MSearchGroove

In-Brief: MSG speaks with Kate Edwards, CEO of Jentro Technologies, a German-based provider of mobility solutions, about ambitious plans to facilitate the development and delivery of location-based services, social networking and vertical content mini-apps (including search). Is it just another platform - or will it give Google & Co a run for their money?

A few months ago I would have shrugged my shoulders, but that indifference has turned to interest since I heard the inside track on Ö-NAVI, a world-first completely ad-funded navigation services scheme (based on Jentro’s white-label solution) deployed by DasÖrtliche, a top German directory service and local search provider. DasÖrtliche wanted to boost brand awareness, add more value to its local search service and drive incremental revenue - a checklist Dirk Schulte, a DasÖrtliche spokesman, assured me the company has completed.

In fact, the service has significantly expanded its portfolio of services and advertisers to include Volvo, the FAZ (a major German daily newspaper), and a partnership with Clever-Tanken.de which lets users find the nearest and cheapest gas stations.

As you can see for yourself, these stats from a Jentro presentation I caught during a recent and worthwhile Wireless World Forum mobile search & advertising event in London (reported here), show companies can adopt a mini-Google strategy and drive positive results.

RESULTS

• • Increased usage
  • - Higher 5 digit registrations 3 months after launch
  • - Avg. 4-5 routes a month per user
  • - Avg. 10-12 directory requests a month per user
  • - Avg. 7-8 map downloads a month per user
• • Alternative revenue stream in short-time
  • - Increased usage of directory services
  • - Product palcement in the retail channel
  • - Advertising revenues
• • Increased brand awareness
  • - Increased traffic to directory portal
  • - Very positive and extensive press coverage

Jentro’s stated purpose is to enable apps, facilitate advertising, and share the wealth. A far cry from some branded search & advertising schemes. So how does this work in practice? Kate Edwards, Jentro CEO, walked me through the company’s recent release Zenlet platform and how it can drive ad-funded services and schemes. The platform was only released in February, so things are a bit quiet at Jentro, but a browse of what partners Motorola and Magellan have on offer bodes well for what is yet to come.

Listen to the podcast here. [11:02]

Some highlights:

The offer: It covers a lot of bases - starting out with the usual mix of mobile apps (turn-by-turn navigation, local search, traffic, social networking, and a variety of vertical content). Beyond that, the full-mobility platform enables all the go-to-market strategies, paving the way for “something as simple as local search or real-time traffic information, or the ability to incorporate dynamic content or third-party applications such as social networking…that are actually location-aware to consumers on their mobile devices.”

Advertising linked to location & more: We have built an advertising proxy. “What that allows us to do is actually support a market that wants everything for free.… Our customers…want the flexibility to work with their existing ad agency. They already have relationships with the existing ad servers and they want to be able to utilize the mobile devices as a new means of getting brand awareness into the marketplace and as a new mobile advertising revenue model.”

“Why mobile advertising can become a much more compelling model is, now we’re capturing profile data about what a customer is doing across all of their mobile devices; now we have their real-time location from our location back-end, [and] we have a lot more visibility into what this consumer wants to do. So we can deliver much more intelligent advertising to those consumers, to any of their mobile devices.”

Safer than Google?: “We have to admit that Google is, in fact, a competitor.” Jentro enables turn-by-turn navigation. Google’s back-end does not. Today it really just is sell ID and sell triangulation with Wi-Fi capabilities; it doesn’t allow you to do turn-by-turn navigation. “If we were to look at content and upgraded content; content is going to be limited to local content in Google application. And Jentro’s belief and Jentro’s model is, our customers already have existing relationships that they want to exploit. They have partnerships with MySpace and FaceBook and Looped and all the different content partners and directory services companies, and some of our mobile operator customers own their own directory services companies.

Of course we all know Google doesn’t want to share the advertising revenue….Our business model and our belief is, advertising is the means to drive adoption in to fund very compelling business models, but there are also premium services and there are also means to further monetize this business model to drive a return for our customers.”

By way of background: The Zenlet platform - a combined mobile browser and location-aware plug-in technology platform complete with an advertising proxy, as well as a payment/billing framework to offer ad-based free applications, transaction-based applications and subscription models - enables the development and delivery of “relevant and rich location-based, social networking and vertical content mini-apps” called Zenlets.

These Zenlets can be accessed within a single client app (pre-loaded on a device or delivered over-the-air). The Zenlet engine - the plug-in container application - allows for the seamless delivery of content through platform-independent Zenlets to mobile phones and connected personal navigation devices (PNDs) as well as to in-dash computers. The Zenlet engine has a very small footprint, is available for Java ME, and will be available soon for Symbian OS and Windows Mobile platforms. Jentro will offer the Zenlet engine as a white-label client application, optionally including maps, upgradeable with driving directions and/or GPS navigation. Clients can develop their own applications to plug-and-play into the Zenlet platform using a Zenlet Software Development Kit (SDK) that Jentro will offer soon to developers and publishers to bring their content to millions of mobile users.

• Posted in
• Mobile Social Networking, Web 2.0, Location-based services, Personalization, Mobile Search, Local Search, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Content, Podcasts

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