MSearchGroove

The new mobile entertainment content selling is about content-push based on a deep understanding of the individual user’s content-push based on a deep understanding of the individual’s purchases,passions and past click-behavior. It’s even more compelling if the technology can learn users’ likes and dislikes over time to dynamically and consistently suggest the right content to the right users. Some more personalized mobile search schemes are well on their way to doing this (I’m thinking specifically of Medio Systems here, which draws on its corporate DNA [CEO Brian Lent came from Amazon…] to serve up recommendations to T-Mobile users).

But it’s not just about mobile search. Recommendation engines and a variety of bleeding-edge technology and techniques designed to play matchmaker between entertainment content and their fans are breaking on to the scene. I watch this space closely and will be able to share some news next week (sorry, it was released to me under embargo, so nothing before next week).

Here’s more on a deal I can discuss. Today Xiam, an Irish provider of content discovery solutions, cut a non-exclusive deal with Qualcomm to provide its content and discovery recommender technology to Qualcomm’s BREW solution. (Xiam provides a server solution that intuits user music preferences from data including billing information, mobile browsing logs and purchase history, to deliver users a variety of related content including news, images, wallpapers, video clips, games – and whatever else the service provider might have on offer.)

I had a pre-briefing with Colm Healy, Xiam CEO, and a man who has his eye on the prize of orchestrating and executing content recommendations across fixed and mobile platforms. To this end Xiam has developed a recommendation engine on steroids, which effectively enables a holistic view of the subscriber and allows the operator to respond with a well-rounded offer of entertainment content.

Orange is the company’s first operator customer – so watch MSG for an interview with Orange to explore the role recommendation will ultimately play in its mobile music strategy. For the moment, we’ll have to make do with Healy’s views on content discovery, the role of search and the future for mobile advertising.

Listen to the podcast here.

You heard it here first: The tie-up with Qualcomm is more than another announcement. “There is a specific initial deployment, which is being worked on today. But I can say not more than that.” And what about using Xiam’s capabilities to serve up targeted ads? “The initial deployment cases, places where people can actually make money out of our technology, have clearly been around the content storefront area, whether that be music, games, video, whatever. The next obvious area for it to be applied in order to enhance revenues is in the area of advertising, and we’ll be announcing a deal around that in the very near future as well which extends the offer into the advertising realm and I think validates the fact that our technology can be used beyond the content storefront.”

Have it your way: Xiam, which has worked with the likes of Cibenix, will continue to partner with client-side companies. “We’re providing a platform at the back-end that is collecting information about subscribers, collecting information about the offers that are available to them….That user experience could be a client, it could be a browser, it could be on the web, it could be on a TV, but fundamentally we’ve designed the solution to be independent of the particular user interface that the subscriber is, or the user is interfacing with.” He adds: “We see ourselves then looking at other areas as well, even beyond the mobile screen and into the internet and IPTV as well, to allow a telco to leverage that same information, the same profiling information and targeting algorithms in order to sell more content to subscribers, give them more personalized experience and allow the operator to differentiate what they’re doing from what they can buy from anyone else.”

What about mobile search?: “I think that being able to leverage a profile is critical. I think that whether you leverage that profile within a content discovery environment or a search environment is the secondary question. We would see today we would very much see search as complementary to what we do.”

Operators beware!: “If you look back at the evolution of the Internet … Google and Yahoo and Microsoft took the value. The challenge for operators now as they start to look at the converged play is are they going to have the vision to invest in the kind of technology we provide, the kind of capability we provide, in order to be able to leverage what they know about subscribers to deliver an experience which is significantly better than you can get from being an anonymous surfer on a Google, Yahoo or Microsoft site.

• Posted in
• Personalization, Recommendation, Mobile Music, Mobile Content, Mobile Advertising, Podcasts

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