Text Message Information Service
Your first 5 info requests are free! Try it out by following the instructions below.
To buy more info requests: PAY HERE
For a breakdown of what it costs me to provide this service (AKA why I need to charge for it), click here.
How to use this service:
Step 1 Find the type of info you’re looking for in the list below and word your text as shown.
Step 2 Send your text to 1 (855) 651-4636.
Step 3 Get a text back with your info!
NOTE: Only available in the USA and Canada.
To get...
Directions
For driving, walking, biking, or transit directions, use: [drive or walk or bike or transit] from [origin] to [destination]
Examples:
drive from UC berkeley to Oakland airport
transit from los angeles airport to santa monica
bike from santa monica to venice beach
Contact info
To get the phone number and address of a business or location, use: info [place]
Example: info uc berkeley
For a list of nearby places of a given type, use: find [type of place] near [specific place]
Example: find grocery near uc berkeley
Weather
For a 7-day forecast, use: weather [location]
Example: weather brooklyn
Air Quality
For a 3-day forecast, use: aqi [location]
Example: aqi los angeles
Translations
To translate text, use: translate [text] into [language]
Example: translate si por favor into english
Dictionary Definitions
To define words (English language only), use: define [word]
Example: define car
Cost breakdown
Your first 5 requests are free, but all subsequent requests are 10 cents each. 10 cents is about what each request costs me, so this small charge allows me to break even. I don’t charge more because I’m not trying to make a profit.
Why am I not trying to make a profit? I created this service for myself, because I wanted to use the internet less. I made it available to the public to help others do the same.
Here’s a breakdown of the costs per message for providing this service:
- Retrieving information: I use several APIs to get the information, and the ones that are not free cost a total of about 1 cent/message.
- Sending messages (via Twilio): In a nutshell, this costs about 4 cents/info request. Here’s why: Twilio charges about 1 cent (.75 cents plus about .25 cents in carrier fees) per segment (about 160 characters). Each info request consists of two messages, a request message and a response message. The average number of segments in these two messages combined is 4.
- Payment Processing Fees: Stripe takes 30 cents plus about 3% of each transaction.
- Servers: I spend about $10/month on servers and databases.
- Free Messages: I only charge for about half of the requests people make. This is because I don’t charge if there is an error, and I don’t charge people for their first 5 messages.
Payment
You get 5 requests for free so you can try it out without paying. After that you’ll have to pay. This project costs me about 10 cents per message (on average). As I’m not trying to make a profit, that is what I charge. Here’s how to get set up:
- Buy as many messages as you want (you can adjust the quantity in the link). 100 messages would be 10 dollars, 50 would be 5 dollars etc.
- This will save your credit card information so that when you run out of messages, you will be given the option to buy more from your phone.
- If you have questions about payment, or would like to pay over the phone, please call or text support at (805) 423-4224, or email ouidevelop@gmail.com
PAY HERE