The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children wants to appeal to those who are interested in being their eyes and ears, and just happen to have an SMS-capable cell phone on their person.
The NCMEC is launching Wireless Amber Alerts, a new medium to spread the word when an Amber Alert is issued. The service is free and entirely opt-in, and is currently limited in scope to within 50 miles of the zip code that a person specifies when they sign up.
At least one wireless carrier has agreed to carry these text messages for free, meaning it will not count against a subscribers message “bucket” or incur a charge (in North America, most wireless carriers charge for the sending AND receiving of text messages). But how much actual SMS traffic will be generated remains to be seen, not to mention the number of resulting tips, both useful and misleading.