MSearchGroove

In-brief: An overview of essential mobile search-related news and views. Companies include: abphone, Asklaila, dotMobi, Google, Kooaba, Microsoft, Mobile Commerce, Veedio, Yahoo India & Yulop.

Regular readers will know that change is in the works at MSG. Stuart Willet and his team of five ad sales professionals are moving full-speed ahead on deals to deliver the community a wide assortment of sponsored content; Paul Nash and the design team at fifty50 are nearly done with a server switch that will pave the way for MSG and its growing network of partner sites to provide the community with more news, analysis, and social media tools; and Janine Redgrove has signed MSG on for an impressive list of media partnerships, including one that will see MSG present an award for the best mobile search service - aptly called the “Groovy” award. There’s a lot going on, and all of it good! If you want to know more, or want to enter your search service for consideration in the upcoming Mobile Search Awards & Conference 2008, then please feel free to contact me directly.

While we’re on the topic of mobile search, I’d like to recount recent announcements and company news as a matter of record. My take on this: The mobile search space is heating up as a slew of mobile search companies and services come online to challenge the wisdom of universal search and the long-term sustainability of the companies that promote it. (BTW: Since it’s my brief to track mobile search companies/offers for Charles Knight at AltSearchEngines beginning in June, it makes good sense to check back regularly. For example, I just made contact with a super-cool Korean company that has a mobile search service - and I’m looking forward to sharing the exclusive Q&A soon.)

KOOABA: What a coincidence! Just as I am preparing to write a summary analysis of vision and voice search schemes for Mobile Entertainment (deadline for pitches: June 10), I get an email release about Kooaba, a German-based company that stole the show at the MobileMonday Demo Night held in conjunction with Mobile Internet World 2008. In a nutshell, Kooaba’s object recognition solution allows users to search the mobile Internet using their cameraphones (a “point-snap-find” value prop). But improving mobile search usability is just a part of it; the real prize is creating a link between the physical and virtual worlds to enable advertising campaigns and commerce. Brands including Cellity AG, EMI-Music Schweiz, EasyJet, and die Edipresse Groupe are already using Kooaba’s mobile marketing solutions for just that.

INDIA: Indian local search engine provider Asklaila, owned by Bangalore-based Four Interactive, has launched a mobile service, according to this report in India’s Business Standard. The model follows the blueprint you would expect: Users with GPS-enabled devices can access the service via the company’s WAP site (m.asklaila.com) and can search for nearby businesses and shops. Asklaila also offers an SMS search service that lets users text their query to a short code (58989) to get results. To date, the mobile local search service is available to Vodafone and Reliance subscribers, and other providers are in the pipeline. An oddly worded passage in the post tells us that the company has developed a “forgiving search technology” for mobile users, which will enable one to get an exact answer for any query which has typographic or syntax error. Sounds quite similar to existing word and query completion technologies, but I’ve sent an email to the company to find out more…

It is interesting to note that local search is where the action is - especially now that Yahoo India has launched the public beta of its local search service, initially starting in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Chennai. The service features maps and a new feature called EssentiaList that delivers users a package of action-oriented search results. To date, Yahoo India offers two takes on this: moving to Koramangala and getting married in Koramangala. It’s not clear how these results are packaged (or federated), but I’ll be back with the inside track soon.

Google also senses an opportunity, which is why it plans to invest more in locally relevant search, according to this post from Mint. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Google President, Asia Pacific and Latin America, makes it clear: “Staying focused around the core of search is very important for us here and we will invest more deeply in search that is more relevant locally, whether defined by Indian languages or by a better map experience…We recognize that mobile is the next touchdown for India. You will start to see investments in the mobile search area.” Orkut, which has a large following in India and Brazil, is “at the heart of our strategy in India and an asset that we will continue to invest in.”

India is a hot market with almost 200 million mobile users, for many of whom the phone is the only screen - period. To stake its turf, Google has launched SMS search and a voice-assistive local search in Hyderabad, where users can dial a toll free number to search for local restaurants or movie halls in the neighborhood. “It is too early to talk about results, but this pilot is something to learn from,” Cassidy said.

Meanwhile, Indian-based Yulop is also sharpening its focus on local mobile search. As this post reports, Yulop has fine-tuned triangulation to deliver users information and search results based on their location. Yulop has more than 150,000 business listings in Bangalore, and plans similar listings in six other cities. The company offers its mobile search app as a download to the mobile phone, and is likely on a collision course with Google, Microsoft, and Nokia - all of which are planning similar local search services using GPS and mobile phone triangulation, the article points out.

However, Yulop founder Gundaiah Sridhar isn’t too worried about the tough competition. In fact he hones in on an important service differentiator: “They can build maps and networks, but you need local data and that is difficult to build.” This jives with what I am hearing in the industry - and also dovetails well with the argument outlined by MSG guest columnist Martin Wilson. He points out that directory publishers have the edge over Google & Co. because they have local information and a robust sales force. Looks like having a stockpile of local listing data and being familiar with the local market are the factors that will also play in favor of India’s newcomer vertical mobile search providers (all of which are focused on local, BTW). For some insights into this startup, you may also want to check out this detailed blog post from Harshil Karia.

BOORAH: Another vertical on my radar is restaurant search. BooRah — which claims patent-pending natural language processing technology that automatically summarizes a collection of online reviews from bloggers, professional critics, and consumers, allowing consumers to search based on their personal preferences - has gone mobile. The company blog runs us through the major enhancements, which include: mobile access to search BooRah’s database of restaurants (with support for maps and directions in the pipeline); simpler navigation between metro and city pages; a new full-text search engine; and “tweaks to ranking algorithms to improve the overall relevance and search quality.”

It may be about restaurants now, but the company makes no secret about the fact that its patent-pending Natural Language Processing technology (which effectively blends search terms and user sentiment to enable “a highly customizable search based on personal preferences”) can be extended way beyond restaurants to “revolutionize the concept of business and service search.”

By way of background, BooRah recently teamed up with 4INFO, a partnership that has allowed BooRah to stake its turf in mobile. BooRah’s algorithms generate the results, and 4INFO’s messaging platform delivers them to users on their mobile phone. No word on monetizing mobile search, but knowing 4INFO and its impressive track record from the start, this can’t be too far out.

DOTMOBI: While I’m waiting for word back on my briefing request, here’s a few interesting snippets. First, on the heels of a post from Mowser, a PC-to-mobile website content adaptation company, that it was throwing in the towel, dotMobi acquired the assets and announced plans to integrate the IP into new “business-grade and consumer-grade mobile development tools.” These content creation tools, like http://find.mobi/, DeviceAtlas, and http://ready.mobi/, are all designed to help businesses more easily create device-aware mobile content. The idea is to move away from content adaptation solutions that wrest control over the content from the creators, and give brands a final say over how their material is presented; and that the content should uniquely take advantage of the capabilities of a mobile device, the company said.

Second, an insightful post via the company blog that sheds some light on what users of the find.mobi mobile search engine are looking for A surprise: The majority of users are searching for particular sites they are familiar with. Put another way, users are looking for the destinations they know from their PC browsing/searching/surfing habits. More evidence that users are transferring their PC behavior to the mobile Internet: “A large number of people type entire URLs or large fragments of them into the search boxes rather than just the brand name.” In fact, typical popular examples include “www.ryanair.com” and “myspace.com”. For the moment, mobile search resembles its Internet counterpart, but that is bound to change as users become more accustomed to mobile and/or more sites and services come online created by minds that think mobile. At least - that’s what the industry is counting on…

ABPHONE: France’s abphone, a vertical ad-funded video mobile search engine expanding beyond image search to mobile music and (soon) mobile games, is making good on plans to grow its footprint. The focus is on the U.K and the U.S., and abphone recently announced a milestone deal with 4^thscreen and Ad Infuse, two major mobile advertising networks, to drive search advertising to its site. BTW: AdMob is a major partner, but abphone also works with AdInfuse in the U.S., ThirdScreen Media in the U.S., and BuzzCity in Asia to deliver a mix of text and banner ads with search results.

Regular readers will recall MSG’s exclusive podcast with Pierre Scokaert, abphone CEO, in which he outlined his company’s future product and strategy roadmap. It details the business model, the ad agency relationships and explains the role of human judgement in the search results - so I urge you to read it for background. It also speaks volumes about the competitive landscape. As Pierre put it: His company is “very complementary to what they [Taptu] do and hopefully we can partner with them because definitely what users find on abphones they don’t find on Google or Yahoo, and what they do find on Google and Yahoo they don’t find on abphones. So I think there’s a definite opportunity for a partnership there, and this is the way we’ll go.”

With over a hundred million pages seen every month, abphone, a search engine for mobile content discovery, merits a closer look. What’s next? Pierre and I spoke last week on the phone and he assured me that there is plenty in the pipeline, so watch this space…

VEEDIA: Cystelcom Sistemas, a supplier of 3G mobile video solutions, has launched Veedia, a mobile search service that lets users find local businesses, interact with Google Maps results, and contact the business directly by placing a standard video call to a dedicated number. In addition to the usual results on Google maps — in this case, each business is marked by a green balloon and a corresponding number, while a red balloon indicates the end-user’s location - users are encouraged to interact with the businesses during the video call. The company offers us the following scenario: “Mobile users could view a promotional video, send a video message, connect to a video portal, or even initiate bi-directional audio and video communication with the business-all without having to end the video call.” During the video call, Veedia captures data in real time such as if users viewed the video, how long they viewed it, if they opted to connect with the business, and more. Granted, the “how” of all this is a big question mark, but my forthcoming briefing should clear this up…

MICROSOFT: While I’m waiting for a briefing with Microsoft to go through the raft of new features and functions (including mobile product search) it has packed into its new release mobile search service, here’s a rundown of some related news. Microsoft has extended its contract with Mobile Commerce, a U.K.-based provider of location services, to continue providing RoundTown, Microsoft’s branded mobile location-based service. The mobile search service lets users locate, find and secure bookings for a variety of events and services. It also integrates with ScreenTonic’s ad server, allowing Microsoft to monetize the service with both banners and sponsored ads.

Vodafone and Microsoft India recently announced the launch of SMS Search for Vodafone customers in India, powered by Microsoft Live Search service, at a rate of 30 paisa per query. Gurpreet S. Pall, Director of Live Search and Emerging Markets at Microsoft India Development Center (MSIDC), is quoted as saying: “We have incorporated some very unique features in SMS search service like local results based on the user’s city location, keeping track of the user’s search session for 24 hours, and delivering results formatted to match the user’s phone capabilities - seen in India for the first time.”

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• Location-based services, Multimodal Search, Mobile Search, Mobile Advertising, Local Search

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