Now Now

nownow is question-answering service provided to mobile device users. It's a fee-based service and you have to pay $0.25 for each question asked.

What you do is send an email to them and they email you back with up to 3 answers for your question; and their selling point is that the service bypasses the need to surf the web for information on the tiny screen of a hand-held device running on a slow network.

Well, I have to say I will definitely use the service when I tranvel and need quick information. I don't know how long you have to wait for a response, but it shouldn't be too long since you are paying for it. The service is still in the beta version and let's hope it doesn die before becoming full-fledged.

Libraries have come up with similar ideas of using SMS to offer reference services. I have seen messages about it on the dig_ref listserv. But I have no idea how many library have actually put it into practice. It'd be interesting to find out.