In-Brief: Some highlights from discussions and demos during CTIA with Kimia, Medio Systems, Slifter & Yahoo.
Today I wrap up an exciting week of briefings, meetings and mind-melds with a broad range of companies that have earned a prime slot on MSG. No doubt the news today was Yahoo’s 2.0 approach to mobile search. Rather than report the news we all know, look for MSG to have the inside track from Lee Ott, who heads up mobile search. We’re working out whether to do a Q&A or a podcast – but either way you can look forward to worthwhile and in-depth analysis here soon.

Another great find is Slifter, a vertical mobile search engine focused on connecting bargain hunters in buy-mode with good deals. Expect a podcast soon and an exclusive on the company’s roadmap direct from Alex Muller, Slifter CEO. Speaking of podcasts, I recorded two with John du Pre Gauntt, Senior Wireless Analyst, eMarketer, deep-diving into his recent mobile advertising report findings and discussing the recent shifts in the mobile search landscape.

Other highlights included an in-depth briefing with Jai Jaisimha, AOL VP, Mobile Products & Technology Development. Despite the late hour (10:00 pm) he took the time to connect the dots in AOL’s comprehensive strategy to cultivate a new-order mobile ecosystem and improve mobile search. A real surprise is the tie-up with Obopay which signifies a giant leap toward allowing publishers and developers to freely monetize their content/apps. Thanks again to Farhan Memom, AOL Search Product Manger, for the private demo of AOL search optimized for iPhone (they told me it would knock my socks off and it did). And a special thanks to Jaymelina Esmele for setting all this up in the first place.

Speaking of freeing content and unleashing the legendary Long Tail, I finally had the pleasure of meeting with Kimia, a company that is high on my radar.

It’s tough to describe what Kimia does (and I must remain vague at this point as Karel de Beule, Kimia’s founder, has specifically asked me to keep the company’s plans under wraps). Let’s just say the company is in the homestretch of a service that will enable small/indie content providers a no-brainer (and no pain) way to mobilize and monetize their content. To tackle content discoverability Kimia has also developed its own search engine that Karel described as a vertical mobile search engine for RSS content feeds. More on this soon…

Finally, Brian Lent, Medio Systems CEO, also gave me the inside track on the company’s big-picture strategy to secure a top-notch spot on the idle screen and bridge the usability barrier with some new capabilities and approaches. I respect his request to report precise details later, but one feature that stood out was the so-called “predictionary.” An intuitive and smart list of top search terms (cached on the device) based on a deep and dynamic understanding of clustomers. Put simply, if the systems determines that a user is more a prosumer than a consumer, then the act of typing in only an “n” triggers the predictionary to suggest “news” as a likely search term, thus relieving the user of the tedium of inputting the full word. It won’t suggest “Nelly Furtado” because it knows (from its understanding of clustomers) that prosumers as a group are more likely to search for information rather than ringtones.

More about this when I return (I’m on a plane for the next 12 hours). Besides, I still have five back-to-back briefings to go and who knows what surprises they will bring…

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 10:22 am and is filed under Content Discovery, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Content, Mobile Search, Personalization, Web 2.0. 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.