UPDATE: AOL Mobile Search Reviewed; Future Feature Set Will Include Mobile Index
I just got off the phone with Allie Burns at AOL public relations and Farhan Memon, senior product manager in charge of AOL Search, who kindly agreed to walk me through the changes in AOL Mobile Search and give me a rundown of improvements slated for the next release. Thanks again for the briefing!
After testing the service in my office in Germany and walking through a 30 minute demo online with Farhan I am a convert to the tabs that allow users (with Windows devices) to shift between categories. (Some reports claim this feature was rather clunky, but my experience was the opposite. It makes the search experience more intuitive and takes away the hassle of scrolling.)
What’s more, the tabs take some of the pain out of mobile search because they adapt to the query. A search for “Italian” brought up the local tab first (guessing I would be looking for restaurants), followed by news and images. Clicking between the tabs allows me to shift between results sets and settle on the ones that are right for me. I like that extra element of choice – and the deep links to AOL’s other content and editorial properties mean I have a lot to choose from…as well as the option to get maps.
But what about the wider mobile Web? Farhan told me AOL is working on its own mobile index strategy to deliver that content as part of the search results. (AOL does not currently use Google’s mobile index. Ditto for Google AdSense.) Look for AOL’s efforts and index to feature that in the next refresh of the product. Moving forward, AOL will also partner with “other vendors and providers” to tap their stock of downloadable mobile content (the only content category AOL can’t serve from its properties).
As for advertising, AOL is also mulling over plans to expand the click-to-call offer and connect users to a sponsored link that is actually the merchant’s “mini WAP site.” I asked Farhan about distribution and if AOL would jump on the client bandwagon and offer AOL content and search as part of an on-device portal play. It would make sense for AOL – but Farhan tells me there is nothing to report at this point. He did stress there will be news on this – so we can read that as a signal to watch this space…
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:20 pm
[...] that is available on the desktop version of the portal. AOL’s mobile search technology (which I reviewed here) delivers users a much more customized search experience, and emphasizes made-for mobile sites at [...]