IssueBits launches Ireland's first mobile question and answer service

Text 57275 to get any question answered in minutes

23 June 2006 - Mobile phone users from the Republic of Ireland can now have instant answers at their fingertips, wherever they are in the world, 24 hours a day. Just text any question to 57275 (cost €2) and an answer will be sent back to your phone in minutes.

The mobile phone text service, called AQA (Any Question Answered), has already proved to be a smash hit in the UK. Since AQA's launch two years ago, over two and a half million questions have been answered, with peak volumes of over 10,000 questions per day.

"The idea for the service came when we texted a friend to help solve a crossword clue. She looked up the answer and texted it back to us in minutes," said Paul Cockerton, Marketing Director at IssueBits Ltd, the provider of the AQA service. "We use a combination of computer technology and human researchers to provide the answers with over 500 home-based researchers who are paid per answer and can work hours to suit themselves."

The AQA service in Ireland is expected to grow rapidly due to Ireland's high mobile phone penetration: "Although the market is smaller than the UK, the Irish adoption of new mobile text services has been extremely high," Cockerton said. "Our focus is on providing a great customer service through timely, succinct and high quality answers. Given the quality of the AQA service we expect to be answering over 1,000 questions per day within a year in Ireland, bringing employment to 100 home based researchers throughout Ireland."

Anyone with an Irish mobile phone number can text 57275 with a question and get a reply within minutes. With 2.5 million questions and answers stored in AQA's databases, three out of every ten questions sent to AQA get answers picked from the database, resulting in over 85% of questions getting replies within 5 minutes. AQA is available on Vodafone, O2, Meteor and 3 phone networks. Each text to 57275 costs €2 including VAT and the answer is free.

Notes to Editors:

About IssueBits Ltd

IssueBits Ltd, the provider of the AQA service, was founded in August 2002 and is solely funded by Colly Myers, former MD of Psion PLC and CEO of Symbian PLC. IssueBits' other founders are Bill Batchelor and Paul Cockerton. AQA is the first service of its kind to launch in Ireland. For more information see http://www.57275.ie.

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