MSearchGroove

In-Brief: An in-depth look at GET, a mobile search service (in beta in the U.S.) that allows users to find and purchase ringtones, games, videos and wallpapers from their mobile phone. Are Traasdahl, CEO and founder of leading mobile content destination Thumbplay, connects the dots in Thumbplay’s big-picture strategy to build added value around mobile search and - ultimately - advertising.

Special thanks (and kudos) to David Berkowitz, marketing strategist/blogger and Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy at 360i, a full-service digital agency. He caught the news that Thumbplay had entered the mobile search space and then expertly integrated it into his regular column (via MediaPost).

His segmentation of mobile search is on the mark and points the way to an interesting trend: the emergence of hybrid mobile search models. Fortunately, he also passed my details to Chaim Haas, who manages PR for Thumbplay, along with the information that mobile search is both my expertise and passion.

The result is an exclusive briefing with Are Trassdahl and a preview of cool things yet to come.

But first some basics that may have got lost in the CTIA shuffle and flood of other press/product releases. GET is Thumbplay’s SMS mobile search service - based entirely on the company’s own IP - that literally lets users “get” mobile content by texting the word “Get” plus any artist or song name to 48000. The user receives a WAP link that they can click to land at a large menu of relevant content in Thumbplay’s catalog, which currently includes more than 80,000 pieces of licensed audio, video and gaming content from many major music labels, artists and game publishers, as well as media and entertainment companies. There the user can browse the results and then purchase and download. As Are put it in a statement: “GET streamlines the way consumers can search for, browse and download mobile entertainment content from their cell phones.”

The concept is hardly revolutionary; there are other SMS mobile search services on the market. (In fact, I picked up on a huge interest in SMS search schemes among Asian operators who attended MSEGIII (Mobile Search Expert Group) last month. But this time it’s a brand that has harnessed keyword mobile search to boost sales and stake out a booming vertical: downloadable mobile content. Hmmmm. I remember that was Google’s goal last year (before it got side-tracked/focussed on Android, spectrum etc…). Will Thumbplay eat Google’s lunch?

After all, Google’s still indexing mobile content for its mobile content superstore/search scheme (from what I hear). With this announcement Thumbplay now has huge stockpile of Long Tail mobile content AND mobile search….

What does Are think? “I expect to see Google and Yahoo in this space soon.” But so far no other content companies focused on this vertical - and if they are they don’t have Are’s ambitious business model in mind.

Are sees mobile search as a value-add that can lay the groundwork for a much larger business ecosystem of mobile content providers - all revolving around Thumbplay and its ability to make their content searchable, findable and buyable. A happy coincidence: I have been a strong proponent of precisely this model ever since Schibsted turned me on to it a few years back. It created the Sesam portal, brought content companies on board and then outperformed Google by a mile (a stellar rise documented in articles posted in the Portfolio section of MSG). It turns out Are also came from Schibsted so we’re in complete agreement on the power of providing mobile search as a service to partners. Knowing that I now expect great things from Thumbplay…

Other highlights from our impromtu Q&A:

Q: The mobile search is your IP. What else does Thumbplay bring to the table?

A: We have the ability to provide the Long Tail of content because we also have transcoding technology at the back-end that allows us to take any file and transport it in any form. Our platform supports 2,500 [different formats/devices], so we can deliver many forms of content across many carriers. That’s a basis for a [successful] mobile search.

Q: We agree that search can also be a service that attracts a lucrative mix of partners and advertisers. What are you seeing?

A: Yeah. Absolutely. We’re approached by five to ten companies that have content [to sell/search] every day. We’re already starting to form a more market-type approach and mobile search allows us to go after this market.

It’s a key component in the model we’re creating and allows us to enable search through our content and also the niche content or catalogs that are outside of our offer.

Q: You offer SMS search now. Is that the end-game, or is there more in the pipeline?

A: On the portal [Thumbplay’s WAP portal - m.thumbplay.com] we see about 15 to 20 million page views a month and we can grow this through search. SMS [search] is easy and works on every phone and carrier. There are other forms of search we are looking at as well, but that’s a bit further out in the future for us. Voice search is something we’ll probably roll out as service where users can call an 800 number and search via voice.

Q: How about monetization?

A: Advertising is going to be a big part of our business. Our advantage is that we already have a huge subscriber base in the U.S. with 4-5 million unique visitors to our website. We’re already sending loads of SMSs to users to let them know about products and we capture their emails and other details. We can use those channels to get the [search] product out.

But we don’t have immediate plans to monetize the search product through advertising. The first step is to build up the volume. When you have enough volume, then you can do whatever you want - push your own product or let others advertise in your search results.

Q: Recommendation is a great fit with search, particularly when it comes to content. Is it part of the services mix for Thumbplay?

A: Users can already rate and rank content and that has been very well-received by our customers. We plan to keep launching new products in that [recommender] space. We’re a little behind Amazon in that respect, but that is where [the direction] we’re going.

Recommendation works better in mobile because there’s so much content to search and so little space [on the device] to show it. It also works well with browsing - much better than with search - and encourages users to explore [content on offer].

• Posted in
• Mobile Search, Mobile Music, Mobile Content, Mobile Advertising, Content Discovery

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