AOL India is trying to drive signups by offering users free SMS services via mail and messenger. Subscribers are offered the facility to send free Instant messages and SMS’ to mobiles, with the ability for the the recipient to respond. They’re using the short codes 51515 and 51516. Nice work by AOL (NYSE: TWX), this - not only does their website appear similar to Yahoo’s (NSDQ: YHOO), but they’re now even offering a mobile service that is similar to Yahoo’s. Then again, as a friend of mine put it, they never mentioned the word “original” anywhere in the release. Maybe the AOL Open Mobile Platform, which the company intends to make available this summer, will help. Details here.