MSearchGroove

In-Brief: The main points and key data from the VisionGain mobile search conference.

If I think of how my life and mobile search have become intertwined over the last years, then it is quite fitting that I should mark my birthday today by addressing the VisionGain mobile search conference in London. Oddly enough, I attended a mobile search conference on this same date last year - when I learned that Steve Page, CEO of Mobile Commerce, and I share the same birthday. And wouldn’t you know it? We meet up again today at the Visiongain conference (he speaks tomorrow). So, Happy Birthday Steve! Wonder which search event it will be next year… Today’s session was chock-full of surprises that went well beyond my chance meeting with Steve.

For one, the discussion has moved from the merits of one-size-fits-all search to a clear recognition that Web search retrofitted for mobile phones won’t work. The mobile Web is not the Internet all over again - and approaches that assume this are doomed to failure. As Roger Davies, VP New Business Development, Medio Systems, put it: “Relevancy is very key to mobile search.” And this relevancy must carry over into advertising. To tailor the results - and thereby allow the mobile operator or publisher to deliver more useful results and targeted advertising - Medio focuses on understanding “clustomers”, or clusters of customers, to determine the style of behavior common to a group of users. It then uses this as a starting point to better understand the individual user and intuit what results/ advertising they would appreciate.

Roger also shared some novel ideas about the search box. There should be only one search box and it should serve as a “universal one-stop shop,” allowing users to search for everything from flight information to ringtones, and from names in the phone’s address book to the location of the nearest cash machine. The best combination: a search box placed prominently on the idle screen and a softkey on the device. “If search is a pain to discover then I’m not convinced we’ll see big numbers [in usage].” Speaking of numbers, Roger had an interesting stat to share from Medio deployments in North America: Overall, mobile search sources 29 percent of content downloads.

Targeting linked to location was presented as another approach that is central to a satisfactory mobile search experience. Mikko Seppalainen, Director of Marketing & Sales, Nokia Siemens Networks, suggested that location data and customer information are the assets that are core to competitive advantage. Mikko’s message: Wield the analytics properly as part of an ad-based model, and operators can compete against Internet heavyweights. Another confirmation that operators are not necessarily doomed to be dumb pipes, but they may be destined to be smart ones.

Could operators make their money from selling this data to advertisers? Possibly. But, as Steve Page pointed out, even the best-quality data is worthless if operators can’t deliver reach and volume. “Brands are going in for one [ad] campaign, but getting them to come back for another [campaign] is the hardest part.” Chris Goswami, Director Product Management, Openwave, blames a lack of standards and industry resolve. No TV advertiser would buy into a campaign that can only be seen on Sony TVs and not Panasonic TVs - yet this is what mobile operators are offering advertisers. Fragmentation of handsets and networks is the problem - and a single interface is the solution.

What is holding back mobile search? I’ll have more tomorrow - including a path-breaking idea for a kind of mobile peer-to-peer search from Jussi-Pekka Partanen, Nokia’s head of mobile search.

• Posted in
• Usability, Mobile Research, Personalization, On-Device Portals, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Search, Local Search

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