reply which isn’t that important in the context of getting the right data. I’d rather wait five minutes longer to find out the right answer instead of getting an immediate but inaccurate answer.

Texperts were, I think, far more facutal with their responses. I was particularly impressed by their answer to question three (the extensive one). That was very, very good value.

AQA, in contrast, kept their answers to 160 characters however I did enjoy the personality that was evident in some of their messages. I like the way AQA step in and state an opinion (”AQA thinks that Rafael Benitez has the best looking wife”) where there’s not really a right-or-wrong answer. That is one of the elements about AQA that continues to entertain my friends no end. Many of them actually sit having conversations with AQA as a result (e.g. answering a question like “Who’s the best looking out of me, Roy and Chris?”)

Well done to both services!

I’m a bit annoyed that I screwed up the trial by texting FIVE QUESTIONS to the TalkSport shortcode without putting ‘TERRY’ in front. In order to keep a neutral playing field, I wrote the question then addressed it to 66000, 63336 and 81089 to send the message simultaneously. I changed around the shortcode order with each question too. But.. I forgot the sodding keyword. Typical.

Next time Liverpool play, I might do a redux.

(By the way, Liverpool NAILED Besiktas 8-0… Yahoo has the story here.)

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