We wrote a bit about using text messages to find information over cell phones this week. 4INFO, a company we mentioned in passing, announced a deal with TV Guide to provide local TV listings via SMS and WAP today. The company’s CEO Zaw Thet said in a chat with us that the company is concentrating on signing up more media content deals and currently makes 80% of revenues through contextual advertising and 20% through premium services. So far, since it was founded in July 2004, the startup has raised more than $8.5 million in funding by investors Gannett Company and Draper Fisher Jurvetson among others.
M:Metrics also provided us some interesting data on using SMS to get information, which isn’t too promising for SMS-only news and info startups. Only 13.5% of U.S. cell phone users had accessed information or news over a cell phone, M:Metrics says, with far more users saying they had accessed news and info via a web browser than using SMS. We guess that’s smart planning then that 4INFO is not just betting the farm on SMS, and also delivers its service via WAP.
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