The New York Times in January launched a free text messaging service that delivers news, features and columns from the paper and Sunday magazine to cell phone and mobile devices.

“With our mobile site experiencing triple-digit growth, this is the next step in our efforts to make full use of this medium,” said Rob Larson, nytimes.com’s vice president of product development and management, in a statement. “We intend to use every available platform to disseminate The Times’ quality news and information.”

By sending a text message with the appropriate keyword to 698698 (NYTNYT), users can receive articles and columns.

Articles can be displayed on any type of cell phone or PDA. The text message keywords will appear in the appropriate sections of the newspaper. Although The Times isn’t charging for the service, standard carrier charges may apply.