• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, October 11, 2006

Broadening its mobile search offerings, IAC's Citysearch is unveiling a new service that lets mobile users look for businesses on the Web and get search results via text messages.

To use the CS411 service, mobile consumers simply send their search query to shortcode C-S-4-1-1 (27411) and enter their search query. The query can be the name or type of business along with a location entered as city or ZIP code. So, someone looking for pizza in New York might enter "Pizza.10001" or Pizza.New York, NY."

The request will return up to four results with names, phone numbers, addresses and Citysearch ratings of local businesses. Up to four relevant results will appear even if someone enters the name of a specific business or establishment. A search for "Spago" in Los Angeles, for example, would return information on that restaurant along with listings for other local Italian restaurants.

The CS411 service includes sponsored search results in which a marketer's name appears at the bottom of the screen showing business listings.

Recently, Citysearch also rolled out a feature that allows users to send themselves text messages of phone numbers and street addresses for listings. A user clicks on a "Send-To-Phone" button on Citysearch business listing and profile pages, and enters their cell number.

"It's still early days, but we have the opportunity to be in a strong leadership position as relates to mobile, given what our content can do for consumers," said Scott Morrow, executive vice president for product and marketing at Citysearch. He indicated that the next phase of development for Citysearch in mobile search will involve GPS-related services, as handsets increasingly come equipped with GPS capability.

The new features offered by Citysearch reflect growing competition in mobile search as improved wireless networks and new devices encourage wider consumer adoption of mobile data services in the United States. Companies including Yahoo and Google have started testing mobile search services in the U.S. in recent weeks.

Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Marketing Intelligence, said local mobile search is an obvious outgrowth of Citysearch's online presence. "Citysearch has growing usage online and they want to extend that to the mobile environment," said Sterling. "And it's better that they do that sooner rather than later."