MOBILE SEARCH SERVICES WRAP: 3UK & Google; T-Mobile & Google; Vodafone Italy
3 U.K.: Peter Northing, who heads up content at 3UK, hinted at it in this in our earlier podcast – but now it’s official. From today users can access Google mobile search and maps via 3’s Planet 3 mobile portal. (The Google Maps app will be offered as a download via the 3 portal. Google comes onto the 3 UK portal as an X-Series partner (Yahoo is also a partner, BTW). The X-series was launched in November.
All according to plan – except this excerpt from the press release (via email): “When a user selects Google as their search provider, their preference is recorded and the next time they use the Planet 3 Internet service they will automatically be directed to Google search.” I can fully understand – and even applaud – the resolve of 3 to deliver its users a full-Internet experience (and this must-read article from New Media Age gives some good reasons for the recent shift in mindset among all UK operator portals).
But I don’t understand the willingness of 3UK to send users on a one-way trip to the Google portal, so to speak. The absence of a “back” button and the inflexibility of other features common to the Google mobile search experience should be read as a clear ambition by the search giant to hold onto the traffic it gets. (And we can imagine what might happen to this model when Google makes good on its intentions to add mobile payment capabilities – most likely through Checkout – to the mix.)
Granted, there’s a lot to be said for encouraging mobile data use, which is no doubt what 3UK hopes to do by helping users find Google. Offering Google enables the operator to achieve this objective – and more. Good move! But operators don’t need to guide users to Google; users know where it is and they may actually want to go to Yahoo or MSN next time around…(After all, users have shown they expect to find their familiar Internet brands when they surf the mobile Web, why wouldn’t they also appreciate some choice in search engines?)Either way, operators really don’t need to give in and give it all up to Google. They should keep that option – or as a bargaining chip – for later because the game isn’t over yet.
T-MOBILE: Mobile Today reports T-Mobile in the U.K. expects to double the number of people using its web’n’walk Internet service (mobile search provided by Google) by the end of the year. In real terms, T-Mobile estimates more than half a million people regularly use the service, and it expects to have a million signed up by the end of the year.
But the motor for growth is not as much search as it is socializing. The article quotes Richard Warmsley, head of Internet on the Move at T-Mobile, as saying: “We’re witnessing a massive change in the way we socialize, driven by our ability to access the Internet, through mobile and delivered at broadband speeds. Web’n’walk lets people socialize online, but it also allows them to access any Internet sites and services that they would on their PC – from shopping for the latest fashions to booking train tickets. By bringing the whole Internet to your phone, for a simple fixed cost, T-Mobile’s web’n’walk is setting the Internet free.”
VODAFONE: DMEurope reports Vodafone Italy has turned on its mobile portal – Vodafone Live Internet – providing users much the same line-up we’ve come to expect from Vodafone. Over the last year Vodafone Group has sealed deals with a long list of Internet brands, including Google, eBay, MySpace and YouTube, making a slew of new Internet apps and destinations available to Vodafone users on-portal. In Italy Vodafone Live Internet also lets users access Italian dailies, including Repubblica.it, Corriere della Sera.it and La Gazzetta dello Sport.it, on their mobile phone.
