MSearchGroove

Not likely if you look around the competitive landscape.

Reams of reporting on Google’s acquisition of mobile social networking start-up, Zingku Inc., would like to have us believe that Google is pushing the boundaries with an all-in-one offer to bring order to its scattered mobile assets ranging from mobile search & advertising services to social media (Dodgeball & Orkut), to a dedicated device (gPhone). But look closer and you’ll see that other companies, most notably Nokia and nimble newcomer GeoSentric, have the jump on Google this time. Put another way, Google’s push is more of an effort to catch up.

First, a recap of Zingku’s objectives and competitive capabilities. The Alarm:Clock blog (via GigaOm) tells us the company is the brainchild of MIT-educated Sami Shalabi, who launched the company in May 2006. Prior to this, Shalabi was with IBM for half a decade. His co-CEOs are Mussie Shore, who was CTO at McKinsey, and Marty Fahey, who was CEO of publicly traded Webhire.

(BTW: Zingku also powers another site owned by Shalabi called Ripple9, a space where musicians can promote themselves, a concept that reminds me of Oxy System’s phling! service, which also gets plenty of mileage out of mixing social networking and creative content. In line with this focus, phling! is a mobile music community service that combines mobility, social networking, and music. As Mike Krasner, CEO of Oxy Systems, Inc., puts it: “It’s a music experience that provides fast and direct access to all the music, podcasts, and photos stored on the user’s personal computer. Integrated with the mobile social network experience, it helps subscribers discover others with similar interests as well as find new music and artists.” More from Mike in an upcoming podcast, along with a video demo produced by Oxy Systems exclusive to Msearchgroove.)

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• Web 2.0, Mobile Search, Mobile Advertising

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Regular readers will remember the exclusive podcast with AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui a few weeks back. The interview was an eye-opener (and one of the most popular downloads – ever) but my own cool meter pegged when Omar explained the idea behind his Ad Lab. It’s not just about a closer collaboration with Apple to “learn things …that are going to help our ads on all the other phones” (as Omar liked to put it). In my book it’s about dicing and slicing the data to push the boundaries of text-based advertising on a mobile phone. I was right and the first results definitely push the envelope.

We know the iPhone is game-changing because the touch screen breaks down usability barriers and will likely encourage users to interact with mobile data apps and services as part of their daily routine. But touch is more than an interface; it’s another clue the user leaves behind that clever companies will no doubt figure out how to interpret as time goes on. Right now, AdMob is the first one out of the gates, and its act will be a tough one to follow. Put simply, its new ad unit has learned to leverage the core functionality of the iPhone, specifically the mapping technology, to turn text links into richer location-aware advertising. As this example shows, a text link promoting Starbucks becomes an interactive space where a user can input their zip code and pinpoint the nearest Starbucks on a map. In this scenario, AdMob effectively hands off the ad through the browser on the iPhone, to the mapping application resident on the device.

Check out the YouTube video below, and it’s easy to imagine how AdMob could bring a similar locator experience to theatres, restaurants, retail stores, and so on, and that’s just the tip of iceberg.

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Fox Interactive Media (FIM), a division of News Corporation, gives a better idea of what to expect from MySpace on mobile. The social networking platform, along with several other web properties, will be ad-funded and available to users for free. To sweeten the offer, MySpace Mobile Web and additional FIM sites will offer users a “considerable amount” of free content, tools and services that were previously available only to paid subscribers. The company counts 80 million Internet visitors per month.

John Smelzer, Senior Vice President and GM of Mobile for Fox Interactive Media, is particularly bullish on the outlook for ad-funded schemes. He said in a statement: “It’s our belief that this mobile Web experience should be ad-supported and free to users.” Chris DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder of MySpace, is likewise upbeat on the power of ad-funded to boost both mobile traffic and revenues. “An ad-supported MySpace offering is a major component of our mobile monetization strategy and we look forward to broadly offering this industry leading roll-out to advertisers.”

To this end, FIM has partnered with Millennial Media, a cross-platform mobile advertising company that covers the gamut providing features and functions aimed squarely at major brands to Decktrade, a performance-based auction service and marketplace for advertisers and publishers. (We deep-dive into the company in this exclusive podcast.)

In the tie-up with FIM, Millennial will both sell and serve mobile-based ads, a push that will include “custom sponsorship packages within MySpace and more traditional display-based ads” with other FIM properties, such as IGN, FOXSports.com, AskMen and the network of MyFOX local television sites. Millennial Media and FIM will also sell a limited number of charter sponsorships within MySpace’s new mobile site over the next months and open all advertising inventory by the end of the calendar year.

I had a pre-briefing with Paul Palmieri. Millennial Media President & CEO, to get the inside track on this milestone announcement. (The mobile site beta launches mark the first time that FIM has delivered an advertising solution to marketers looking to reach Internet users on mobile devices.) Special thanks to the Abelson Group for pinning Paul down on short notice, and thanks as well to Paul for agreeing not only to the following Q&A but also to circling back in October with some exclusive mobile advertising stats and results.

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• Mobile Search, Mobile Advertising

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Still reeling from a three-day conference where I had the opportunity to meet and mingle with the mobile industry’s best and brightest. The 9th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services in Singapore was chock-full of demonstrations and discussions focused on how the industry can answer the usability challenge and deliver engaging and effective mobile devices, apps and services.

An example is the mobile search interface Mobile Findex, the brainchild of Tomi Heimonen, a researcher at the Tampere Unit for Computer-Human Interaction at the University of Tampere in Finland. (Tomi began his work with Mika Käki, who has since moved on to become a Senior Interaction Designer with Idean Enterprises, Inc. in Finland. Mika deserves a great deal of the credit for the algorithm – and so we applaud his efforts here.)

In a nutshell, Mobile Findex consists of a server-side search result categorization engine and a mobile user interface application. This interface automatically categorizes search results and presents them in a way that makes it much easier to find relevant information. (It currently works with Google – but could streamline mobile search results served up by any search provider.)

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Will Nokia’s planned acquisition of Enpocket pay off? Or could a short-term lack of confidence in the wisdom of this acquisition on the part of Nokia’s carrier customer base negate any longer-term advantage the handset giant might hope to gain in the mobile content space. Emma Mohr-McClune puts Nokia in the hot seat.

Enpocket may be leveraged to make Nokia’s new Ovi content portal more attractive and price-competitive in the mid-term, but this will need ultra-careful treatment to offset damage to service provider relationships. Internet service provision is far outside Nokia’s core competency, and it will take time, money and resources for Nokia to realize a larger software-and-services ambition, within which Enpocket will play an important role.

Established in 2001, Enpocket is counted among the leaders in a new pack of mobile advertising and marketing players. It enables third-party publishers (such as Pepsi or MasterCard) or even carriers (such as Vodafone) to exploit the mobile channel for mobile advertising and marketing opportunities, mostly (but not exclusively) off-portal. Within its own competitive landscape, Enpocket’s key strength lies with its intelligent platform, which enables companies to convert standard customer data into targeted, personalized campaigning, using predictive analytics and end users’ historical behavior.

Enpocket’s insistence on campaign personalization has largely protected it from the charges of spam-mongering. However, more importantly, Enpocket is one of the loudest voices in the call for “mobile content democratization.” The idea, now fairly widely touted, is that the mobile content services market today is over-priced, nascent and failing to resonate with a customer base greater than an elite set of early adopters. Ad-sponsoring these content services – so the argument goes – will take the sleepy mobile content market to the next, mass-market level.
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This week, Google made history. It extended its AdWords to the mobile platform, converting PC AdWords ads to text ads and displaying them on a mobile phone. With the flick of a switch, advertisers have a mobile presence and Google has lots of new mobile inventory to sell. For an encore, Google today announced it is launching AdSense for Mobile, which will allow marketers to place contextual ads on sites viewed via mobile devices. If only it was that simple. A critical look at what Google proposes, and my own in-depth discussions with players in this ecosystem, reveals serious shortcomings – and some outright insensitivity (no, I’m not saying arrogance –more like cognitive dissonance) - that spell trouble ahead for the search giant.

Reams have been written about Google in the week since it formally extended its AdWords ads to the mobile platform, effectively and automatically converting AdWords ads to text ads that appear when users access the destination on a mobile device. (That is provided the ads are “suitably adapted” for mobile, a rule that excludes sites heavy on Flash or Java.) Google also makes clear on its AdWords support site that it is in the driver’s seat here, and it alone will determine the look and feel of the mobile website that will give users “an at-a-glance view at your site while they’re on the go and away from their computers.”

It’s easy to imagine that not all publishers will appreciate Google’s my-way-or-the highway approach to transcoding and final presentation of their websites. (Translated: Google’s approach squeezes a PC landing page to fit on a mobile phone.) In my book it’s a flawed and typically PC-centric way of looking at the mobile Web, but what else would we expect from a search engine company that has merely retrofitted its approach to appear made-for-mobile? Check out these screenshots and tell me you’re sure these advertisers don’t have to worry about a drop in CTR…

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Only have time to write this snippet, but I promise more - and an exclusive Q&A with the architects behind the deal - once I land. JumpTap will announce a significant partnership focussed on recommendation - marking another deal in this space over just the last weeks. (Think back to MCN’s tie-up with Caboodle and FAST’s purchase of AgentArts

More exciting and personally satisfying is the confirmation that recommendation is becoming a key component in the quality mobile search experience. It’s a view i’ve passionately argued for the last 3+ years. In fact, some in the industry might even make the good-natured observaton that I’ve preached it …

But it’s an idea whose time has come. That’s not just me; that’s also the mood at Mobile HCI2007, where I just spent the last days discussing human-centered mobile computing, content consumption and mobile search with some brilliant researchers and practicioners. Our new agreed motto: No one-size-fits all approach (or interface) to search will every satisfy our demands for a good user experience. I’ll leave you with that - and I’ll leave for the airport. I’ll circle back once I’m back in my office with some of the highlights - including some of the coolest ideas I’ve have the pleasure to explore in my career. Can’t wait till the next Mobile HCI in Amsterdam next September!

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• Multimodal Search, Mobile Search

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I picked up on the changes on T-Mobiles’ t-zones portal a couple weeks back and posted it here, but the German operator waited until today to give us the details. In a nutshell, white-label mobile search provider Medio, has replaced Microsoft (more accurately, Microsoft acquired MotionBridge, the company that was T-Mobiles’ on-portal search provider). The mobile search service, live in the U.K., Germany, Austria, The Netherlands and the Czech Republic, delivers results across t-zones and a range of downloadable mobile content contained on the portal, including music, images, games and video.

In addition to providing mobile search, Medio will essentially run the operators’ search advertising marketplace (for the t-zones portal) beginning in 1Q2008. The deal doesn’t impact T-Mobiles’ web’n'walk, the premium mobile search service provided by Google.

I was fortunate to have a pre-briefing last week with Michael “Luni” Libes, Medio co-founder. It was a fairly lengthy phone call and I have listed the main points in a Q&A further down. (BTW: Andrew Darling, a well-known writer and valued colleague based in the U.K., had a one-on-one with Medio execs and contacted me to say that he would contribute a blog to fill in any gaps I may have missed. Since he’s somewhere on his way to Helsinki and I’m in all-day sessions in Singapore, it might get a little tricky, but we’ll see what happens.)
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• Recommendation, Mobile Search, Mobile Advertising

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[The Msearchgroove mobile advertising podcast series – and close collaboration with VisionMobile – continues with a look at ad-funded content and the impact of interactive advertising. And what better senior executive to speak out on this than Patrick Parodi, Amobee Media Systems CMO and head of European operations. His company got in on the ground-floor and has consistently argued that only user-centric (translated: opt-in) services will cover all the bases and boost everyone’s revenues in the end. Next week we pick up with ScreenTonic and keep up the momentum with a top-notch line-up including Hyperfactory, Enpocket, 4INFO, and MoPhat – so check back regularly.]

Amobee Media Systems made its mark on this space through a user-centric, operator-focussed approach to ad-fund the entire spectrum of mobile content. In a nutshell, the system enables targeted, interactive ads to be dynamically inserted into the full range of mobile content and apps, including WAP browsing, video & music, games, SMS and MMS. For a short while it was a lone voice in the space, preaching that only a system that puts operators in control, and allows users to opt-in to receive ads in exchange for subsidized content would ever gain traction. Granted, the space has crowded since, but Amobee remains a first address when it comes to delivering a new twist to permission-based, interactive advertising schemes. (Amobee also supplies developers with HAPI (Handset Application Programming Interface), which can be integrated and activated to make mobile content “Amobee ready” and conditioned to take ads.)

Take the recent tie-up between Amobee and Anam Mobile, a provider of messaging infrastructure technologies, to deliver a joint solution for ad-funding subscriber originated SMS messages. The solution effectively pays off for both parties: operators can boost their revenues through opt-in advertising, and users have access to a lower cost SMS package (since ads help subsidize the messaging service). It reminds me of the ads and messages that appear at the bottom of email messages, and which we automatically pass around. In a word, that’s the value prop here: a peer-to-peer communication and advertising model that enables viral marketing. (It’s quite unobtrusive, but relevancy is another story.)

At the other end of the content spectrum, Amobee sealed a deal with PacketVideo to serve targeted and relevant opt-in advertising impressions within that company’s media platform. Amobee also sharpened its focus on mobile music, teaming up with SDC, a provider of mobile music solutions, to serve opt-in advertising impressions. (The partnership provides SDC’s white label music players the ability to serve contextual and targeted opt-in advertising impressions without affecting the mobile music listening experience.)

But the real news is deployment and operator interest in ad-funding. Amobee tells me both are on the upswing, so we can expect some operators to reveal their trials and learnings soon. In the meantime, I caught up with Patrick Parodi, Amobee Media Systems CMO and head of European operations, to find out how operators are thinking about this model and hoping to protect their turf at a time when strength as a gatekeeper in this scenario is waning. Patrick, who is also Chairman of the Mobile Entertainment Forum, the leading global trade association representing both the mobile and entertainment industries, believes the “user-paid” model is THE key barrier to the growth of mobile data consumption and revenues. His warning: Adapt or die.

Listen to the podcast here. [21:02]

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There’s never been more interest in Msearchgroove, and the number of cool companies lining up for briefings, podcasts and general get-to-know-you sessions blows me away. Please keep the pitches coming – and keep in mind that I contribute regularly to a wide variety of sites and pubs in the content space (ranging from New Media Age and Mobile Entertainment in the U.K. to eContent and – most recently – FierceMobileContent in the U.S.). On top of that, I have white papers and reports in the works, so I am always eager to hear from companies in the markets I cover.

I’m leaving today for Singapore, where I will speak about mobile search. More important, I’ll have the opportunity to listen to a stellar line-up of speakers. I’ll recount the highlights here and in some articles I’ve agreed to contribute to Mobile Media, an Informa newsletter. I’m especially excited about the prospect of meeting Gary Marsden, an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Cape Town. Gary spends most of his time “trying to design technology” and the rest of it convincing us we need to abandon the PC paradigm if we intend to build mobile devices and services for the next billion.

His observation sticks with me like a song you can’t get out of your head. It’s dead simple, which makes it all the more valuable. “During my first piece of interaction design research at my new post with the University of Cape Town, a colleague instructed a user to “Click on the button.” “What button?” replied the user. “That button,” said my colleague, pointing to it with her finger. “But, that is not a button,” protested the user, “That is a picture of a button.” Of course he was correct, and my view of the world has never been the same since.”

I’ll circle back with his insights and more when I return from my trip. I’ve been requested by several other organizations – including Mobile Monday, Marcus Evans and the Korea Culture & Content Agency for South Korea – to speak on mobile search and mobile advertising over the next weeks. I’ll keep you posted of the dates and details, and faithfully record the “wow” moments here.

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• Mobile Search, Mobile Advertising

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