Wrapping up an exciting mobile search white paper project this week with Peggy Albright, founder of Albright Research and MSG research associate. We can't give away too much before the formal launch next week, but the research - which evaluates Google, Vlingo (Yahoo) and ChaCha - has also drawn our attention to social search, the Achilles heel of universal search engines Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. (In fact, a comparison between mobile answers/search services ChaCha and Google SMS, ChaCha achieved 70 percent of Google's SMS search volume in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to data from the Q4 Mobile Messaging Report from The Nielsen Company.) While a new report from Bernstein Research may argue that (at least in the US) Google wins the mobile search battle hands-down on the strength of its brand, I believe that other factors (specifically, the quality of the user experience and the tie-up between mobile search and mobile social networking), will pave the way for other companies (and business models). BTW: I am scheduled for a podcast interview this week with Jeffrey Lindsay, Senior Analyst, Bernstein Research, to discuss the key findings of his milestone report, Google, IAC, Yahoo!: Mobile Internet - the Next Advertising marathon - Google and Yahoo! Moving to Front of Pack. In the meantime, I recommend you read Dianne See Morrison's worthwhile summary post at MoCoNews. In my view, social search - search that enables people to add their personal knowledge, opinions, and experiences to search results - has arrived in full force in online. (The market is already teeming with people-powered search engines - ranging from Wikipedia, which recently took the wraps off Wikia, a search service that combines computer-driven algorithms and human-assisted editing to Mahalo, a company building - and paying - contributor communities to direct searchers to relevant results, to nimble newcomers like NosyJoe, a private beta social search engine that relies on people to "sniff the Web for interesting content.") The mobile phone - a personal device we have with us at all times - represents the next frontier for social search.