Besides having a funny name, MyGads allows you to remember things that you might not always have the answer to. This web 2.0 service allows you to input information that you want to remember later, then when you need the information, you can either send the service an instant message or text message from your phone with a keyword to retrieve the information.

For instance, if you want to remember "My Birthday," then you could create a statement similar to "My Birthday - 12/06." You could then text or IM MyGads to retrieve the birthday. This service has unlimited uses and might just get you out of a sticky situation, say, remembering your anniversary or wife's birthday.

At first, it sounds like a texting nightmare from hell, but RSS via SMS has a place in our world through Web-Alerts, a small web experiment that may get lost in the vast internet desert that is web 2.0 failures. The service sends you a text message for every update to a chosen site's RSS feed.

The service is simple and easy to use. When you first visit the site, it'll ask your to enter a web address. If it finds an RSS feed for your chosen site, it'll ask you to enter your cell phone number. Should any updates happen to your chosen feed, a preview of the update will be forwarded to your phone. Removing a subscription is easy enough. "Just open the link in your text message and choose 'My Alerts' to remove any alert you are subscribed to." Furthermore, you can enter a keyword with your phone number so that you'll only be forwarded updates via SMS when they contain the keyword.

This could be extremely useful for someone closely watching a specific topic such as a stock broker. It could also become extremely annoying if you find yourself answering your phone every ten minutes to stop the latest SMS from incessantly vibrating in your pocket. Our advice: use wisely.

[via The Boy Genius]

In principle Spinvox is very similar to Jott: it allows you to blog from your mobile phone and send messages to yourself and others, as well as convert your voicemail into a text message you can read on the spot. Here's a rundown of Spinvox's features:

Voicemail: From a caller's standpoint, nothing changes about your voicemail process. After someone leaves a voicemail, however, Spinvox will convert the message into text and automatically send you a text message and email with the transcript of the message. This can be great for messages left while you're in a meeting and can't pick up the phone, or phone calls that come while you're in an area too loud to answer.

Memos: Need to remember to pick up some milk on the way home? The memo option allows you to call and leave a message for yourself that will be sent to your email inbox.

Email: The email option, called "broadcast" by Spinvox, allows you to send the same message to a large group of your contacts at the same time. While Jott sends mass emails or text messages, Broadcast on Spinvox is limited to text messaging contacts.

Blog: The blog client allows you to post blog posts directly from your phone to Blogger, Vox, and LiveJournal blogs. If you have several different users on your blog you can give them all the blog number and allow everyone to post via mobile phone.

Spinvox works with any cell phone or carrier in and can be test driven for free with later pricing based on your usage of the service.

Now this is an idea that should have made its way into the as-yet underwhelming and upcoming update to Windows Mobile, version 6: a built-in secretary. BCross at the MSDN Windows Mobile blog has decided not to wait, releasing an app he simply calls The Mobile Secretary. It offers some clever features for auto-responding to missed calls with text messages, for example: if a contact calls from their home phone and you miss the call, The Mobile Secretary can respond to their mobile phone number with a custom text message, optionally attaching any calendar information as an excuse explanation for your absence. Contacts can also be added to custom groups, which in turn can receive their own custom text message replies.

This is a great idea, and BCross plans to post the source code soon for all to learn from, especially since it makes use of the Smartphone .Net Compact Framework v2.0 (which needs to be installed on your phone). I haven't tried this out yet as I'm still getting to know my new BlackJack, so if you give it a whirl, please share your experience with the rest of the class.