Novarra » mobilegroove

When I connected with Randy Cavaiani, Novarra Vice President, Marketing, last week at CTIA I had a hunch that something big was in the pipeline. For one, he was in a great mood. Second, he used the opportunity to walk me through Novarra's big-picture vision of the mobile Internet, a topic we have discussed several times and at key milestones in

I've followed Novarra from the start and watched it cleverly and quietly align its server/micro-browser capabilities to focus on a much broader agenda. It’s all about providing operators, handset makers and Internet brands the technology and know-how to create new services and revenue streams (with the help of in-network intelligence, mobile Internet click-stream analytics and context information from Novarra).

Regular readers will recall that one of my oldest and closest partners is bnetTV, the source for mobile industry interviews. I've conducted dozens of interviews on behalf of bnetTV (featured in the video player and playlist in the right-hand sidebar) at leading mobile industry events worldwide and will be joining with Michelle Sklar and the rest of the bnetTV team to film interviews during Mobile World congress (MWC). Companies lining up to take advantage of this editorial opportunity include: Nuance, Novarra, Out There Media, JumpTap GetJar (during the must-attend Showstoppers mini-event), Neomedia and InMobi, to name a few.

Companies and execs are still confirming filming times – so it's going to be a busy and exciting show indeed! We still have some slots available, so please contact Michelle ASAP (michelle@bnettv.com) to schedule an interview.

ALMOST 30 PERCENT OF US MOBILE SUBSCRIBERS USE THE MOBILE WEB AT LEAST ONCE PER MONTH, eMarketer reports, based on data from BIA/Kelsey and Constat. That’s up from 22.3 percent last year, but the boom doesn’t stop there: the figures say that 21 percent of US mobile users get online on their mobile device at least 10 times per week, up from 15 percent in 2008.

The survey found that nearly half of US subs use text messaging at least 10 times per week, and a fifth use mobile email that much. Popular mobile web tasks include local searches, looking for movie or entertainment info and information about restaurants and bars. Source

In brief: A sneak peek at my upcoming personalization report and a request for case studies. The second in the series on mobile personalization examines Openwave and features an exclusive Q&A with Mayur Pitamber, Openwave Product Management Strategist. We ask the question: Is Openwave gearing up for something big? It was great to have the last days off and even better to map out an exciting line-up of MSearchGroove projects for the next months. One that I am particularly honored to announce: my collaboration with GigaOM Pro, the new research arm of the highly-respected tech blog GigaOM. By way of background, GigaOM Pro has brought together an impressive roster of industry authorities and analysts (including my esteemed colleague Chetan Sharma) to "address the gap that exists in real-time expert industry analysis on emerging technology markets." The GigaOM Pro solution: Make timely, highly relevant analysis and insights accessible and practical. I'm on board to write an in-depth examination of personalization and recommendation technologies and business models, a natural next step given my long track record analyzing mobile search and my deep involvement in the recommender space. (This includes work with Strands, a major provider of recommender systems, on recommender industry events including RecSys 09 - October 22-25, NYC.) The report is an ambitious undertaking and I am naturally interested in connecting with personalization/recommendation companies –so please contact me directly if you wish to be considered for inclusion. peggy@msearchgroove.com Why the buzz about personalization? The advance of Internet-specific smartphones and the spread of app store schemes turns up the pressure mobile operators (and their content providers) to decipher data transactions (on and off the network), combine it with location and demographic data and use the results to create a 360-degree view of the individual. Where does this shift leave mobile operators?

QUARTER OF GLOBAL USERS ACCESS MOBILE INTERNET VIA NOVARRA PLATFORM. Novarra announced its Mobile Internet Experience Update with the news that two thirds of U.S. mobile phone users and one quarter of all global users have access to some form of mobile Internet service via the Novarra platform today. A benchmark report gives a broad overview of how consumers access and use the internet via mobile phones with Novarra's Vision browser and mobile Internet platform. Among the overall findings:

• Devices don't' matter (much): Users with standard feature phones will use the Web as much or even more than a smartphone user if the mobile Internet experience is good
• There is a 'long tail' in the mobile Internet: The top website typically accounts for 5 percent of total mobile page views. The number two site accounts for less than 1 percent of traffic. And the top 500 sites account for only 25-30 percent of all page views
• Sessions vary: 40 percent of mobile internet sessions are under five minutes and 40 percent are over 15 minutes

The report further groups mobile users into 'tribes' based on their distinctive user profiles. These are:

• The Business Pro - Dependent on their mobile to be more productive and to handle all their communications
• The Mobile Millennial - Early adopters and young adults with disposable income
• The Connected Kid - Children and teenagers who have grown up with technology from a young age
• Frugal Fanatics utilise handset customisation services more than twice as much as any other group
• Connected Kids have far more page views relative to sessions than any other group, indicating they tend to surf more for entertainment purposes
• Source