MSearchGroove

In-Brief: Consider this post as a place setter for a more in-depth interview with the Qualcomm and Xiam execs when I return from Thailand.

I’m tying up a few lose ends before my trip when the news arrives in my inbox. I can’t say the acquisition of Xiam Technologies - a provider of targeted advertising, content discovery and recommendations solutions for clients including Vodafone, Orange UK and O2 - by Qualcomm is a complete surprise. After all, MSG tracked Xiam from the start and reported extensively on Qualcomm’s equity investment in the company. (And here’s the view from Orange, Xiam’s customer operator, in another exclusive interview.)

The surprise is the run on recommendation companies as players realize that suggesting content users are likely to appreciate based on their browsing behavior, patterns and other factors is a sure-fire way to clinch the sale and in many ways more powerful than mobile search.

Analysis posted here on MSG recalls that, in the last months, white-label search company FAST acquired AgentArts (and was then acquired by Microsoft), MCN acquired Caboodle to boost its recommendation capabilities, and Real Networks acquired Sony Network Services to deliver more personalized mobile music services. And the list goes on. All are a testament to the growing belief that recommendation and personalization (best together) can super-charge content discovery schemes and generate ad revenues (from relevant ads, of course).

Xiam, by way of background, effectively intuits consumer preferences from data including billing information, mobile browsing logs and purchase history, to deliver users a variety of related content including news, images, wallpapers, video clips and games, as well as targeted mobile advertising. According to the press release, Qualcomm plans to continue to offer Xiam’s MPOS solution - which enables mobile operators and brands to deliver personalized offers over wireless and Web channels - “coupled with the global reach of Qualcomm’s ecosystem.” No idea what that means in practical terms, but count on me to find out.

• Posted in
• On-Device Portals, Personalization, Mobile Research, Mobile Search, Mobile Music, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Content, Content Discovery

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