MSearchGroove

It’s ironic that some companies can be so upbeat about transferring Japanese services to Europe at a time when O2 has officially pulled the plug on i-mode. But that doesn’t discourage the companies behind mobikade (which include Sogo Shosha ITOCHU Corporation and Excite Co Ltd.). They have brought their ad-funded social networking service, which also lets users earn rewards for their interacting with their friends, to the U.K. (More in this release.)

In a nutshell, mobikade lets users update their friends on their every move and emotion – and post the whole lot on a mobile-accessible website from their mobile phones. To make sure the exchange keeps a high momentum, the service rewards every interaction with points, which users can cash in to send free text messages, for example. A clever and virtuous circle. The service also makes the most of the moment by plugging free downloadable content where users can see it.
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• Mobile Content, Mobile Advertising

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We hinted at it a couple of times – but now we can come out and say it. Action Engine has raised $20 million in its latest round of venture funding. This round brings the total funding raised to date to $65 million and was led by current investor, Baker Capital, with participation from other current investors: Northwest Venture Associates and The Spangler Group. Scott Silk, Action Engine CEO, says the funding will be used to beef up sales, marketing and customer implementation activities. Makes sense since the company, which counts MSNBC.com and TiVo among its customer, has secured deals with several major media clients. (More detail when we get the green light…)

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• On-Device Portals

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Proxpro, a provider of proximity mobile search, made its mark in 2004 when it broke on the scene with the industry’s first mobile social networking product (using location information) to target prosumers. (In a nutshell, this matchmaking service lets professionals find and meet people nearby who matter. Its patented technology and algorithms discover people nearby who match pre-specified interests. The service then sends a text message to both and, if both agree, a face-to-face meeting can take place within minutes.)

The service got a real boost last June when Proxpro turbo-charged its social networking capabilities by partnering with Zoom Information, the company behind ZoomInfo, a B2B search engine that continually scans the Web to create individual summaries of people and companies. This smart move resulted in Research People, a product launched on Sprint and Cingular in the U.S., which allows users to access employment histories, bios and photographs from ZoomInfo’s B2B search engine by inputting the person’s name. To date the service counts some 2,200 paying customers. It’s a solid start – but nothing compared to what Proxpro can achieve when it launches this week as an ad-funded D2C (or rather D2B) offer free of charge to business users on-the-move. (BTW: You’re reading it here first.)

Always happy for a reason to speak with Julian Bourne, Proxpro CEO and Founder, I called him to find out more about the launch and his vision for location-based matchmaking and mobile search services going forward. First, some details about the service. Julian tells me the new products “not only enables you to search for people you’re going to meet; but you can also reach out to new people through a search and track those emails – all from your mobile phone.” The service, which is ad-funded, will be free to start – with some premium charge for “the ability to message someone through your mobile.”

Listen to the podcast here.

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• Mobile Social Networking, Web 2.0, Personalization, Mobile Search, Local Search, Mobile Advertising, Podcasts

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I didn’t attend the iHollywood Search & Media conference – but I’m beginning to wish I had… several exces have told me the panels were packed with worthwhile speakers (a special attraction was a real-time, real-life focus group). But no worry. The organizers have promised to make the videos available soon – so watch this space for the best of the show.

In the meantime, check out David Berkowitz’s blog here and his worthwhile observations in this post (via MediaPost). Good news for those (myself included) who believe in the pivotal role of discovery in the content consumption experience. As David observes: “Everyone wanted to talk about discovery, not search.” What’s more, business titles are beginning to reflect this tectonic shift. Case in point: Randall Hounsell, Comcast Cable Communications Management’s vice president of search and discovery. “Though discovery marketing may be a little too nebulous to perch neatly alongside search marketing, these search and discovery pioneers should find themselves part of a larger club soon.”

How do users get to content? First, there’s search. This is followed by browsing (by category, channel, popularity etc..) and discovery (which David subdivides into automated discovery, where recommendation engines suggest content based on behavior and relevant key words, and user-referred discovery, which is simple word-of-mouth). “With video search, searchers may be more valuable than browsers or discoverers, but there won’t be as much of a bounty on consumers who search. With video, publishers want consumers to gorge on as much content as possible, and automated discovery is the most efficient way for publishers to hog consumers’ attention.” (Looking ahead, this will no doubt be the aim in the mobile video space.)
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• Recommendation, Multimodal Search, Mobile Search, Mobile Advertising, Content Discovery

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Red Herring gives us a peek at a breakfast seminar full of surprises. Stepen Arnold, a renowned search analyst, used last week’s Web 2.0’s iBreakfast in New York City to share insights from his upcoming book Google: The Calculating Predator. (I highly recommend you peruse his site, which is chock-full of great features including a comprehensive list of Google patents. It’s a find that has really made my day and you can bet I will win him over for a column at MSG – or at least an edgy Q&A.)

Back to the breakfast, Stephen discussed some of Google’s milestone patents and concludes predictive mobile search is next on the search giant’s agenda. It makes sense since predictive search is more accurate than other approaches and can reduce latency – the curse of mobile communications - by queuing up answers in advance. Stephen pointed out that Google’s patent application 20060230350, filed in October 2006, uses variations on the word “predict” more than 20 times. (Red Herring elaborates: The patent application says that a system could enable an “I’m Feeling Doubly Lucky” search, a reference to Google’s current “I’m Feeling Lucky” system which lets a web surfer type a search phrase and go directly to the site deemed the most relevant. In “doubly lucky” mode, the system could help the user complete a word or phrase automatically, conduct a search, and direct the user to the top match.)

Stephen has identified 17 telephony-related patents and patent applications by Google and another dozen with a tangential link. “That means 11 to 12 percent of Google’s innovation effort since 1999 is in telco,” he said. “Somebody at Google cares about this telephony stuff.” Against this backdrop, Stephen isn’t as quick as the rest of us to dismiss recent rumors of a Google phone. He figures we’ll see a prototype handset in “six to eight months.”
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• Mobile Search

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GOOGLE: Reams have been written about the to-and-fro over the rules for the January 700MHz auction and Google’s pledge to bid $4.6 billion for wireless spectrum - if the FCC agrees to add its open-network requirements. But few venture to ask the “why” question. Here’s a theory from AT&T (via this post from Computer Business Review).

The operator reckons Google’s request is little more than an attempt to bribe the FCC. “If Google is serious about introducing a competing business model into the wireless industry, chairman Martin’s compromise proposal allows them to bid in the auction, win the spectrum, and then implement every one of the conditions they seek,” Jim Cicconi, AT&T VP of legislative affairs, said in an email. “Instead, however, Google is demanding the government stack the deck in its favor, limit competing bids, and effectively force wireless carriers to alter their business models to Google’s liking.”

Is Google plotting or bluffing? This insightful post from I, Cringely suggests Google doesn’t want to win the auction nearly as much as it wants to create conditions that would favor its business ambitions forevermore. (BTW: love the title: Is Google on Crack?: Eric Schmidt bets the ranch on wireless spectrum) He writes: “It is only because Google doesn’t expect to win, or possibly even to bid, that they are trying to force rules on the eventual winners, the mobile telcos.” Is Google bent on creating a whole new tier of spectrum licensees that would be prepared to roll out costly infrastructure on Google’s terms? It’s not so far-fetched. One thing for sure, few observers have a benign view of this.

And while we try and figure it all out – let’s consider Google’s latest move: an undisclosed investment into Ubiquisys, a British manufacturer of femtocells. Observers figure these mini-base stations will be a must-have addition to homes and offices as more users want to do more things with their mobile devices indoors. (Femtocells vastly improve reception where cellular coverage is spotty, as it often is indoors and in residential areas.) Looking further out, a femtocell can integrate with 3G terminals and with in-home networks, becoming the entry point to accessing content across devices and platforms including the PC, the video server, and so on. ZDNet (quoting Ubiquisys co-founder Will Franks) shows Google has thought this through. “What [Google] want to do is get broadband internet access to all users….They see femtocell technology as a very good way of doing that for mobile phones, so they are investing in companies, like us, who do that.”

Finally, Google’s deal to offer mobile services (search and email to start) over Sprint’s planned WiMax network could spell trouble for rival carriers. At first glance the tie-up pays dividends for Sprint, which can count on additional revenues from mobile advertising delivered by Google. But this could also be shortsighted since Google has by far the most to gain. Consider this scenario (courtesy of John Dvorak at MarketWatch): “If the duo can roll out national service, it could protect Google from any onerous action by Ma Bell. And if the service was popular enough, Google could actually limit what it offers AT&T customers — making its most premium search services only available to the Sprint-Google network.” He concludes: “If Google maintains dominance in search (as appears to be the case), it could turn the tables on AT&T and demand that the company pay Google for carriage of its services.”
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• Usability, Personalization, Mobile Search, Mobile Advertising

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Here’s some stimulating weekend reading. InformationWeek takes a look at Microsoft Live Search and Satya Nadella, Microsoft senior VP and the new face at the helm of Live Search and adCenter. Nadella admits Microsoft as late to the party, but points out the company has nonetheless succeeded in gaining market share at the expense of Yahoo and Google (that’s also the conclusion of Internet metrics firm Compete). Another sign that Microsoft is back with vengeance is the introduction of Windows Live Mobile Search 2.0. The downloadable version includes movie showtimes, more local, GPS support and turn-by-turn directions. (The mobile Web version supports image search and local directory listings.)

Nadella is upbeat on the outlook for mobile search. As he puts it: “We think mobile search is going to be a big growth market for us. It gives us an opportunity to start on a level platform. If you look at the reviews, we often come in first.” However, mobile search is a vertical among many (including mobile, local, entertainment, health, multimedia and commerce). “Instead of all search being just about one destination site and one set of results, we definitely believe in much broader based on vertical so we can make search much more contextual.”

Meanwhile, MIT Technology Review has published an excellent interview with Peter Norvig, Google’s Director of Research. Norvig hints at what we can expect from the search experience in the years to come. FYI:The two biggest and best funded projects at Google are machine translation and voice search. “Translation and speech went all the way from one or two people working on them to, now, live systems,” Norvig says.

Multimodal is essential to mobile search and overcomes the shortcoming inherent in the mobile interface. “When you’re on cell phones, you can only see one link at a time. It really changes the game. There’s much more impetus for us to be correct, so we’re thinking about that kind of interaction there, and how you could use audio to present information.”

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• Multimodal Search, Mobile Search

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As regular readers may have noticed this site tracks the industry developments that will ultimately match content with the individual’s profile, preferences and context rather than according to a one-size-fits-all content-push paradigm based on our assumptions about what “users” want. (A term I loathe and only use as shorthand to get us into this exciting discussion…BTW: Here’s a thought-provoking post from Max Kalehoff, VP of marketing for Nielsen BuzzMetrics. He suggests we just say “people”!)

To underline the importance of context I’d like to share a worthwhile post (via iMedia Connection) from Daniel Todd is co-founder and president of Zango, an online media company. In his view, the industry is at a crossroads – about to embark on a path that leads to BT 3.0 (BT here stands for behavioral targeting).

He writes: “BT 3.0 will be the point at which advertisers can combine mobile, online and home entertainment system behaviors into one master profile to better present customers’ relevant offers at the optimum time and place for both sides. That doesn’t mean, however, that online advertising should likewise mature to resemble TV advertising. That would be like Blu-ray reading the VHS playbook. As search marketing has proven in spades, putting advertisers in the right place and at the right time to present offers or influence brand impact is the target for which all platforms should shoot.”

He continues: “Ultimately, all content will be supported by subscription, brand-integration opportunities, and/or BT/contextually time-shifted advertising systems. Some advertisements and brand integration efforts may be so relevant that the category of “advertainment” will take hold. Regardless of the time frame, getting ahead of the behavioral targeting and place-/time-shifting curve is a near-term return on investment that pays dividends in perpetuity.”

Against this backdrop, it’s clear that relevancy will play a pivotal role in our content consumption experiences. Content-selling strategies and mobile search services that try take the easy way out – and ignore the increasing importance of relevancy - will prove to be short-sighted and short-lived.

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• Personalization, Mobile Search, Mobile Content, Mobile Advertising

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Another win for Novarra. The mobile Internet content optimization company that has struck deals with Vodafone, 3 in Italy and Hong Kong and US Cellular, has sealed a deal with Yahoo to repurpose Internet sites that appear in its oneSearch results. (More in this release.) The Yahoo service will likely avoid the hiccups that marked Vodafone’s launch last month. (Richard Blades, Commercial and Development Director, Europe, tells me some mobile commerce services didn’t function because site owners were not getting enough information about the handset in the handshake, a shortcoming that initially prevented the companies from making the all-important match between the content on offer and the phones that would accept it.) Of course, the real test of the Novarra-Yahoo tie-up will be the service, which is scheduled to go live in a few weeks. (However, you can experience it now if you happen to be in Asia.)

But more about this milestone announcement. Essentially, it marks the first time a company other than an operator has implemented a server-side solution to transcode and present users with Internet content. See it as a bid by Yahoo to ensure that its oneSearch portal allows users to access the mobile Web (which Yahoo repurposes) and the full-blown Internet (beginning with sites users visit by clicking on search results from Yahoo’s oneSearch mobile portal). More importantly, see it as a testament to the importance of offering user choice.

Put simply, made-for mobile sites may be good when it comes to presenting and selling commodity content (such as news snippets and ringtones). But users – as they come to embrace browsing with their mobiles – will naturally expect to see and access the Internet sites they know and love. Any approach that attempts to limit their freedom to surf the Internet, or lock them into a mobile Web-only experience, is doomed to failure.

Yahoo understands this. In fact, Richard reads the Yahoo deal as a concentrated effort by the company to become a “point of reference for access to the Web.” His observation is spot-on. Armed with transcoded Internet content, Yahoo has the variety and capabilities mix to become the home page of preference. However, any number of companies could achieve the same results. Media companies, for example, could harness a server-side solution to deliver their content – and the wider Internet – to users without having to worry about the make and model of their handsets.

If we accept that users will likely gravitate to the destinations that offer the most choice, then the provider (and this group could include operators, portal providers, mobile search providers and all the companies in between) with the best assortment wins. Remember, mobile borrows its business model from retail, an industry sector built on delighting the customer with superstores and hypermarkets.

Novarra CEO, Jayanthi Rangarajan, (in this post at Wireless Week) disclosed some interesting company data that backs this up. She reports that “20 percent of mobile page views per day are from the top 50 content providers, the remaining 80 percent of page views are in the “long tail,” or are personally relevant to the end user and critical to a satisfying mobile Internet experience. And that 80 percent (!) of page views may not be available through the operator’s own provision of news, weather, sports, etc.”

Operators clearly lack the resources, corporate DNA and audience-pleasing content to meet users’ needs for niche content. No wonder they are anxious to repurpose Internet content for mobile and reaching out to server-side solutions, such as Novarra’s, to achieve this. (It also helps that server-side solutions, in general, put the operators back in control of the user experience and some key customer analytics.) Against this backdrop, expect an exodus of operators and other providers to solutions that broaden the Internet experience by enabling it through a server that can deliver the Internet to all devices. Wonder what the impact will be on client-side solutions moving forward…

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• Mobile Search, Mobile Content

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A new Frost & Sullivan report (U.S. Mobile Advertising and Search Markets) reckons mobile advertising revenues in 2012 will reach $2.1 billion, up from $301.2 million in 2006. Aside from the stats, the research indicates there’s a growing audience for mobile advertising (no research results indicate they will accept the ads though). Nonetheless, current data indicates almost 15 percent of users regularly browse the mobile Web (WAP) for information. This opens up a new venue for advertisers – at least in theory. (More in this release.)

The biggest challenge in this market is to “present mobile advertising to consumers in an unobtrusive manner.” The report argues that “unless some clearly perceived value is offered to the subscribers, mobile advertising may not be looked upon too favorably.” Ad-funded schemes and paid listings are options that offer a possible solution.

And so the race is on for mobile inventory. Expect mobile operators to work with partners to ad-enable their own on-portal inventory, as well as seek ways to monetize third-party inventory listed off-portal. It will be interesting to see how advertisers respond and which approach they choose in the end. In a nutshell, advertisers can go for the big players (Yahoo, MSN and, of course, Google), that have the reach across networks (and across countries, for that matter) but lack deep user insight. Or they can align with the white-label mobile search providers that have what it takes to target ads – but can only reach their respective operator customer’s subscriber base. Either way, the AdMobs, Millennial Medias and Bangos of the industry will likely have to beat their suitors off with a stick.

• Posted in
• Mobile Search, Mobile Advertising

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