MSearchGroove

White-label mobile search provider FAST has been working with Japan’s Rakuten — the Internet service group known as the eBay of Japan — for several years, so the news that they have made it official and established a formal joint venture doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The 50:50 JV (called Rakuten FAST Mobile Search Inc) is aimed at developing and provisioning mobile search and advertising services in Japan. It will have total capital and capital reserves of 800 million yen and “further advance the development of additional mobile business and technology innovation.” (More detail in this release.]

I was fortunate enough to have a chat with Torbjorn Kanestrom, FAST’s head of International Operations. (He’s usually in San Francisco, but today he was in the Oslo office – and my thanks to Carine Zeier for setting this up on short notice!) He was predictably tight-lipped about future strategy and the road map for rolling out mobile search services to Rakuten mobile sites this year and later to “third parties on an OEM basis.” But he did divulge a few details you can’t find in the press release.

The JV has a singular focus on delivering a variety of advertising approaches to users via all the technology touch points at the intersection of content and context. (Translated: A multichannel delivery of advertising messages that spans mobile, Web –- the works.) “We’re staffing this company with engineers to develop new technology to do what hasn’t been done before with advertising.”

Of course, I asked if these models extend beyond CPM, for example. But Torbjorn only said the approaches are “different from everything else” in the industry and will likely build on contextual advertising to deliver targeted messages and not spam. BTW: FAST has long been a champion of zero-search – search so intelligent it effectively delivers content without requiring users to ask for it first.

The JV will also feed know-how into FAST’s Ad Momentum, the company’s a private-label contextual advertising and monetization platform, and likely plug any gaps left after the company snapped up Platefood—a provider of search advertising solutions (that also happens to be specialized in managing and delivering pay-per-performance advertising) last November. Back then FAST bet the farm that a focus on media companies and brands (not mobile operators) would pay off big time, as the walled portals come tumbling down and some brands. The trend among media companies to become one-stop content destinations and monetize their stockpiles of content mobile search may well play FAST’s favor. (I’ve written several articles on this — please peruse the Library on this site — and keep in mind the new design will make searching my portfolio a breeze. Promise!) In any case, teaming up with Japan’s mega-media company is certainly a good first step.

• Posted in
• Mobile Search, Mobile Content, Mobile Advertising

1 comment

share

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

permalink