In-Brief: MSG’s Navigation Day @ CeBIT pre-event coverage kicks off (albeit a day late due to server issues) with an overview of Nuance, a provider of speech-enabled technologies and solutions for mobile search, navigation and in-car communications. Fatima Vital, a Nuance senior marketing director, provides a snapshot of mobile search use in the U.S. (where Sprint and Verizon offer Nuance voice-enabled search services), shares her checklist for an optimized voice UI and brings us up to date on Tegic (a former AOL company best known for its flagship T9 text input product, which Nuance acquired in 2007).

Nuance used this week’s CeBIT to showcase new speech solutions and put more marketing muscle behind its predictive mobile search offer known as T9 Nav. I followed this content discovery solution from the start, from the days that it was just a cool idea circulating around AOL and had yet to make its mark.

The product launches at the end of 2Q2008, and we have the chance to sign up for a special trial during CeBIT. Show delegates can download T9Nav here to experience first hand the mobile search and content discovery experience it allows. To be fair, T9 Nav does cover many of the bases to have a significant impact on the marketplace. However, there are also some striking similarities to Zi Corp. – and we can’t ignore the traction it’s getting, including a recent win that will see Zi Corp’s mobile discovery solution Qix picked up by Canadian mobile operator TELUS and installed on “select models” of phones and PDAs.

(BTW: I have briefings with c-level execs at both companies as well as a meet-up with Nuance’s (Tegic’s) Mike Wehrs, the brains behind a very cool iPhone killer-type combination music ecosystem/music recommender scheme, so we can compare notes properly on MSG when I have both sides — another good reason to check back regularly.)

In a nutshell, the T9 Nav value prop revolves about solving the poor navigation that remains a major stumbling block to buying content and accessing services. Understanding that users cannot purchase or interact with content and applications they cannot find, a new breed of companies has developed technology to help users find what they want with their mobile devices- without making them look for it. T9 Nav software allows users to access content, services and applications – whether they’re on the phone or on the mobile Web – with only a few key presses.

Typing “m-a” for example, might bring up a mapping application, a Madonna ringtone, contact information for “Mark” or a number of other content or device features beginning with those letters. In this scenario, off-device content could include operator portal offers, frequent WAP pages or searches, and third-party content and services.

As Eric Collins, General Manager for Nuance’s T9 Business Unit, put it in a press statement: “Nuance Mobile Solutions make it easier to control mobile devices, automate customer services, and access and discover even the most advanced mobile applications and content – regardless of technical know-how, location, environment or physical and literacy capabilities.” A good summation of how central content discovery solutions are likely to be in our mobile experiences.

In addition, Nuance announced enhancements to its line of automotive speech recognition services and a new turnkey solution allowing vendors and OEMs to bake Natural Language Understanding into their offers.

Thanks again to Fatima Vital for giving me a preview of her presentation this week and updating me on Nuance’s roadmap.

Listen to the podcast here. [11:09]

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Some highlights:

Use cases: The increased awareness and availability of speech in automotive and navigation has caused a shift in the type of functions that have been speech-enabled. At first it was about controlling in-car features like climate control. “But today, the focus is definitely on functions where speech can really add a value.” These include voice dialing and messaging. “We find out that over 75 percent of car drivers with the navigation solution in the car, change the destination while driving. This means that for these people, if they were able to enter the destination or check for points of interest by voice, it will definitely help them to keep their eyes on the road.” Another popular area is music search, being able to trawl for stations and genres with voice, as well as control the MP3 menu and volume, and order specific tracks to listen to.

Voice UI: There has been marked improvement in the UI and in the dialogue structure. “I would say the key requirements are the system has to be intuitive so that people can operate it… so it means that the combination of voice input and voice output. But I also think it is quite important for the users to have a consistent voice interface; that different applications have a consistent way of using speech or also consistency between different models and so on.”

Mobile search: Drawing from deployments at Sprint and Roger Wireless – “At Sprint, the main functions are messaging, voice dialing, local search or navigation….Nearly 50 percent of the usage is about personal information and messaging; so voice dialing, calendar, email account, email checking and so on. Messaging, email and SMS dictation accounts for roughly 28 percent; local search and navigation for roughly 23 percent; and Web search for roughly 18 percent.” The average number of requests per month has increased from 16 to roughly 30 requests per month.

Advertising: First and foremost, T9 Nav creates “a business case for advertising [around] keywords…. They could be news stories or other information services that may be relevant to the user and to which the user wants to subscribe.” Fatima reports huge interest in this on the part of vendors as well as operators that offer a navigation solution.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 2:56 pm and is filed under Content Discovery, Local Search, Location-based services, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Music, Mobile Research, Mobile Search, Multimodal Search, Podcasts. 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.