MSearchGroove

NOKIA: I have tracked Nokia’s move into mobile search from the start. Today it extends Nokia Search (which bundles an impressive ecosystem of local search providers together in one downloadable app) to 15 countries across Latin America. (BTW: Nokia Search is integrated with Nokia Maps on select Nokia mobile phones, including S40 devices.)

In Latin America, users can now search and access local directory content from Publicar (www.paginasamarillas.com) in Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela, with Lista (www.Listaonline.com.br) in Brazil and Seccion Amarilla (www.seccionamarilla.com) in Mexico. Nokia Search also has web content and local directory content search available for an additional 23 countries.

How many use it? The company claims that, over the past two years, “Nokia Search has steadily swelled, increasing its users by 22 percent every month, with the number of searches made by those users up 24 percent on a monthly basis.”

GOOGLE:A fact-packed article written by Google researchers and published by the IEEE Computer Society deep-dives in to data from more than one million page-view requests randomly sampled from Google logs during a one month period earlier this year. I’ll provide some highlights – but it’s best to download the PDF here because there’s a lot of detail that’s too good to miss.

Predictably, “adult” tops the list categories in mobile search. The researchers reckon this is because (1) mobile search is simply following the same trend as we saw in the online space (2) users might feel more comfortable querying adult terms on their private and personal devices.

The average mobile query was 2.56 words and 16.8 characters. The surprise: you would expect users to input shorter queries given the poor usability of mobile devices (tiny keypads & small screens) across the board.

More than 50 percent of queries led to a click on a search result. It took the average user 30 seconds to scan the search results before selecting one. Of those queries that didn’t lead to a click, the researchers postulate “it’s possible that the user found the answer in one of the Web-page summaries returned with each search result, gave up on the search entirely, or refined the search in a subsequent query.”

The percentage of queries followed by a request for “more search results” increased from 8.5 percent to 10.5 percent. Researchers attribute this to two factors: drastic improvements in the transcoder technology that brings Internet content to mobiles and a marked reduction in network latency.

MEDIO: An important win for white-label mobile search and advertising provider Medio Systems. (Greg Jarboe at Search Engine Watch has gone so far as to call it “the shot heard round the world of mobile search.” ) In a nutshell, Medio prepped its MobileNow ad network to provide search functionality on mobile publisher sites and signed up CBS Mobile as the network’s first publisher. (CBS properties include CBS Mobile News, CBS Sports Mobile, and CW Mobile, the latter of which is based on The CW channel , a joint venture between CBS and Warner Bros. Entertainment.)

The tie-up with CBS officially kicks off Medio Search for Publishers, an ad-supported search solution that is optimized for the mobile experience. (The Medio Mobile Search platform is currently used by Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, and Telus Mobility.) In addition to providing search, Medio will run keyword-based sponsored links targeted to search terms. As publisher, CBS then gets a share of ad revenues. The publisher’s content is also added to the Medio Mobile Web index with content from Medio partner sites.

What does this mean? For one, Medio “gets” mobile search better than most. Users want no-brainer search and relevant (ready-for-mobile) results. As Cyriac Roeding, executive VP of CBS Mobile, said in the press release: “When users search their favorite sports team on their cell phone, they want a very different search result than they would online. For instance, on their small screen, they might want a quick snapshot of the latest scores, injuries, news and gossip about the club. This is the kind of experience we will be providing within CBS Sports Mobile with Medio Search.” According to Greg’s information, the Medio Search Solution on CBS mobile sites will go live in Q4 of this year. (While CBS sports video and CBS news video clips probably won’t be available at the initial launch, Medio’s Chu is quoted as saying the partners have “aggressive plans to build out the mobile ecosystem.”)

4INFO: Chalk up another one. 4INFO, a mobile search and messaging company, has announced that NBC Universal has invested an undisclosed sum via Peacock Equity, a joint venture between NBC Universal and GE Commercial Finance’s Media, Communications & Entertainment business. The investment marks the third round of institutional funding for 4INFO, which counts Gannett, parent company of USA Today, as an investor to the tune of $10 million. In June, 4INFO and USA Today tied up for an ad-supported, text-message news alert service. (Check out our in-depth coverage and exclusive podcast.)

Under the terms of the agreement, 4INFO becomes NBC’s preferred mobile SMS advertising partner, serving ads into NBC’s text traffic and providing technology for mobile voting, alert and fan club services. This win gives 4INFO its second media win and underlines NBC Universal’s resolve to move forward on some serious mobile advertising. Translated: targeted, relevant, above all, measurable.

Speaking of numbers, Zaw Thet, 4INFO CEO, divulged some interesting stats (via Media Post). He reports advertisers pay $40 CPMs on average. (4INFO splits revenue with the publishers). Moving forward, Thet hints that the focus is building out behavioral and demographic targeting technology. “We have great tools to communicate with each other, but we’re just developing ways for people to access info and connect with content,” Thet was quoted as saying. “Within the next 6-12 months we’re going to see the mobile ecosystem grow, because now there are ways for companies to make money with that content.”

In related news, SinglePoint sealed a deal with NBC Universal to provide the infrastructure and applications that will effectively enable this ad-funded text service. In a nutshell, SinglePoint will manage and execute multiple participation media campaigns such as mobile voting, sweepstakes, contests, “breaking news” text alerts, and the delivery of personalization content across the myriad of NBC Universal properties. (SinglePoint previously powered a series of campaigns with NBC Universal, including mobile contests for the Kentucky Derby, a mobile sweepstakes for SciFi’s “The Lost Room” and live voting on Bravo’s reality show “Shear Genius.”)

INDIAN INNOVATION: Regular readers will know I thrive on finding cutting-edge companies first. (In fact, part of the reason I founded this site was to give these companies under the radar a voice and a profile.) This post from The Hindu introduces us to some cool mobile Web 2.0 start-ups and concepts that presented at a Nokia developer conference in Bangkok.

The one that caught my attention: Persistent Systems showcased a mobile-based enterprise content search tool that would provide a missing link between search engines (like Yahoo or Google) and a corporate database like Oracle or SAP. It’s good to see a company focus squarely on enterprise mobile search and I wonder why so few have to date. After all, if the mobile search value prop is built on providing information to users on-the-fly (and who also can’t wait to get to their PC), then this is a market just waiting to happen (!)

(Other interesting ideas come from U.K. and Singapore-based Affle - who focus on giving service providers the means to add a second layer to SMS messages in order to push news and other content within the space of a text message - and MCarbon, who are set to launch an “interactive SMS” solution.)

• Posted in
• Mobile Search, Location-based services, Mobile Advertising, Local Search, Enterprise Search, Content Discovery

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