Regular readers will know that I work with a variety of organizations and publications, evaluating companies and candidates for awards ranging from the Meffys (awarded by the Mobile Entertainment Forum to recognize excellence and innovation in mobile entertainment and services) to the Smaato Mobile Advertising Awards (recognizing the best in mobile Web and in-app advertising) to the EContent 100 (a list of the 100 companies that matter most in the digital content industry).

I am proud that EContent named me to its panel of judges to evaluate the 100+ candidates across the categories: classification & taxonomy; collaboration; content commerce; content creation, production, & digital publishing; content delivery; content management; content security; fee-based info services; intranets & portals; mobile content; search engines & technologies; and social media. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the many mobile and Internet companies that have contacted me to be considered for inclusion in the list, and issue a final call for candidates.

Round 1 of the judging wraps up on September 1, so please reach out to me this week. (Please note that your contacting me does not compel me to put any company name on the final list of contenders and, of course, in no way guarantees that any company will be named to the list.)

This year my participation in the judging team has not only introduced me to a number of new mobile industry innovators (companies you’ll see profiled on MSearchGroove in the coming weeks). It has also exposed me to new thinking about digital content creation and distribution.

The industry is at a critical crossroads. A milestone that speaks volumes: the storm brewing the media and digital industries after Rupert Murdoch’s very public announcement (after posting record losses of $203 million last quarter) that his News Corporation intends to charge for online newspaper content.

WILL WE PAY FOR CONTENT?

Artesian Solutions, a company specialized Web-based market intelligence and surveillance software (automating the process of search through machine-based surveillance), has an interesting take. Artesian CEO Andrew Yates issued a statement today arguing that Murdoch’s brave strategy may just (literally) literally pay dividends.

As Andrew puts it: Murdoch’s play is “based around ‘quality’ and this is tough call for a commodity that people are not currently prepared to pay for…. However he argues that one positive consequence of charging for content is that through targeted information and the learned behaviors of the subscribers, newspapers will be able to build a 24 hour, 7 days a week relationship (rather than once in the morning) with the subscriber and therefore tailor content to the demands of those paying for the service. The subscriber will get what they want, when they want it on whatever device they chose. Surely, this will be good for the consumer.”

Intrigued by this view I caught up with Andrew to ask why he can be so sure that we – people that have grown up accustomed to free content, search and social networking services – will change our habits and pay for news, for example. A few minutes into the call we were passionately debating the pivotal importance of personalization, relevancy and context – and the value they bring to our content experiences across platforms and devices.

CONTEXT & RELEVANCE

Artesian, for example, has built a B2B business model on providing its clients content in tune with their profiles, preferences and strategic focus. Using a variety of tools and techniques (advanced algorithms, natural language search the order and frequency of keywords, for example) Artesian effectively filters out information that we don’t want and gives us what we do.

In this scenario, the value of content is its quality – which is a function of context and relevance. Put another way, customers pay for genuinely useful content and they pay a premium for the choice of having what they need where and when they need it. With this in mind, the next deliverable on the Artesian roadmap is a service that delivers a daily dose of information to customers on their portable devices (PDA, smartphone, iPhone etc…).

My take: Artesian is one of a new breed of cool companies that makes its money by making choices for us to provide us choice content we appreciate. By spidering the indexes relevant to our interests and objectives (and not attempting to index or deliver the entire Web), companies such as Artesian are defining paid-content models that hold a great deal of promise for publishers everywhere (particularly in mobile). I would certainly pay for a daily dose of exactly what I want (gleaned from the sources I know and trust, as well the social media spaces, such as Twitter) delivered to my BlackBerry. All the more valuable if the technology employs explicit and implicit personalization (as Artesian does). Will we, as my close colleague Alan Moore suggested, pay for quality content? I vote ‘yes.’ As they say in Cologne, where I am based: What costs nothing, is nothing.

KOOABA MAKES MEDIA INTERACTIVE

Another value to focus on (because it can pave the way to effective/engaing advertising and increased revenues for publishers) is interactivity.

The merging of the digital and physical worlds is a hot topic at MSearchGroove and a big part of the Netsize Guide 2010. (Netsize has commissioned me to write it for the third year running and we just kicked off this exciting project at a meeting at Netsize HQ in Paris last week). But it’s more than a good read; it’s a great business model for the companies that can bridge those worlds.

Kooaba, a visual search and image recognition company and I have had high on my radar from the start (and that goes back almost two years), has an approach that spells good news for old media (specifically, print) anxious to get more mileage out of their content assets.

It’s hot off the presses (no pun intended!) and I caught up with Herbert Bay, Kooaba CEO and founder, to get the inside track on this new Kooaba and where it’s heading.

By way of background, Kooaba, which offers the Kooaba App for the iPhone and other devices, is strong in image recognition. It’s one of a number of companies providing the technology that allows people to interact with content and advertising using their cameraphones, paving the way for the all-important transaction.

(Little wonder why Amazon acquired visual search company Snaptell last month and this month released Amazon App for Android, an app that includes the experimental Amazon Remembers feature. With it people have two ways they can use their device camera to find and remember items available for sale on Amazon.com: they can either snap a photo of an item or scan a barcode.)

Kooaba’s new-look website is chock-full with information about the Kooaba App and case studies from clients ranging from BMW and EMI to Heineken – all a testament to the power of this technology to enable advertising and encourage commerce.

But the real news for me is Interactive print, Kooaba’s solution that effectively gives old print media a new lease on life.

In practice, people capture the content with their cameraphones and Kooaba makes the connection between the printed content and the cool interactive stuff it links to (videos, interviews, and special offers/discounts – the works). Additional functionality in the back-end lets people search, archive and even share this content. Read a job offer in the classifieds, save it for yourself in your personal library or share it on Facebook. Read an interview, get one-click access to the video and then pass it around.

Will people pay for that interactivity? Perhaps… But it’s likely the real money will come from advertisers willing to pay a premium to deliver a more interactive advertising experience and – more importantly – measure the results. (Kooaba’s solution has analytics/tracking baked in.)
Herbert is bullish about the power shift that can happen when publishers are back in charge of their content and their advertising revenues (as opposed to aggregators and search engine companies.).

But I am even more excited about the potential for interactive learning. This technology can literally make books come alive! (A wonderful boost to the quality of education in the developing world.)

The bottom line: Relevancy rules! Whether it’s built into the algorithms that allow companies such as Artesian charge for relevant content or architected into Kooaba’s solution that makes print content contextually-aware (because it can morph to match the context of the people who activate it with their cameraphones), we want what we want and will gravitate to those companies that can give it to us.

I encourage you to add the site to your list of must-read destinations. Why? Many of the business models and businesses driving revenues in the Internet are coming soon to mobile. (Search engines and collaborative software companies lead the pack of companies moving out of stealth mode to make some serious waves.) Amidst this change I know of no better source than EContent to stay that extra-important step ahead of the game.

(I will therefore give EContent a top-notch spot in the new-look Knowledge Sharing Zone I wrote about in this earlier post. The goal is to create a comprehensive list of valuable resources and destinations. If you would like your site or blog to be considered, please email it to me (peggy@msearchgroove.com).

As part of the recent Buying and Selling eContent conference, Michelle invited experts and contributors who judged the EContent 100, to give their views on the companies and trends that matter. Michelle reports that the series of video interviews  got good reviews, and the content in them was “extremely well received.”

In Search of Excellence in Content Commerce, Creation, Delivery and CMS

with Tony Byrne, Ron Miller, and Martin White

Cutting Edge Success Stories in Collaboration, Social Media, and Mobile Content

featuring David Meerman Scott, Steve Smith, and Peggy Anne Salz

The Best In Content Collections, DRM, and Search

with Theresa Regli, Steve Sieck, and Paula Hane

Tune in and enjoy!

By way of background, I was chosen to judge the categories Mobile Content, Search Engine & Technologies, Collaboration and Social Media.

My participation in the judging team (of 14 judges) allowed me to introduce my peers to mobile industry innovators high on my radar and emphasize the role of mobile-only search and personalization companies in the scheme of things. As a result, this year saw four new (mobile) additions to the EContent100: ChangingWorlds, CrispWireless JumpTap, MCN and SurfKitchen. They join other movers and shakers that made the list including Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nokia and Twitter.

If you want to be considered for inclusion in the next EContent 100, contact me directly. I’m always open to new companies and great ideas!

In the meantime, I’ll be back on Thursday with a wrap-up of mobile content issues, challenges and trends from the European Mobile Media Conference.

At the other end of the spectrum, this shift in mindset also turns up the pressure on mobile search providers to develop services that are (likewise) more useful, engaging and personal. Indeed, improving the mobile search user experience is at the center of a sustainable and successful mobile search and advertising strategy. Users are encouraged to explore the wealth of content and applications at their fingertips, and their urge to discover leads to more queries and more opportunities to deliver paid search advertising. It’s not quite the fixed Internet all over again, but there are similarities.

The outcome is a virtuous cycle where useful search results and targeted advertising convince users that mobile search is a useful way to find content and applications that matter to them. What’s more, the advance of app stores (similar to the excitement the industry experienced when content portals were the rage) underlines the critical importance of a better interplay between search and advertising moving forward.

I am therefore encouraged by improvements (from companies such as Yahoo), and excited by the increasing popularity of new mobile search paradigms, ranging from multimodal search (which has received a much-needed boost thanks to the iPhone); to approaches that integrate human input/judgment to deliver search results we’re much more likely to appreciate. (I am currently compiling a comprehensive directory of mobile search providers, so please contact me to be included. If your story is interesting, I will also profile your company on MSG.)

A category of mobile search high on my radar is visual search. (Companies include: Idée, IQ Engines, Kooaba, Mobile Acuity, Searchme, SnapNow and SnapTell.) I am pleased to report I am close to confirming a date for a podcast with Philipp Schloter, Nokia’s general manager of Point & Find. Nokia (which MSG covered here) just last week took the wraps off a new beta of its visual search service. The technology is cool but the real excitement is about the fit with mobile marketing campaigns. As Julian Pate, Client Partner at interactive marketing agency AKQA, put it in a statement: “The Nokia Point & Find service marries the digital world with the physical world in a way that actually has meaning for brands and consumers. Not only does it allow consumers to engage with brands in an innovative way but provides brands ‘point and purchase’ opportunities with an on-the-go audience.”

This same value proposition is echoed by SnapNow, a U.S.-based visual search company I profiled in my regular column for EContent magazine.

In it I examine the proliferation of pilots and projects that harness mobile to hyperlink images and items, enabling consumers to access information, make purchases or just browse the Web for similar cool content, by simply snapping a picture using their cameraphones. I also interview Tony Keaveny, Head of Sales for SnapNow UK, who updates me on what the company is doing to “snap-enable” content ranging from print to video.

As Tony puts it: “Your phone becomes your mouse and the world around us becomes the Web. It’s about transforming print, packaging, video, outdoor, or just about any other advertising into a portal enabling communication and – more importantly – commerce.”

Tony walks the talk, which is why he has also kindly offered to “snap-enable” the MSG logo, which means you can get more information about MSG by taking a picture of the logo with your cameraphone and sending it to pic@snapnow.co.uk. I’ll think of a contest to make it worth your while. In the meantime, this is  great (!) because MSG is in demand as a media partner and now you can connect to MSG via the  logo on brochures and posters  at industry conferences such as the Open Mobile Summit, June 10-11 in London, a top-notch industry conference organized by OpenMobileMedia, where I chair the session on mobile advertising.  I invite you to read the column here – and to explore the other great content at EContent.

On a personal note, I am proud to be a contributing editor and look forward to collaborating with Michelle Manafy, EContent Editor-in-chief on a special social media issue sure to set the bar. More about that when I put out a call for pitches here and on Twitter (@peggyanne). Michelle is also the programming chair of Information Today’s Enterprise Search Summits (ESS), annual events that encourage deep discussion and practical analysis of the search space. The next one is May 12-13 in NYC. This week Michelle wraps up Buying and Selling EContent Conference, an event that brings together leading executives knowledgeable in the techniques for buying and selling content. She gives her views on the marketplace and the role of user-generated content in this pre-conference audio interview.

But visual search is just one of the 15 categories I have identified in the process of compiling a comprehensive overview and SWOT analysis of the major mobile search players, together with Rudy De Waele, Mobile Web 2.0 luminary and founder of dotopen, an open innovation consulting firm advising start-ups and established companies helping them define business models, forge alliances and pursue funding opportunities.

Our work is in preparation for a workshop on Mobile Search Future Prospects organized by JRC IPTS (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the European Commission), an organization providing customer-driven support to the EU policy-making process.  The purpose of the workshop next week in Seville, Spain, is to identify mobile search trends and recommendations for policy makers. I cannot attend the event, but look forward to publishing a summary analysis of key points raised during the workshop on MSG.

Connect the dots, and mobile search innovation is shaping up to be a major focus in 2009.

The last word on the increasing importance of mobile search comes from Nokia (via AltSearchEngines.com). During his presentation Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President of Nokia’s new Markets unit, told the audience mobile is the future of search. (Hmmm…Does this conviction mark a new chapter in Nokia’s own mobile search strategy? It’s a topic I’ll raise in my upcoming podcast…)

I used the opportunity to connect with some cool companies and mobile pundits, so check back for a line-up of exclusive briefings and in-depth analyses, beginning with a podcast with Bob Rosenshein, Answer.com CEO. In our audio interview, we discuss what makes for an optimal mobile search experience, and talk in broad terms about the company’s mobile strategy. Having just packed 100+ business cards and a stack of notebooks in my suitcase, it’s going to be tough choosing whom to showcase next, but be assured I will pick the gems.

My dear colleagues from bnetTV also covered the event, providing me the opportunity to do some impromptu interviews with Smaato, Nokia Interactive, David Berkowitz (Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy at digital marketing agency 360i), and Mobify, a start-up that gets publishers around the pain and expense of making  a version of their website for mobile phones (and the iPhone) by enabling publishers to create “mobile views” of their existing destination. (I’ll have more about the company, and an interview with Igor Faletski, Mobify CEO, in a special post that outlines the process in a how-to that results in an iPhone version of MSG.)

A real highpoint of the conference: The chance to connect with Alan Moore, founding director of SMLXL (Small Medium Large XtraLarge), a specialist community and engagement marketing firm, and co-author of Social Media Marketing: How Data Analytics Helps to Monetize the User Base in Telecoms, Social Networks, Media and Advertising in a Converged Ecosystem. I’ll deep-dive into this work in a future podcast, but in the meantime allow me to leave you with a key bullet point from Alan’s presentation (and one that echoed across a string of post-session discussions): Advertising inventory as we know it is dead.

Think about it.

I have done nothing but since I heard Alan’s thought-provoking presentation, aptly titled No Straight Lines, yesterday.

Today I spent much of the day writing my regular column for EContent magazine, one that attempts to connect the dots in the many presentations and dinner conversations that have made this last week so remarkable and memorable. Thanks to Matthew for purposely ending the event with a bang: A session looking at the new services that harness Twitter (and its open API) to create new ways to create, access, organize, and mobilize this wealth of information and content.

My take (and the central message of my column): The trickle of Twitter-based services will surely become a tidal wave of offerings that range from news and media monitoring to innovative ways to organize the massive flow of information.

The session introduced us to some cool startups that have picked up on this, including StockTwits, which calls itself an “open, community-powered investment idea and information service.” More about this social, stock micro-blogging when I connect with Howard Lindzon, StockTwits Co-Founder. Also check back for some detail on how and why advertising may be the way forward for Twitter, ending the company’s search for a monetization model.

As I conclude in my column: We are – every single one of us – publishers. And with social networks such as Twitter we have the foundation for a new ecosystem in which individuals, content companies, and even brands can create new content and new ways to organize information in our socially inter-networked world.

Against this backdrop, I have decided to explore the advance of solutions from companies such as Wapple – designed from the ground up to make publishing a no-brainer – and the impact on the mobile Web. (Scott Beaumont, Co-Founder of Mippin, will also make his debut with a guest column next week that walks us through the procedure to mobilize MSG and the bigger reasons why publishers should get involved.)

My take: A lot of content to explore at our finger tips and an increased need for mobile search services that find – and monetize – it. Taptu tops the list – but I see other companies on the horizon that likewise understand the pivotal importance of putting people back in the equation.

I detail this argument in my column for EContent magazine here. One company I’m watching in ChaCha, a mobile search and answers service that launched a year ago this month. (By way of background, ChaCha has developed a “search-with-a-guide” process that lets stumped searchers connect with a live person – in real-time and via an instant message chat for answers in the form of relevant links and results.)

In fact, my associate Peggy Albright and I have spent the last weeks testing ChaCha voice search against the likes of Google and Vlingo and will have the results for you later this month. Keep posted for analysis that may surprise you and a post from Peggy chock-full of our observations and frustrations.

Disclaimer: Taptu has collaborated with MSG on a white paper.