MSearchGroove

In-brief: TeliaSonera boots out Microsoft (MotionBridge) to relaunch its on and off portal mobile search service with JumpTap, which is also the operator’s exclusive partner for all advertising and paid search ads.

Nadir Garouche at SEO Principle broke the news on JumpTap’s mobile search and advertising deal last week, which I then pulled from my site when JumpTap promised an exclusive briefing to connect the dots. The wait was well worth it. I not only have the details; I have an insightful Q&A with Mike Kent, JumpTap GM Europe, that walks us through the service and the pivotal importance of SurfOpen, an Internet toolbar TeliaSonera is rolling out to ensure a uniform and user-friendly mobile Web (& search) experience. (Now, if you reread this post from a recent mobile search conference, you’ll understand the clues TeliaSonera’s Arto Mustikkaniemi was leaving for us…)

In a nutshell, TeliaSonera has revamped SurfPort, its mobile Internet portal, and sealed a deal with JumpTap to deploy a comprehensive search and advertising solution across seven countries (Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Estonia, and Lithuania). More importantly, TeliaSonera has picked JumpTap to be its exclusive third party partner for “all mobile advertising and paid search ads” served on the portal.

But there’s a twist.

TeliaSonera is betting the farm that users will gravitate to destinations that offer them a no-brainer browsing experience. To make sure users surf the mobile Web beyond the SurfPort destination, TeliaSonera is gearing up to take the wraps off of SurfOpen, a feature it calls an “Internet toolbar.” Read between the lines and this isn’t just a mechanism to boost usability; this scheme provides a new mobile advertising channel for JumpTap’s ample inventory, and guarantees TeliaSonera will keep the lion’s share of revenue generated by the mix of display ads and paid search ads.

We won’t see the toolbar in action until Wednesday, when TeliaSonera formally announces it. In the meantime, an earlier press release gives us a good idea of what to expect. “SurfOpen is an Internet tool that simplifies mobile surfing by staying in sight at the top of the mobile display in a similar way as the web browser’s icons. The value window is an entirely new kind of mobile advertisement channel, an interactive space where the customer can access his or her favorite services and attractive offers in a quick and simple manner. Internet users are used to navigating on the PC, and a similar navigation tool is needed to surf with the mobile phone. SurfOpen comprises tabs for favorites, search engine[s] and advertisements, for example.”

Mike kindly agreed to cover all the bases in our briefing, including some interesting stats, a surprise focus on federated search, and a progress report on search relevancy.

Here’s an excerpt of the Q&A:

Q: This is a first for JumpTap because the deal names you as the one supplier to deliver all the advertising and all the search across on-portal, off-portal, mobile Web, and Internet - the works - across a significant footprint.

A: This deal is about usability and offering a better user experience. The [SurfOpen] toolbar will sit on every Web and WAP page that is displayed to the user and we will also be on every page with our search box and providing the display advertising that will come up on each page as well. Because this exists on every page, [TeliaSonera] is reducing the number of clicks to content. Users just enter the search term and away they go. It’s very innovative. No other operator has it, but a lot of operators are thinking about it.

TeliaSonera selected us to monetize and take advantage of the advertising opportunity. They fully appreciate that the subscribers are their core network asset. Ultimately, if they can provide a compelling user experience through their portal, then they can actually become the on ramp for the Internet. Users can go off wherever they want, but, in the end, the operator is monetizing all that every step of the way. There are numerous examples in the industry today where the branded players are migrating subscribers over to their own destination sites where they monetize 100 percent of the revenues. TeliaSonera recognized this kind of Trojan horse approach for what it is and chose us.

Q: Because you’re not going to eat their lunch…

A: Absolutely not. We’re going to provide a bigger lunch for everyone.

Q: Where does this fit in with your agreement with SurfKitchen, for example?

A: We still have an agreement with SurfKitchen. However, an on-device portal is a broad term and it’s part of a much larger portfolio of approaches necessary to achieve ubiquitous search, which is our whole remit. It’s about the ability to have a single search box that can provide on-portal and off-portal results - and whatever else the operator wants [to show in the results]. The ODP is an opportunity, but these solutions have to be embedded into the handsets. The active idle screen, on the other hand, links all features of the phone to take users onto the portal and onto the Web. It helps deliver a more relevant user experience - and more relevant ads that link into that experience. That’s our ultimate stated game.

Q: Does this mean the active idle screen is a new focus for JumpTap? Will we see more deals like this one?

A: With TeliaSonera it’s not the active idle screen; I would call it an active toolbar. We are there with search and advertising and we provide search onto the toolbar. It is a new focus, but not the focus. The difficulty that operators have at the moment is not the presentation of search as much as it is the monetization of search.

We’re focused on relevance and we don’t believe in serving up millions of results for a search term. It’s about relevance and understanding that a 16 year-old searching for “BR SP”, is looking for Britney Spears images and ringtones, while a 35 year-old who types the same query is looking for Bruce Springsteen ringtones or just information [about the artist].

So, our algorithms and our whole presentation is set up to provide the user with an experience that is focused on who they are, on their behavior and, ultimately, what it is that we believe or anticipate they are looking for.

Q: If we look at the advertising side of the equation, your focus is on delivering targeted ads, but your modus operandi has shifted and now it’s about establishing ad sales operations rather than an ad network per se.

A: I wouldn’t say that. Our whole strategy is around a monetization platform, which is a platform that enables you to connect to any ad server of your choice. We come with recommended ad servers and then we can provide premium advertising to support and actually provide a sales force for that. We can have an API into other ad servers to supply backfill; we have our own key word sales program for the sponsored links; and we can also provide links into local ad servers or even partner with the Yellow Pages or [other] local providers.

There are other deals that will be announced very shortly that we’ve won that show we’re building out a very complete ad sales force that involves campaign management, account management, in-house sales, branded sales, content provider sales and publisher sales across many different countries. We don’t need to shout very loud about this because we’re winning quite a few deals at the moment [based on this capabilities mix]. I think you could say we are building a very solid advertising network.

Q: What are some stats you can share?

A: Overall, our click-throughs are increasing. We’ve seen CPMs up by 48-50 percent in the last 12 months. The conversion is different because sometimes you’ve got a mix of text ads, banner ads, video ads…Overall, there is a 10x difference versus the Internet.

Q: The inventory?

A: The inventory is selling out. There is never enough inventory. We’re now embarking on creative ways of producing new inventory. We’re working with brands, working with opportunities to use non-mobile media to encourage consumers to come in to mobile media.

Q: I track the way companies define and approach federated search. It wasn’t long ago that Dan Olschwang, [JumpTap CEO] told me he considered federated search to be an old buzzword, as well as a way to deliver a new user experience. How does JumpTap see it now?

A: We provide federated search. It’s a question of whether the operator wants it. Our approach is about providing users with the most relevant mobile search experience possible. The [federated search] technology allows JumpTap to search across a wide breadth of the freshest content available to the user, letting users access on-portal downloadable content, off-portal mobile web and web pages, targeted advertising, and relevant search verticals. Our technology can access local search indexes and APIs in real-time, but, more importantly, we can take the results from a large number of disparate sources and provide them back to the user as a single relevant search experience.

Q: That jives with the evolving definition of federated search. How do you actually do it?

A: JumpTap’s search solution accesses content in three ways: crawling, feed submission, and API integrations. Some players just crawl pages; they don’t go down to the level of detail that we do. We crawl the content on pages.

This provides both JumpTap and content providers a high level of flexibility in selecting the correct approach based on the nature of the underlying content - for instance, what level of detail is required, how often is it updated - and the capabilities of the content provider. Some of the other solutions out there will not be able to scale as the mobile Internet grows. Ours allows us to provide a relevant search experience across on and off portal content today, and will scale as the size and capabilities of the mobile content marketplace evolve.

BTW: This announcement is more than another win for JumpTap; it underlines the importance of harnessing device real estate to streamline search.

Some schemes focus on the active idle screen others involve an on-device portal (ODP). White-label search provider Medio, for example, recently threw its weight behind the latter, taking wraps off the Medio On-Device Portal. The new ODP (based on Medio’s own technology) is available via T-Mobile USA’s t-zones portal and also comes pre-loaded on the Nokia 6263 and Motorola RAZR II phones. (More devices to follow in 1Q2008.) I’m waiting for a briefing and will circle back with more detail then.

Disclaimer: JumpTap is a sponsor of MSG.

Be sure to check back  for part 2 of the MSG Sponsored Podcast Series featuring JumpTap CEO Dan Olschwang this week.

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

6 comments

share

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

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

permalink