Since teaming up with Rudy De Waele, blogger at mTrends and  dotopen founder, to develop mobile search case studies in preparation for a workshop on Mobile Search Future Prospects organized by JRC IPTS (Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the European Commission), and seeing the positive response to our work to date, I’m convinced mobile search is back again at the top of the industry agenda. And with good reason: Search is the de facto interface to all things digital in the online space, and there is every indication that it will be the same in mobile.

From mobile advertising, where our queries trigger the delivery of related advertising (in the best case scenario, we’re not there yet), to social media, where the content we appreciate and discuss across destinations ranging from MySpace to Twitter allows us to restore balance in an otherwise purely algorithmic approach that tends to promote search engine optimized websites over what we find genuinely relevant and useful, mobile search is where the action is.

But as Rudy and I have both pointed out in our recent presentations, mobile search is not about the usual suspects (Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft). Rudy spoke at Next09, and you can find his slides  further on in this post; I spoke at the European Mobile Media Conference, and my deck can likewise be found after the jump.

Indeed, context and personalization change all the rules (!)

A highlight of our recent presentations: A comprehensive overview of the market and (thanks to Rudy) a SWOT analysis of the players that stand out in their category such as Google (universal search with a poor mobile offer and an even weaker grasp of social search), and Twitter (a case of mobile search + social media = real-time results that really reflect what we discuss/share).

In my own mobile search research – an on-going project that began back in 2004/2005 when I wrote the first report on mobile search and content discovery, a 220+ page report published by Informa Telecoms & Media – I have recently identified some 60+ companies and 10+ categories of mobile search I would like to share with you (below) for your feedback.

INTERACE

• Text: ChaCha, 4INFO,MINFO, textperts (acquired by 118118), Answers.com, AnyQuestionAnswered, Ask, AskMeNow
• Voice: Google, Yahoo, Vlingo, Microsoft, ChaCha (Watch this space for an expert assessment of the voice-enabled services offered by Google, Vlingo, and ChaCha. ( I am proud to have had the opportunity to collaborate with Peggy Albright, MSG Associate and founder of Albright Communications, and even prouder of the results.)
• Visual: IQ Engines, Kooaba, Mobile Acuity, Searchme, SnapNow, SnapTell, Tin Eye Mobile, Nokia
• Navigational: Boopsie, kannuu, Nuance (through Tegic acquisition)

ACTIONABLE

• Universal: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL (based on Google), Medio Systems, JumpTap (although a much stronger focus on mobile advertising)
• Federated: MCN, Motricity (managed mobile search platform providers)
• Operator-centric search: Amdocs, Qualcomm, IBM and this company coming out of stealth mode
• Alternative search: Defined as every service except for Google, and includes a long tail of 1500+ search engines (tracked by AltSearchEngines) with ambitions to go mobile – some sooner than later
• Vertical/content-specific search: abphone, vtap, Truveo
• Local search: Hundreds of players that offer local search via SMS services, on their own WAP sites, and/or as part of a nearby shopping scheme. (Fortunately, the local mobile search landscape is the topic of an upcoming column on MSG from Martin Wilson, founder of Indigo 102, an independent consultancy with a focus on mobile local search and services, so watch this space!)

SOCIAL

• abphone, ChaCha, Hiogi, Taptu
• Twitter in a class by itself!

It’s work in progress, but it’s all the more exciting if we remember that – in mobile search – the players that matter and the business models that deliver are wide open to discussion.

Indeed, the central role of mobile search in a wide variety of mobile services around sharing, advertising, location, and context-aware activities turns up the pressure on an even broader range of businesses (operators, brands, agencies, enablers – everyone!) to understand what mobile search delivers (and doesn’t) and the companies/models that do it best.

To help mobile professionals and practitioners navigate this tough terrain, Rudy and I have joined together on a project to produce the definitive mobile search market overview, a work that will draw from primary research, case studies, and exclusive forecasts to document this exciting space and present our recommendations for strategies to harness growth opportunities on the horizon.

I still have the opportunity to take your views and perspectives into account, and I would welcome your input. The project, widely distributed via our sites and via our network of sites, supporters, and influencers, will also offer a commercial opportunity to companies interested in conveying their value proposition to a growing community of senior executives and decision-makers in the mobile space.

If you are a mobile search company with an interest in being considered for an interview, please contact me directly or send an email to my assistant Andrea Henninge (andrea@msearchgroove.com).

Regular readers may recall that my mobile advertising white paper (Mobile advertising for newbies) documented how I (together with my esteemed colleague Maria Sanchez) set up the campaigns using Mobislim, a small-scale mobile site created by Bango. The white paper also examined the depth and breadth of mobile analytics solutions offered by AdMob and Bango. Today’s post will take that all a step further, providing an analysis of the performance of the three ad networks I chose at random. (BTW: You can read the raw data on Maria’s new-look Mobislim blog.)

I had assumed that made-for-mobile ad networks, with mobile at the core of their competitive DNA, would naturally deliver superior results – or at least shine when compared with Google. (After all, Google, an Internet company, has had a tough time recently delivering mobile sites in their mobile search results and displaying mobile advertisements the way publishers/brands meant them to be. For more background, I recommend you read this MSG post which documents Google’s poor search experience and results.)

But the numbers delivered by AdMob and Bango tell another story. One, Google limited my campaign to the U.S. and U.K. as I had specifically requested. Two: Google delivered mobile traffic from mobile users (as opposed to traffic from users on their PCs) to my site.

In my view, Google “gets” mobile advertising. (Ironically, this view is mirrored in an informal survey of 79 customers conducted by Bango. In it, 86.7 percent of respondents named Google as their number one choice in mobile ad networks. Yahoo came in second with 26.7 percent, and Adultmoda/Admoda came in third with 21.7 percent. Multiple answers were allowed.)

Geography:

AdMob shows me I have 21 visits from Google – all from the U.S. (Hmm. I wonder: Are users in the U.K. surfing less than they do in the U.S., or is the U.K. a white spot in Google’s ad network footprint?). Granted, Google’s 21 visits may seem low when compared to 323 from Decktrade and 127 from Mo’Jiva, but don’t be blinded by the numbers. A closer look shows that 70 visits (or 22 percent of my total traffic) coming through Decktrade came from countries I did not target (and also did not budget for).

Bango – which reports Google gave me 18 page views from 17 unique visitors, with 83 percent coming from the U.S. and 11 percent from the U.K. – shows Decktrade delivered me 270 page views from 184 unique visitors and six countries, including India, Indonesia, and Nigeria. Again, that is four more countries than I (literally) bargained for.

But it’s not just Decktrade that delivers a high proportion of traffic from countries I did not specifically target. AbMob stats tell me 127 visitors came to my ad via Mo’Jiva. But my top three countries were India (82), the U.S. (19), and Nigeria (10). Put simply, only 15 percent of the traffic generated was actually relevant to my campaign. Bango reports Mo’Jiva delivered 81 page views from 72 unique visitors across 4 countries, including India, and Iraq.

As I wrote in my white paper, it’s great that users around the world are surfing the mobile Internet on their phones. But mobile advertising is a business, and clicks coming in from countries I did not target in my campaign are quite frankly a waste of my budget.

My take: Mobile ad networks must do more to ensure proper geographic targeting, and limit the number of users elsewhere who just happen upon my ad. Do more to control this – or risk losing advertisers (like me) to ad networks (like Google) that can. While Google did not deliver a huge number of page visits, it was nonetheless able to deliver traffic from countries where my ad message would be both relevant and effective.

Finally, a word about the split between mobile and PC users.

To be clear: Mobile advertisers want to reach mobile users.

They have creatives that match the medium, and campaigns that have been fine-tuned to target users on their phone. Put simply, mobile is the medium, the message – and it should be the audience.

So why do PC users account for a significant share of traffic coming from Decktrade and Mo’Jiva ad networks? How do I know this? AdMob and Bango mobile analytics identify iPhones, and also provide visibility into devices accessing my site via a Wi-Fi connection that appear as PC users. I can say with confidence that PC/laptop users are indeed accessing my mobile ad campaign.

According to AdMob and Bango, Google traffic comes from a mix of smartphones and devices from manufacturers including Blackberry, Samsung, and Motorola.

Not so for Mo’Jiva. AdMob reports the number two device accessing my site via Mo’Jiva is a Microsoft PC (using IE). Bango tells me 31 percent of traffic from Mo’Jiva came from users on their PC. Likewise, PC users make up much of the traffic coming in via Decktrade from countries I didn’t target in the first place.

My take: This is serious. It’s early days and we accept that all ad networks have bugs to work out. But I have to wonder how many mobile advertisers want, appreciate or would be willing to pay for traffic from PC users. Put simply: Mobile ad networks must take steps to ensure the lion’s share of visitors they deliver to mobile sites are indeed mobile users.

UPDATE: Maria and I are gearing up to do another series of campaigns (this time starting with AdMob and Admoda), which we will document on our blogs, so I encourage you to check out both sites. JumpTap has reached out to solve a glitch in the sign up process that prevented us from running a campaign using its ad network. Wish I could say the same for Yahoo and Medio Systems. Both have yet to answer our emails. In the meantime, the overwhelming positive response to my first white paper has inspired me to write a “Vol. 2″ explaining in simple terms how to set up and run campaigns on mobile social ad networks. It is slated for release during Mobile World Congress (MWC), so watch this space! And finally, I repeat my open invitation to other mobile analytics companies (thinking here of  Mobilytics, for example) to contact me directly for a briefing.

Disclaimer: AdMob, Bango and JumpTap are MSG supporters.