Regular readers will know from this earlier post that I am attending an exciting mobile search conference in Bertinoro, Italy. It was well worth the trip, not only because the city is serene and beautiful, but because the university is the center of path-breaking informatics research and innovation. I learned that Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, flew in with his own plane to attend last year’s Web search conference – and this year an equally stellar line-up of executives and academics has gathered to give their expert view on the current state of mobile search and the outlook for the future.

Picture/image/camera search in all its forms is a hot topic, and you can count on me to come back with a deeper analysis of what was discussed and the potential impact on mobile search services. A personal favorite is MUFIN (Multi-Feature Indexing Network), which enables similarity searching for images. It gets even more interesting when you can put” for a variety of results in a variety of forms. I’m proud to report Pavel Zezula, a member of the faculty of the University of Brno and a passionate man who has spent 40 years looking at search problems and solutions, will give us the inside track on MUFIN in a Q&A following the conference.

Not that MSG follow-up coverage will be all theory (although I have to admit I am excited by this topic). I also had the pleasure to meet with telco executives who have all agreed to tell MSG about their mobile search pilots and plans. In short, MSG will also have some worthwhile “scoops” – so check back for exclusive Q&As that speak volumes about their current and future search ad advertising strategy.

Special highlights so far (the conference continues tomorrow) are Carlo Alberto Liccardi from Telecom Italia Lab, who will give us the inside track on a content and context (!) sharing platform that provides the basis for a photo/video sharing service set to launch this year.

It’s wonderful to attend a conference that will have a profound impact on the present and future focus of mobile search. Thanks to the organizers for inviting me to speak – and thanks to the academics and executives who have agreed to be featured in the coming days. Your support is an important confirmation of MSG’s blueprint and business model: To be a knowledge resource and thinking space for this industry.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Mobile Advertising, Mobile Research, Mobile Search, Mobile Social Networking, Multimodal Search, 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.