MSearchGroove

In-Brief: Placement on the operator portal is close, but no cigar. Off-portal traffic and the advance of a more open Internet are encouraging content owners to bid heavily on keywords in a stepped-up effort to drive traffic to their sites. Plus: An exclusive Q&A with Geraldine Wilson, vice president of Connected Life, Yahoo, Europe, and a closer look at Medio.

Shortly before I left on my last trip I asked for pitches for a piece New Media Age (NMA) magazine requested I write examining the move by some clever content publishers to a more aggressive and innovative paid search strategy. I’m pleased to report the article - which also analyzes Google’s latest features including mobile image ads - has gone live. You can find more here, but you’ll need to subscribe to read the entire article.

The takeaway: Content providers (including Thompson Reuters Europe and Condé Nast UK - both quoted in the article) are convinced the potential for paid search will be massive. Condé Nast UK even went so far as to pull its mobile properties from mobile operator portals in March - partly in anticipation of a mobile advertising/paid search advertising windfall, and partly in an effort to better control its relationship with existing advertisers.

In my view, these brands are blazing a trail other publishers will soon follow. But it isn’t the “when” that I find quite as interesting as the “how.”

Will publishers gravitate to Google and Yahoo, or will they explore what white-label providers can offer?

An informal survey I’ve conducted over the last weeks indicates a heightened interest among content companies experimentation and in checking out what each company has to offer.

And the offers merit a closer look. Medio, for example, has upped the ante with its recent launch of the Medio Mobile Content Partner Program. In line with this push Medio is not only signing up content companies for inclusion in the program; it is apparently placing more emphasis on their content feeds in the scheme of what the company calls its Medio uSearch. This universal search offering is under wraps, but count on MSG to have more soon. My first impression is that it is an attempt to combine universal search and federation to showcase content feeds from preferred partners (what Medio terms “category leaders”) via a single search box.

To get the inside track on Yahoo’s paid search strategy for content owners I contacted Geraldine Wilson, vice president of Connected Life, Yahoo, Europe. In an impromptu Q&A session she told me she sees the space crowding -  even though actual mobile search usage is not increasing as fast as she would like.

Voice search and other enhancements Yahoo announced for its own mobile search offer are a prime example of the “way in which mobile search must evolve.” As Geraldine put it: Yahoo recognizes the need to provide users with an intuitive and easy search service, where users get results in the first screen rather than being re-directed to an Internet site which hasn’t been adapted for mobile - this is why the company has redesigned the mobile search solution from the ground up with Yahoo oneSearch.

Growing search traffic is a prerequisite to growing the business around sponsored search, which is again why Yahoo has sharpened its focus on the tools and technologies - such as voice - likely to make mobile search a no-brainer. The signs are positive and Geraldine told me she already sees that “half the people using it [mobile search] are continuing to use it.”

What about the publisher side of the equation? Wilson hinted that Yahoo will also increase efforts beyond the company’s current widget strategy, where it has opened up its mobile web platform and Yahoo Go client to widget developers - helping them to get instant reach and audience.

“As people start to use the Internet more and it becomes easier to use, traffic through publisher sites is going to grow. So it is absolutely part of our strategy to be that search partner and advertising partner for publishers and we are starting to do that.” Yahoo hasn’t made any announcements yet, “but we have got a number of publisher partners where we’re actually rolling out search and advertising with them, so we’ll be talking about that story more.”

Count on MSG to have more from Yahoo as this develops. In the meantimeAgain, thanks to the companies that contacted me for the NMA feature. And to those of you who were not included, please keep me on the radar. In addition to a number of columns I am preparing for wireless publications, I am also researching two analyst commentary pieces for Mobile Entertainment on the topics of mobile search and mobile advertising. There are plenty of opportunities in the pipeline, and I encourage you to reach out to me. (My PA, Andrea Henninge, coordinates briefings and you can reach her at andrea@msearchgroove.com .

• Posted in
• Mobile Research, Mobile Search, Mobile Advertising

0 comments

share

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

permalink