The release hit the wires at about 3 A.M. CET, so I can finally divulge some detail about the official tie-up (I hinted at yesterday) between Yahoo Japan for Mobile and Mobile Content Networks (MCN), which is now calling itself a mobile search management solutions provider. Marc Bookman, MCN CEO, and I deep-dive into the details lower down in this post.

MCN will provide its search platform to power Uta Search, a “digital content channel” around mobile music (ringtones and full-track downloads) on the Yahoo Portal. In fact, Uta Search service will be available directly from the homepage (a link right under the search box, to be precise). Japan for Mobile is available to nearly 80,000,000 mobile users across the NTT DoCoMo and KDDI/au wireless networks.

The press release details are sketchy, but Yahoo’s Japanese press release reveals other vertical channels – including games and comics – are in the pipeline. And MCN has told me a federated advertising solution is planned to monetize the lot.

Read between the lines and this announcement speaks volumes about the players and value props likely to play a pivotal role in the mobile search ecosystem. At first glance it might appear that Yahoo Japan for Mobile is snubbing its nose at the usual suspects, but it should not be read as a thumbs down to universal search engine providers (branded or white-label).

It’s a confirmation that horizontal and vertical approaches have earned their place in mobile search services. They not only function in peaceful coexistence; they can drive usage to a new level. More content, exposed by a mix of horizontal and vertical mobile search services, can quite naturally drive more searches.

What’s more, vertical search schemes can take targeting to a new level. A search for the Killers is not open to interpretation – and there is no need to waste screen space to display a mix of news (including a few headlines about street crime, perhaps?), movie clips (related to action films, perhaps?), wallpapers or photos. The searcher is interested in ringtones and full-track downloads from The Killers, the indie band from Las Vegas. That’s an important clue and takes a lot of the guesswork out of cross-selling, up-selling and advertising. This is the prize Yahoo is aiming for – and may well win in the end.

Marc Bookman Q&A excerpts:

Q: Yahoo Japan, provides a wide range of Yahoo! Japan portal services to mobile subscribers accessing services on iMode (NTT DoCoMo), EZweb (au) and Yahoo Keitai (SoftBank). Your services are not tied to Yahoo Keitai. Can you explain this arrangement?

A: The DoCoMo and Au sites are the biggest. Yahoo Japan decided to launch the service within these sites.

Q: This is a complex and effective ecosystem. What are the models for splitting up revenue and what specifically is MCN considering?

A: The revenue share model is consistent with our business plan and deals to date. We share revenue with the branded distribution site.

Q: What is the user experience and the mix of results? (On-portal, off-portal and rest of Web or something else?) What is the place of content discovery and how are you enabling this?

A: Uta Search is all “official contents” which means the content is sold through the carrier portals. The service is very similar to the FM Radio application at the back-end with a new UI, new content providers, and different business rules.

Q: What can you tell us about your plans for advertising at this time?

A: We plan to include banners as well as paid listings within the service.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 21st, 2007 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Content Discovery, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Music, Mobile Search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.