In brief:

It’s encouraging to see a much sharper focus on mobile search and a growing realization among mobile operators, content providers and publishers/developers that there is a lot more to mobile search than the universal model we know from the online Internet. Mobile phone form factors push companies to develop new mobile search services that deliver us relevant results in tune with our intent and context. All the better if these services make use of features and functions such as voice recognition, image recognition, location-awareness and Augmented Reality.

Another development that makes search essential is the avalanche of apps and app stores, and the drive by all the players in the ecosystem to make these content and services storefronts a commercial success. Case in point: Apple’s decision to snap up Siri, a voice-activated digital personal assist that takes the concept of search to a new level (allowing us to find not search!)

OPEN CALL FOR MOBILE SEARCH FIRMS

Regular readers will recall that I have tracked mobile search from the start (hence, the name MSearchGroove, following on the popularity of my industry-first report on the mobile search and content discovery space).

My background and passion also allow me to connect with cool companies in the space such as Taptu, the first mobile search company to index the Mobile Touch Web; Expertmaker, a mobile search company in stealth mode that allows us to refine our search parameters in real-time; GetFugu, a company that combines search and image recognition to help people find local businesses and navigate to their website; and Aisle 411, a company at the sweet spot between mobile search and inventory management. (Check out the bnetTV video interviews I conducted with Carl Freer, GetFugu founder, and Nathan Pettyjohn, Aisle 411 Chairman & CEO.)

I look forward to including these and more cool companies in my keynote presentation to the European Commission. The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, which is part of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, has organized an exploratory expert workshop titled “Exploring the Future of Mobile Search” to discuss the innovation potential in mobile search. The workshop will take place in Ghent, Belgium (June 9), during the 9th Conference of Telecommunication, Media and Internet Techno-Economics.

Timed to this event I will also kick off a new series on MSG profiling mobile search newcomers and innovators. If you are a mobile search company and want to be included in my ongoing work and upcoming series, then please contact me directly (peggy@msearchgroove.com).

DATA POINTS

With search at the top of the business agenda, the timing is excellent to recount the key takeaways of several recent mobile search reports.

MOBILE COMMERCE & MOBILE SEARCH: Mobile Commerce (MC) – which handles over 25 percent of the searches coming from U.K. mobile operator portals and other sources – recently released a report summarizing the trends it observes based on the search queries it “sees” per year.

Among the findings:

• The volume of searches has more than doubled over the last 12 months. MC reports an increase in mobile search usage from 125 million queries to 250 million, in part due to the jump in the number of people signing up for flat-rate data bundles to surf the mobile Web. The number of searches per unique user also shows an increase. The total has grown from 8 per month to 13. (Granted this is not the frequency of use we know from the online Internet, but it is an indication that users are gravitating to the search box on portals as they become more familiar with the mobile Web.)
• The position of the search box is critical. MC’s data confirms that the higher the search box is placed on the portal, the more people use it. It’s not rocket science, but it does show that there are very simple ways to significantly increase the use of search. Even stating that search is free of charge (as Orange has done on its Orange World Portal) can boost usage.
• Tag clouds are useful shortcuts. Many use search instead of bookmarks to reach sites and destinations quickly (which is why Facebook was the single most searched term of 2009). MC tells us that displaying tag clouds containing the most popular search terms is another way to increase searches and drive results.
• Date, time and current events drive searches. No surprise here – but you can follow Steve Page, MC founder, who shares the top search terms and trends via his Twitter feed (@sjspage).
• Internet destinations and giants (Google, Facebook, YouTube) are top search terms. In addition to this information and analysis (summarized in this earlier post on MSG) MC shares how subjects are searched, reminding advertisers that they must bid on many related terms and tag their mobile pages correctly to ensure their results are high up in the natural search results for the terms.
• Are local terms also local searches? Google may have recently claimed that 33 percent of all searches on mobile have a local context, but MC is less convinced. It shows that searches such as “Manchester” are more about local soccer teams (Manchester United) than the city. Of all location searches, 55 percent include either a city or area name, 17 percent have a point-of-interest, 15 percent use a full zip code and 13 percent have a partial zip code.
• Search shortcomings can be avoided. Transcoding is not the only way to mobilize sites. Advertisers should build versions optimized for device types. (Taptu indexes sites that are touch-friendly and built from the ground up for access via touchscreen devices, for example.) The intelligence behind the search boxes could also be better. MC’s road test of search on Nokia Ovi reveals that it delivers games results for pac man – but not for pacman. Android Market suffers the “same shortcoming.” (BTW: This could be solved with a simple “Did You Mean” response to clarify the search term and the searcher’s intent.)

Source

The bottom line: MC has brought together a lot of insights about what people search for and how they search for it. Mobile search isn’t perfect, but volumes are increasing, and so is the pressure on providers to deliver a better experience. And it’s not just about mobile operators any more. The rise of the app stores means publishers and the 75 app stores are well-advised to develop mobile search strategies to deliver people the apps they want – or at least relevant results.

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ARE APPS BEATING SEARCH?: This insightful post from GigaOM draws from a Broadpoint AmTech note and asks if apps are poised to disrupt the standard online search model. The Broadpoint report says search engines derive significant revenues from commerce-related queries (searching for “Amazon” or “eBay”) and suggests that warns that the growth in the usage of mobile apps that take people directly to destinations could be bad news for Google & Co. “If users get in the habit of simply using the Amazon app to search for products or a Fandango app for movies, then Google would be seriously impacted,” the report concludes.

Source

The bottom line: Mobile apps cover the bases to bypass search engines when the purpose of the search is navigational (using the search box as a shortcut) and commercial (looking for a product on Amazon by searching for Amazon first, for example). Sebastian Rupley, who wrote the post, reminds us that Google can likely read the writing on the wall, which is why the search giant is so interested in the “spread of Android-based phones, many of which emphasize its tools and applications, and steer users into its search/ad ecosystem.” It will be interesting to see how all search engines react to the onslaught of mobile apps that make finding and buying stuff with our phones a no-brainer.

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FACEBOOK DOMINATES: We all know that social networking is the number one activity on mobile. A recent ComScore report reveals that search queries on the social networking site (online) grew by a whopping 48 percent between February and March 2010. In its study, which is based on 15.4 billion core searches in the U.S., ComScore also found Google leads with 65.1 percent of the market, down 0.4 percent from February. It was followed by Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask and AOL. Microsoft showed a 7 percent increase after adding mapping and other features.

Source

The bottom line: Read between the lines and this bodes well for social sites and social search via mobile. Facebook, which has more than 400 million active users, is exploding when it comes to search (up 48 percent) on the Internet. Only a matter of time before this trend spreads to mobile, our preferred way to connect with our social networks and information about people who matter most to us on the fly. Meantime, Tech Crunch points out that search growth is slowing. The post concludes: the slowdown “may also be an indication that the search industry is maturing, and the next leg of growth may not kick in until people start searching on their mobile phones in a significant way or something else gives people a reason to search even more than they already do.”

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TAPTU TOUCH WEB REPORTS: This week Taptu releases the fourth in its series of reports analyzing the Mobile Touch Web. To make sure we are all on the same page and to set the stage for the next report findings, here’s a summary of the key takeaways.

• The January Report defined the Touch Web (and the ecosystem emerging around it) and concluded that the Mobile Touch Web had arrived full force. According to the company, which indexes touch-friendly sites and destinations, there were around 326,000 touch-friendly sites in January compared with a total of 180,000 apps across all app stores.
• The February Report takes this a step further, offering a breakdown of the sites that make up the Mobile Touch Web. The report emphasized shopping and services, a major subset of this new Web. In total Taptu counts approx. 83,000 Mobile Touch websites devoted to shopping and services. Why is this significant? Shopping and services accounts for about 26 percent of all sites. The same category accounts for less than 4 percent of apps in app stores. Taptu concludes that commerce is a chief focus on the Mobile Touch Web and will play an important role in its evolution.
• The March Report takes an in-depth look at the Government and Non-Profit sector and its growing presence on the Touch Web. The report highlights some of the leading services from Education institutions such as MIT, the Haiti disaster relief effort from the Charity sector and various local and federal government agencies that are using the Touch Web to reach a mass audience. A surprise: a large number of religious organizations embracing the Mobile Touch Web (a whopping 72 percent of all sites in the Government & Non-Profit segment are faith-based services).

Source: You can download all Taptu reports here: http://taptu.com/metrics/

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AUSTRALIA STATS: This post draws from new Nielsen research to provide numbers on mobile search usage in Australia.

• 73 percent of mobile Internet users conduct searches, compared to 38 percent accessing email and 14 percent checking social media sites
• The figure (73 percent) of people using mobile search was just 30 percent a year ago
• 43 percent of total Australian mobile phone owners have Internet-enabled handsets, though just 29 percent use their mobiles to access the Internet
• Search came out on top of activities conducted on mobile Internet; checking the news and weather, emails, maps and directories, and social networking were also cited as common mobile activities

The report also includes some insights into mobile social networking and the top handsets.

Source

The bottom line: Great to have country-specific stats. Although mobile Internet usage has a way to go, there is a tendency among users to use mobile search to explore all the exciting content at their finger tips. Makes sense that we start off by transferring our online experience to mobile.

Disclaimer: Taptu is an MSG supporter and client.

Today MSG was formally named a top 50 influential tech blogs in a new report from Konector, a company linking digital marketers with leading bloggers to help promote brands to highly targeted audiences. The report, Top Independent Gadget Blogs and Bloggers, profiles leading tech sites and found that a whopping 40+ million visit the top 140 technology and gadget websites each month.

MSG joins an impressive roster of technology websites and blogs including CrunchGear, Crunch Mobile and ReadWriteWeb. Other important destinations not included in the top 50 but nonetheless listed in the top 140 tracked in the Konector report include: All Things Digital, Mobile Industry Review and Scobleizer. (Konector does not include corporate blogs or blog networks in the Top 50 list, which is why websites including Ars Technica, Gizmodo and VentureBeat are not mentioned.)

To deliver their message to their target demographic marketing, advertising and PR professionals must connect with quality audiences of influencers who will accept and – even better – amplify the brand message. To achieve this Konector uses a unique methodology to measure the quantity and quality of visitors. Ranking is based on reach, frequency and interaction. As Kingsley Maunder, a director at Konector, put it in a press statement: “We use our proprietary Online Impact Factor to measure how many people visit a blog, how often they visit that blog, the time spent on the blog and how active they are once they get there.”

TIPPING POINT

Being named a top 50 influential technology destination is the latest in a string of developments and accolades that has seen MSG extend its global reach and reputation through the production of highly-acclaimed white papers, market research, podcasts and editorial content for the mobile industry.

Working with the fantastic team at Tego Interactive, an experienced team of professionals helping to build businesses through converged Web and mobile solutions, MSG is extending its reach with new projects and new partners. In the next weeks you’ll see more thought leadership from leading companies as I formally take the wraps off a series of branded microsites – known as Briefing Rooms.

These destinations, accessible via the MSG homepage and mobile website, will promote ideas and insights from MSG partner companies and supporters including Tego Interactive, mobile payments and mobile analytics provider Bango, mobile search provider Taptu and mobile commerce and communications provider Netsize on topics ranging from usability and user experience to mobile industry mega-trends. I’ll announce additional partners in the areas of mobile marketing and Augmented Reality in the next weeks.

MORE AWESOME AUTHORS

MSG is also growing its roster of contributors and collaborators.

In addition to exclusive columns from leading industry executives including Colm Healy, Vice President of EMEA Services for Qualcomm Internet Services (QIS) and General Manager of Xiam Technologies, and Antti Öhrling, Co-Founder of Blyk, the messaging media that works with mobile operators to link young people with brands and other stuff they like, I’ve found a new author who shares MSG values and vision (!)

Eliza Dashwood will be contributing regular analysis of mobile advertising and social media, and commenting on key industry data points. She has a 10+ year track record in the online industry delivering digital strategy and execution for brands and accounts including Mercedes Benz, The White Company and Optical Express. She has also held a variety of senior positions at digital agencies including Ambergreen, a digital marketing agency headquartered in Scotland, and MediaVision, a media planning agency with clients throughout Britain, Europe and North America.

More importantly, she knows the industry and cares about the trends/shifts impacting it at all levels.

Eliza consistently tracks how social media, mobility and permission-based marketing combine – even collide – to change all the rules. But it’s not just about identifying the opportunities and challenges ahead. Eliza also architects strategies that allow brands and companies to connect with empowered people (consumers) who expect/demand a conversation and not a sales pitch.

I look forward to the ideas and insights she will bring to MSG and encourage you to reach out to her directly (elizadashwood at googlemail dot com).

KONECTOR REPORT

The Top Gadget Blogs and Bloggers report provides marketing, advertising and PR professionals with key data and stats on the most influential gadget blogs they should target to promote their brands online, helping them understand:

• Which blogs have the most impact in gadgets
• Which bloggers have the most impact on their audience
• Which bloggers have a captive audience most suitable for their target
• market (by demographic and location)
• Which bloggers promote and review products and services most suitable for their brand

The Top Independent Gadget Blogs and Bloggers report will also give marketing, advertising and PR professionals additional insight into promoting their brands on social networks, including YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, giving them an opportunity to increase their exposure to this wider audience.

A detailed overview of the report, including sample pages can be found here.
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Disclaimer: Tego Interactive, Bango, Blyk, Netsize, Taptu and Xiam (all mentioned in this post) are MSG supporters.

Taptu’s approach, which takes universal search to the next level, crawling and indexing the social networking sites and destinations such as MySpace, YouTube, and Wikipedia, to expose an eclectic mix of results and content we might not have found otherwise, has been at the core of Taptu’s differentiation. But it’s the company’s latest release white paper (Touch Search: A New Vision For Mobile Search, which you can download by clicking the button in the sidebar) that signals an exciting shift in the mobile search paradigm.

The advance of touch devices changes how we browse the mobile Web and, naturally, it impacts what we expect from mobile search. What’s more, the touch Web represents a fast-growing subset of the Web, consisting of websites and Web pages that are optimized for access by touch devices like the iPhone.

However, as I point out in this earlier post, Taptu does more than acknowledge this trend; it has responded with a roadmap to encourage the innovation that content providers and brands agencies will require to deliver an optimized search and advertising experience for touch devices. I met up with Andreas Bernstrom, Taptu COO, a few weeks back to see Taptu’s prototype search service in action. Now I have the green light to post (I respect Andreas’ request not to give too much away here), so here’s a brief summary of my private demo and the details I can share.

USER EXPERIENCE: Search is dead simple and there is even the option to see and click on popular searches, cutting click distance and turning search into a recreational activity. See hot searches and share results. That’s a feature that no doubt builds on the learnings gained from 1-Tap, a feature of Taptu’s mobile search service that – true to its name- lets users share their mobile search results (including cool mobile content) in one click. To save users from typing in their friends’ details, 1-Tap can also tap into other services such as Web-based email and Twitter.

PRESENTATION: No dull lists of links or tedious trail of thumbnails. Results are displayed in a card format optimized for presentation on a touch device. I watched as Andreas not only breezed through the card results (depicting images and information in an easy-to-browse format); he could actually flip the cards over to see more details (say, the discography of a particular band or the tour dates of a group). And if you like what you see, then share it (!)  – Twitter it, post it to your personal site or just send it via email to your friends.

ADVERTISING: Advertising is indeed content, and judging from the emphasis on “cool” (and engagement), I would bet this is the business mantra at Taptu. Search ads (as we know them) still work, but the best ads are not only relevant to the keyword query; they enhance the experience. Andreas called them “engagement ads” and gave me glimpse of how this new advertising form dovetails with our content/search experience.

It’s early days, but this idea is one whose time has come. No more advertising messages and banners that annoy rather than excite. Imagine exploring advertising, using your finger to peel through its layers like an onion and immerse yourself in advertising that doesn’t seem at all like advertising. Now that’s a way to grab (and keep) my attention. “You can go into the ad and play with it.” Video, pop-ups, and a mix of content-rich cool stuff. Taptu showed it off to me, but it won’t be commercial for at least another six months. The strategy is about building an audience first and then introducing engagement ads, so watch this space!

(Here I am immediately reminded of a presentation from Tomi Ahonen, mobile luminary and author, in which he recounted why he believed Asian operators have their head around mobile – much more so than operators elsewhere. In it he quoted BJ Yang, CEO of AirCross, the number one South Korean mobile advertising company and the mobile advertising arm of mobile operator  SK Telecom,  who said mobile must be regarded as a “very close personal playground.” If that’s the attitude we need to make mobile (and mobile advertising) work, then Taptu’s approach might get us there, delivering fun (to consumers) and money (to the business ecosystem).

The demo Andreas showed me was a car ad that allowed me to move through the car and experience driving. I could sign up for test drives, see which dealers where had which models, check out related information, news, and reviews, and share the works with my friends.

Andreas and I mulled over what this could mean to viral marketing. Would the ability to share make seeding viral videos a new form of advertising. (It sure worked for Quicksilver, maker of surfing clothing whose “dynamite” video spread like wildfire with kids asking when they would ever be able see it on TV (!) People clamoring for advertising – now that’s a change…)

Would all this interactivity lead to a new monetization model? Say, pay-per-view instead of pay-per-click….

SURPRISES: From Taptu – I’ve come to expect it. This mobile search experience is full of them. I’m encouraged to explore my search results and all the content related to what I asked for in the first place. On each card, alongside the results, I have a wheel symbol that allows me to discover connections between content (some I couldn’t even imagine). I tried it out on music results, finding bands that were like my first pick and tracing their roots and the roots of each member in the band. An element of serendipity to keep content fresh and our minds active? Sorted.

So the mobile search and advertising experience are in synch for the Touch Web. But how big is the market and the opportunity?

Taptu offers this trio of industry predictions. (The methodology is explained in detail in the white paper.)

1)      Total global mobile search volume will grow rapidly from 63 million searches per day at the end of 2008 to 620 million in 2012 – almost 10 fold growth in just four years.

2)      The volume of searches from touch phones will grow even faster, to overtake the volume of searches from normal phones by the end of this year.

3)      By 2012, over 60 percent of all mobile searches will come from touch phones alone, representing less than 10 percent of the installed base of phones and just 20 percent of annual shipments.

My thanks again to Steve Ives, Taptu CEO, and Bob Last, Taptu Head of Business Development, for providing me the opportunity to contribute to the white paper.

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

This could be the week that Apple chalks up its one-billionth iPhone application download, according to this post at MoCoNews. Principal Correspondent Tricia Duryee does the math and figures “about 100 apps are being downloaded every second-that’s 6,000 every minute, 360,000 every hour and 8.6 million a day.”

It’s a flood of apps that pegs the needle, and no doubt plays in favor of companies that recognized the potential of the Apple App Store early on. I’m thinking here of mobile ad marketplace AdMob, which just launched Download Tracking for iPhone applications, allowing advertisers to accurately monitor App Store conversion rates, (detailed in a separate post based on an exclusive briefing with Russell Buckley, AdMob VP Global Alliances); and Taptu, a mobile search company gearing up to solve the search/discovery problem in the “Touch Web” and become a leading App Store mobile ad network in the process (an ambitious plan I discuss tomorrow’s exclusive Q&A with Andreas Bernstrom, Taptu COO).

The iPhone has helped to unleash a new interest among consumers in the mobile Web, but it nonetheless represents a tiny subset of the total mobile market. To date Apple has sold 17 million iPhones worldwide (a total Nokia generally tops in a fortnight). Garter puts it in perspective: It concludes that smartphones account for a small percentage of handsets (11-12 percent of all handsets sold globally), and iPhones account for an even smaller percentage of total smartphones (8.2 percent of handsets sold globally).

Another keys data point comes from comScore. It reports that more than half (54 percent) of app users are in households making at least $75,000 per year. If your end-goal is about reaching a mass-market audience with apps, ads or marketing campaigns, you’re well-advised to think beyond the iPhone.

Before jumping on the iPhone bandwagon, we should also take a closer look at new stats from AdMob and Bango, numbers that both confirm and deny iPhone’s leading position.

First, the monthly AdMob Mobile Metrics Report.

It lists the top smartphones in its network (market share AdMob calculates “based on the percentage of requests received by a particular handset” for the ads its serves), and found that smartphones generated a whopping 33 percent of worldwide traffic in February 2009, up 26 percent from six months ago. The real surprise: iPhone generated 33 percent of all smartphone traffic worldwide and half (!) of all traffic in the U.S.

Wow (!), iPhone is where the action is – or so it seems…

New data from Bango, a provider of mobile analytics solutions, tells a different story. The Bango Top 20 handset list (likewise based on February stats) puts the Nokia 3110c in the number one spot; iPhone comes in at number 24 (!). By way of background,Bango data looks at the activities of major brands and businesses as their consumers browse to mobile websites (measured by Bango Analytics) and buy mobile content and services (as measured by Bango Payment).

How can iPhone be both a leader and a laggard?

As this well-written/researched post from mobiThinking points out: It depends on where you sit. AdMob counts the number of mobile adverts it serves to different types of handsets, not unique handsets. “So, if iPhone users surf more (aren’t the majority of iPhone users on unlimited data plans?), then iPhones go to the top. So, from AdMob’s perspective iPhone is indeed the only game in town.

Bango, because it can identify and track unique visitors to its customers’ sites, has correctly identified a diverse range of handsets browsing the mobile Web. It’s a more representative sample of the devices surfing the mobile Web, with smartphones accounting for 30 percent of handsets in the top 20.

My take: The existence of two conflicting views of the handsets that matter most (to advertisers/publishers) underlines the importance of employing analytics tools that provide a more holistic view of what customers do and the devices they use. Focusing only on the iPhone or only mass-market handsets is a sure-fire way to short change yourself and your customers. It takes two, baby!

But it’s not just about big-picture anayltics; it’s about how brands and publishers approach the mobile Web.

As Boris Fridman, Crisp Wireless CEO, points out (via the company newsletter): ” For everyone thinking about investing in an iPhone app, I say, kudos – but don’t do it at the expense of a mobile website.  Our recent Crisp Wireless Index shows that iPhone usage for mobile browsing across our network has grown significantly from 9.1 percent to 22.98 percent.  However, Blackberry browsing still holds a significant share at 23.98%. Furthermore, recent studies from Pinch Media show that as novelty wears off, iPhone app usage drops significantly after 90 days. Mobile has become a crucial channel that requires a multi-pronged approach.  Our own Tom Limongello recently stated it best in his blog post pointing out how maintaining a mobile or iPhone-optimized website to complement iPhone apps is key to maintaining discoverability and addressing a broader market.” (More from Crisp Wireless  in an exclusive interview next week.)

I’m reminded here of an interesting debate during a recent industry conference, a discussion I would like to open up to MSG readers. Does the popularity of the iPhone among this demographic and the continued hype around the iPhone (one that sees many companies invest in the iPhone as their only mobile play) combine at some level to create a new kind of iPhone-only affluent mobile Internet (as opposed to a mass-market mobile Internet for the rest of us)? What do YOU think? What’s more, is there a danger this will increase fragmentation and move us one giant step away from the One Web vision Steve Bratt, Chief Executive Officer, World Wide Web Consortium, outlines in this excellent presentation?

Disclaimer: AdMob has been an MSG supporter; Bango is an MSG supporter.

To be clear, this is not about being anti-Google; it’s about encouraging people to explore the choice of alternative search engines available to them. Last count there were some 1,500 alternative search engines – ranging from FAROO, which enables peer-to-peer Internet search, to Kosmix, a new twist on old meta search that delivers search results across a multitude of categories, including opinions from Omgili, video from Truveo, social search results from Mahalo, and the basics from sources such as eBay, YouTube, and Wikipedia. And the list goes on…

Charles tells me his annual call to action was as popular as ever this year, resulting in posts, tweets, and emails from readers sharing their experiences as they went through a day without Google. For just one day, I would like you to use an alternative to Google when you perform searches on your mobile phone.

I know from my own work researching mobile search and compiling a comprehensive directory of mobile search providers, that the choice in mobile search engines is impressive. If you want to know results that really resonate with real people, then you might consider Taptu. If you want downloadable content that you are likely to appreciate, then you might try abphone. If you are searching for shops and offers, then you might give Slifter a spin.

And if you are conducting a search with your cameraphone, then you can pick from over a dozen visual search providers including Thrrum MMS Search (provided by 23half Inc. and available to T-Mobile and Verizon subscribers in the U.S.), and TinEye Mobile, an iPhone app from Idée that lets you get pricing info, reviews and more on a specific music track by taking a picture of the CD cover.

(I count 15 types of mobile search and 60+ providers, all of whom I intend to profile on MSG in the coming weeks/months. If you are a mobile search provider that I haven’t yet covered on MSG, or if you would like to be included in the directory, then please contact me directly. I am eager to hear your story! )

But it’s not just about more choice. I also know from my own road tests and analysis that made-for-mobile alternative mobile search engines excel where universal Internet search engines such as Google have been known to fall short.

Additional independent confirmation of this view comes from a number of sources quoted on MSG over the last months, including Mobile Commerce (which revealed data during a recent Mobile Search Masterclass that proves Google mobile search results tend to be less than satisfactory) and a recent report from Bernstein Research, which points out Google may have brand recognition, but stresses Yahoo delivers a potentially better quality and more holistic user experience. (I’ll have more on Yahoo after Chloe Graf confirms a date for my upcoming podcast interview. My personal thanks to Chloe for her extra effort and hard work in making this possible.)

And there are other good reasons to explore alternative search services. In fact, I’ll have more concrete data soon when my associate Peggy Albright (founder of Albright Communications) and I release our evaluation of voice search on an iPhone later this month. What started out as a basic services road test has developed into a 25+ page comprehensive analysis of leading voice search providers. It has taken a little longer than we planned, but the research stands out as the only work of its kind in the industry today.

I encourage you to explore the wealth of search services available on mobile and circle back to share your experiences. How was YOUR day without Google?

Disclaimer: Taptu and abphone have collaborated with MSG on white papers and research projects.

I have had this trend high on my radar for several years, a passion that received its first outlet and accolades when EContent magazine gave me free reign to write an in-depth cover story on the state of Social Search (which appeared in the November 2007 issue). I loved researching and writing the article, a work I still regard as one of the best in my career. The good news: I’m told the article had – and continues to have – an impact on the content industry. The not-so-good news: When I wrote the article I was disappointed that so few companies “got” mobile, and today – nearly two years later – only a handful of companies have really have caught on.

To be fair, I wrote the article, aptly titled Teams Work: Social Search Gets Results, before companies such as abphone, ChaCha, Hiogi and Taptu broke on to the scene with strategies that draw on social search approaches and algorithms to improve mobile search results ranking and relevancy. I invite you to read my comments in new-release white papers from abphone and Taptu, and MSG’s own soon-to-be released assessment of the user experience delivered by search engines (among them ChaCha).

But progress is progress, and I am confident that more online social search companies will sharpen their focus on mobile as the advance of mobile social networks and other communities pushes people-powered mobile search to the top of the agenda this year. (In fact, recent reports/stats on Twitter, Facebook, and my own discussions with social networking companies confirm an exciting new trend: We have begun to search in communities – and today the number of queries even exceeds our searches in Google. Connect the dots and a game-changing search paradigm emerges. The power of people + the power of mobile = a power shift in favor of new mobile players who harness the wisdom of mobile crowds.

Where does all this leave mobile operators?

Well, just a week ago I would have said they can watch if they are stupid, and open up their analytics to third-parties (to give critical context to search results) if they are smart. Now, I can say they have a third and far more lucrative option: They can offer a people-powered search service provided by an infrastructure vendor (building on existing front-end analytics capabilities that capture the interests, passions, and profiles of users) to deliver subscribers genuinely useful and relevant search results. And if mobile operators chose to bolt on the mobile advertising module, they can position themselves to offer paid search advertising from a variety of ad networks and keep the lion’s share of the revenues.

You’re reading it in MSG first: Watch for a mobile infrastructure provider to launch a solution that joins existing analytics at the front-end with search and advertising, potentially allowing operators to be equivalent to Google. And watch a mobile operator customer to implement it this year.

I am under NDA and therefore cannot disclose the name of the vendor company, but I can share the details of the search technology and the recent results of a trial test the vendor company conducted with a mobile carrier (a pilot that effectively proves the business case for mobile search powered by mobile searchers (subscribers) and enhanced by operator analytics).

Let’s examine the business case for operator-managed mobile search and advertising.

First, mobile search is not rocket science, nor is it a service that only search engine providers can offer. Search can be broken down into two basic tasks: Indexing the Web to include domains and fresh content in search results; and developing algorithms to assist in ranking and rating the results. It’s not impossible and white-label search providers have shown how this can be accomplished. (They just lost the plot when it came to finding and indexing the content on the wider Web, which is why white-label has lost momentum.) However, for reasons I outline below, mobile operators are positioned to go one better than the solutions that have gone before.

Second, PageRank is not the only game in town. There are many techniques available, not just PageRank, a one-size-fits-all approach pioneered by Google (that as I point out in my post suffers from serious limitations in the mobile space). Operators, because they are close to the customer, can harness social search concepts to improve the experience and the search results. (One to consider is BrowseRank, a new algorithm developed by the vendor company that represents a vast improvement on PageRank because it focuses on the pages people click most often, and correctly assumes that we click these pages because they offer the content and answers we value most.

Third, mobile operators alone have access to the data that matters - directly from us. They know our location and context; our profiles and purchases; the sites we browse; and the search results we think rock (!). As a result, mobile operators don’t have to index the whole of the Web because they know from their usage logs the sites we browse and click (not as individuals, but as a group), and can simply make sure these domains figure prominently in the mobile search results.

Finally, we don’t need the whole of the Internet on our phones. If people really do want/demand the whole Web on their phones, then it makes sense to leave mobile search to the search giants who can handle the mammoth task of organizing the world’s information. But do we want it ALL? Not if we consider a recent trial involving the vendor company and a North American carrier. As the source put it: A review of a month of mobile search usage and queries revealed that “millions of users had only visited 34,000 domains.” Drilling down, the source found that a whopping “96 percent of transactions were covered by 14,000 domains.”

Hmmm… So, is there really a Long Tail in mobile search? Or have bad experiences – poor content adaptation, broken links, and other shortcomings – already dampened our enthusiasm for the mobile Web? Or are we just gravitating to our favorite destinations (such as social networks) on the move, and leaving the Long Tail searches to our PCs where we have access to a large screen and a full keyboard? So many questions we can and must address…

I pose a devil’s advocate question: But what if users are flocking to a cool new site, not already in the index? The answer: “A single page request can flag a new site to be included in the search index, giving unprecedented speed of index updating.”

But doesn’t that somehow at some level limit choice? Not really. To introduce an element of serendipity, the solution comes configured with a “throw external” feature that will redirect to GYM search engines if the results delivered by the operator search engine are below a given accuracy. (Settings for SafeSearch also allow the mobile operator to exclude harmful content from the search results.)

The source and I then debated the extent to which analytics and behavioral data could actually enable the creation of new and more personalized mobile search services. Our conclusion: It certainly covers all the bases to achieve this because it would only index the sites the subscribers like best. Take a mobile operator with a prosumer customer base such as O2. They would likely value straightforward results that help them plan and execute their daily routine, and the mobile search results would reflect this. A consumer-focused operator, such as Virgin Mobile, may find that its users prefer entertainment sites and social networking/moblogging destinations, and likewise give them top-notch placement in the mobile search results.

Beyond identifying sites to index tailored to the preferences of the subscriber base, the solution would pave the way for mobile operators to refine search results based on meta data from browsing activity. For the first time ever, mobile search results could be ranked by device type, time of day, or day of the week. As the source put it: “Initially we have  focused  on domain and page popularity within a given data set, however this can be further optimized, for example by refining result ranking based on  time of day or device – people  browsing in  the morning preferred a particular destination domain, while people with a Nokia N95 preferred another.”

Likewise, the solution would allow mobile advertising (which the industry is finally beginning to recognize is another form of content) to be refined and targeted to the preferences and profiles of the subscriber base. What’s more, the mobile operators could keep the lion’s share of the paid search revenues.

My Take: Operators – through their enviable position at the center of our mobile experiences – are perfectly positioned to tap into the wisdom of invisible crowds (us). With the right tools and technology mobile operators can follow our virtual breadcrumb trail to optimize our mobile search (and advertising) experiences, using our actual usage patterns to give us the answers/results we will most likely appreciate. What better way to compete against search engine giants and even win?

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.

We not only use our mobile phones to capture and share content; we also use them to interface with the world around us and connect with social networks on the fly. As cultural anthropologist Mizuko Ito pointed out in her milestone book Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: The mobile phone has a pivotal place in our daily lives based on the fact that it is personal (we customize and personalize mobile devices and consider them an extension of our personal identity); portable (even the Japanese name for mobile – Keitai, roughly translated “something you carry with you” – stresses the relation between the user and the device, and not between the technology and function); and pedestrian (because it is portable it’s a perfect fit with life as it happens, and activities that require partial or sporadic attention).

It’s on our mobile devices that we have come to expect – even demand – personalized and context-aware services and applications tailored to our lifestyles and life stages based on the clues we leave behind, such as preferences, past purchases, browsing patterns, and a deep understanding of our interests and passions.  What’s more, the form factors of the device – a small screen and a tiny keypad – naturally limit our interest in browsing the Web as we do on a PC. Put another way, users can’t sift through lists of blue links results; they require answers that are genuinely useful and relevant.

Indeed, Internet search retrofitted for the mobile Web suffers some serious shortcomings.

• First, it is one-size-fits all. Whether you are a student, a scientist, or a silver surfer, Internet search engines (horizontal search engines designed from the ground up to deliver the same results to all searchers based on queries and keywords) deliver a similar set of results, regardless of our individual information needs.
• Second, it tends to promote search engine optimized sites over the truly optimal ones. To complicate matters, the mobile Web remains the rather poor cousin of the real Web. There is no cross-linking data to power PageRank algorithms, which is a major reason why regular road tests performed by companies such as Mobile Commerce Ltd. – a U.K. company that, among its many other capabilities – possesses what the founders call a “piece of enablement” that gives them deep insight into the search queries passed through the operator portals in the U.K., and the results set returned to the user – reveal that Google and Yahoo! fall down on the job.
• Third, it has huge difficulty when it comes to connecting with the indexes that are growing and flourishing under the radar, such as blogs, user-created music and videos, and all the cool stuff that makes up the legendary Long Tail. Mobile users expect these content types to figure in their mobile search results, a variety and freshness of content Internet search engines cannot deliver.

Enter “people-powered search,” social search that harnesses people to deliver results tailored to searchers on the basis of who they are and what they like, addresses these issues.

The introduction of an approach that effectively infuses human preferences and human judgments into computer algorithms covers the bases to pinpoint truly relevant information and better answers. What’s more, the personal touch it gives to search results represents a perfect fit with the mobile phone, which we’ve already established is an intensely personal device.

• First, it recognizes the rise of a participatory culture and the role of people in the equation. These are trends that combine to give individuals more of a say over their content experiences. Book marking, tagging, voting, blogging, and networking – all of this is possible on the mobile, allowing us to turn our conversations into content. The rise of mobile social networks and communities paves the way for us all to have more input into our search results.
• Second, it benefits from the increasing popularity of peer recommendation. A recent survey from Jupiter Research shows 64 percent of users will try a service or content recommended by a friend, and 69 percent will pass what they like along to between two and six friends. Naturally, search results – particularly those in response to queries seeking cool new music or good restaurants nearby – would benefit from some crowd-sourcing.
• Third, it taps into new mobile search behavior trends. Mobile search is no longer an action-oriented activity; it has become a recreational pastime. Recent user surveys conducted by comScore, and new research from made-for-mobile search engines Taptu and Abphone, reveal the main emphasis is on content discovery and new ways to amuse ourselves during long commutes or breaks in our daily routine. We do search for information, but we are also interested in cool new stuff, interesting trivia, and ways to have fun.

In summary, the idea of people helping people isn’t about idealism; it’s the basis for an ideal business model. In mobile search, where algorithmic search can deliver neither personalized search results nor peer recommendations, social search and variations that tap the wisdom of crowds to deliver the right mix of answers and entertainment have a clear competitive edge over the plain-vanilla search we know from the PC.

This post sets the stage for an in-depth look at cool new mobile search services – some in beta – sure to leave their mark, so please check back regularly.

Disclaimer: abphone, ChaCha and Taptu have collaborated with MSG on white papers and research.

Gearing up for a whirlwind week in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress. Coverage on MSG will be thin (not enough time for deep-dive posts) but I assure you my follow-up analysis and in-depth video interviews will be worth the wait. Andrea Henninge – bless her! – has managed to squeeze in dozens of top-level interviews/briefings over the next five days at an average rate of one per hour – and even left me some time in the evenings for a few parties and get-togethers.

Top of the list is the launch party (Tuesday) for the Netsize Guide 2009, the 360-page mobile industry almanac I wrote on behalf of Netsize. Stan Chesnais, Netsize CEO, tells me it is the best one ever, and has already commissioned me to write next year’s (although we both struggle to think how we can top this one!).

If you are at Mobile World Congress (MWC), then don’t forget to pick up a paper copy. After the show, you can also download it for free on MSG. I look forward to your comments and feedback. I will continue to pursue this exciting theme (the morphing of the physical and virtual worlds with the mobile device at the center of this new convergence) on MSG, so watch for podcasts and video interviews that take this discussion to the next level.

And speaking of path-breaking, this week mobile search providers Taptu and Abphone debut their white papers on MSG.

(You can download the Taptu white paper by clicking the banner further down on the right-hand side, and you can find abphone’s white paper here.)

I am honored that both companies asked me for input. In the case of Taptu, it’s a comment. Abphone, on the other hand, asked me for a complete foreword.

In fact, Pierre Scokaert, Abphone CEO, sent me a personal email to thank me for my work:

I did read your foreword, and found it very good. It adds a lot of weight to our paper, and having someone as highly regarded as you speak of Abphone is always an honor.

However, I am equally grateful for the opportunity to lend my voice to his – and would like to take the opportunity here to thank Pierre and Yann Mondon, who heads up Abphone’s public relations.

Abphone

I don’t want to give away too much - and before my podcast with Pierre on precisely this topic – so here’s a short, high-level summary of the white paper, titled Snacking the Web.

In a nutshell, a shift in mobile search behavior (search has become a leisure activity, pursued in idle time and short sessions, and made popular by cutting-edge devices such as the iPhone) impacts how services can/should rank search results and determine relevancy. Abphone’s approach emphasizes click stream analysis, effectively drawing from the wisdom of crowds to determine which results users find relevant to the search queries, and ultimately improve rankings for future users.

In my view, this path-breaking approach borrows heavily from the insights outlined in Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson. Ants, Johnson writes, are not intelligent as single insects. But they develop a kind of collective intelligence – which he calls “emergent intelligence” – when they are interconnected in complex colonies.

In the case of mobile search, a single searcher, like an ant, can happen upon an excellent result. But there is no way for the searcher to leave a trail to benefit searchers who follow. As a result, each searcher must endure the same process (click distance) to find content they want. Abphone learns from its users, creating a feedback loop that potentially improves rankings for future users to deliver an overall positive user experience and help people find content they want in fewer clicks.

Allow me to close with my favorite quote from the abphone white paper: Pierre’s rant on Web transcoding

Take a gourmet meal, prepared by capable chefs, using only the finest ingredients. Then put everything in a blender and mix it into a pulp, as long as you need to, until you can drink it through a straw… This is what website transcoding is like.

I like it so much I have just added it to my slide deck for my presentation for the Qualcomm Plaza Internet Forum. The event now counts some 70 top-level attendees, and I am honored that Qualcomm feels the jump in attendance is due to my participation in it. Everywhere there are signs that MSG has indeed reached the tipping point…

Taptu

I am also proud that Taptu has decided to debut its white paper, titled Touch Search: A New Vision For Mobile Search, on MSG. True to the name, the white paper examines the shift in mobile search since the advent of the iPhone.

However, Taptu does more than acknowledge this trend; it has responded with a roadmap to encourage the innovation that content providers and brands agencies will require to deliver an optimized search and advertising experience for touch devices. I’ll have more on this next week, after I have had the pleasure of meeting today (Monday) with Andreas Bernstrom, Taptu COO, and had a closer look at the Taptu’s prototype search services for the Touch Web.

A highlight of the white paper is this trio of industry predictions. (Methodology is explained in the white paper.)

1)      Total global mobile search volume will grow rapidly from 63 million searches per day at the end of 2008 to 620 million in 2012 – almost 10 fold growth in just four years.

2)      The volume of searches from touch phones will grow even faster, to overtake the volume of searches from normal phones by the end of this year.

3)      By 2012, over 75 percent of all mobile searches will come from touch phones alone, representing less than 10 percent of the installed base of phones and just 20 percent of annual shipments.

A root question to consider: Will we have one Web (the Internet)? Or two (the Internet, and made-for-mobile sites)? Or three! (the Internet, the mobile websites, and the Touch Web)…

No one has the answers, but Taptu is preparing now for the challenges ahead.

My thanks again to Steve Ives, Taptu CEO, and Bob Last, Taptu Head of Business Development, for providing me the opportunity to contribute to the white paper.

Voice search

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to give you a sneak peak of the next white paper in the pipeline: a joint project with Peggy Albright,  founder of Albright : Research : Media, assessing the performance of voice search services on the iPhone.

The white paper – which roadtests ChaCha, Google, and Vlingo — will launch in the week following MWC and be available for download on MSG. I have already twittered about some of the findings (they were too amazing to keep under wraps)…

Let’s just say that Google underwhelmed us – on all counts.

Disclaimer: ChaCha sponsored the white paper. The opinions in the white paper reflect those of Peggy Albright and Peggy Anne Salz, and do not reflect the opinions of the organizations referenced in the research.

BuzzCity’s keen focus on serving the “unwired” in developing countries – people whose only access to the Internet is their mobile phone – made business sense from the start, allowing it to chalk up 3+ million users across 80 countries (as of December 2008). But it’s the company’s clever approach to mobile advertising that makes it the one to watch. Expect a raft of announcements kicking off at Mobile World Congress (MWC), allowing app and content providers to get more reach (and thus more revenues). This is all I can say under NDA, but think ’social graph meets viral-marketing’ and you’re definitely on the right track.

As KF puts it: “It’s about critical mass, and we have reached a critical mass in myGamma today that has become attractive to developers who want to tap into our community and soon beyond [these] members to friends of friends of myGamma [members].”

To this end, upcoming announcements will emphasize “improvements to our ad network and ad serving system so that it delivers value to advertisers and publishers.”

For now, let’s just say announcements pave the way for application developers to better distribute and monetize their content via the myGamma community and wider network of off-portal publisher sites and destinations BuzzCity has built through partnerships and as a result of the $10 million investment it received last summer from South African media group Naspers.

By way of background, the investment boosts BuzzCity’s profile, powers its expansion plans, and cements Naspers’ position as a formidable force in the evolving media landscape. The key here is convergence, and there’s clear evidence of a business model that could potentially blow other mobile social networks out of the water.

Naspers is a multinational media company headquartered in South Africa, with principal operations in electronic media (including pay-tv, Internet and instant-messaging subscriber platforms, and the provision of related technologies) and print media (including the publishing, distribution and printing of magazines, newspapers, and books). Naspers’ investments include: ACL Wireless Limited, a major provider of mobile value-added services based in India that offers community applications such as chat, IM and social networking, as well as mobile services; Tencent, a provider of Internet and mobile value-added services in China with the largest IM community in China – QQ; Sanook!, the leading Thai language portal in Thailand; and Mail.ru, ranked as the number one email service for Russian speaking users with some 30 million unique monthly visitors, and over two billion monthly page views (according to the website).  And the list goes on…

The goal is to expand the BuzzCity mobile ad network. But there are no plans to manage mobile advertising campaigns. For that, KF would rather team up with companies such as Top Space, the media arm of Sanook!, and be the mobile part of the pitch the company makes to clients. As he puts it: “The idea is to complement the existing offer these companies [in the portfolio] have and extend that reach into mobile.” BuzzCity is also not interested in content creation. “At this stage we have decided that we will not take a stake or invest in a company that develops original content. We want to work with these [content development] companies, allowing them distribution and marketing through our community and [Naspers] portfolio companies.”

Excerpts from the Q&A:

Q: Who are your competitors? We know it’s AdMob when it comes to ad networks – but who are the players that compete against BuzzCity at the big-picture level?

A: Looking at the competitors, I can say we will be the first one in the space to create a real ecosystem. We have community and a complete monetization path, and there’s more to come. [In comparison] the App Store doesn’t have the community, and it doesn’t run ad networks.  App Store is a pure transaction mechanism.  It leverages on the number of people that use iPhones to provide a transaction-based monetization path. So a comparison with Apple is possible, but not accurate. We’re closer to Facebook. It offers a developer platform, allowing developers to build the applications on Facebook and popularize them by offering them to [Facebook] members, but the monetization path is not so clear. Likewise, the ad network isn’t in place to help publishers and merchants monetize the traffic. We have all that, and all the developers have to do is figure out how to make their applications popular. Once they are popular, the way is clear to make money out of them. Then the question becomes: Do I continue to offer it for free, so that I can charge for advertising? Or do I charge for my application? Both options are supported by BuzzCity.

Q: You already have developers offering apps and content to the community? What are the hot items?

A: The most popular applications are ones that allow users to have some fun and express themselves. For example, there is a Tarot card [app] that tells your future and lets you share Tarot cards with your friends. Another popular application is called Hug Me. It’s just a simple hug, and users can give each other virtual hugs and show each other they care. Virtual gifting is very big, and we expect to see quite a number of virtual gifting applications moving forward.

(BTW: This response dovetails well with Tim Green’s observations over at Mobile Entertainment. He points out that virtual gifting is part of a successful monetization scheme for BuzzCity. What’s more, he wouldn’t be surprised “if, a few years from now, Facebook decides the best way to get a presence in mobile in certain geographies is to advertise on BuzzCity’s network.”)

Q: Let’s talk about the release of the BuzzCity Mobile Advertising Index, a report that tracks the growth of off-portal mobile Internet use in more than 200 countries around the world. For Q4 2008 the index shows almost 50 percent growth in paid banner advertisements in the U.S. Specifically, 382 million mobile banner ads were served in the U.S. in the last three months of 2008, a 47 percent increase over the previous quarter, and a 209 percent increase for the year. In a press statement, you said this is an indicator of the resilience of mobile advertising in the face of the current economic downturn, as well as the exponential growth in mobile Internet use among U.S. consumers. Can you elaborate? And what are you seeing now?

A: In the fourth quarter of 2008, just over 7.5 billion advertiser banners were delivered across the network, representing quarterly growth of 40 percent, a slight increase from the previous quarter’s growth of 38 percent. According to our data, we actually only service about one-third of the advertiser demand.  In other words, there is another two-thirds of advertiser dollar [budget] on the table every day that we’re not spending. We have advertiser dollars waiting to be earned, if developers are able to develop compelling applications that users find interesting. We have a board meeting this morning, and I can say I have very happy shareholders today.

Q: Is it the focus on the Long Tail that allows you to profit in a recession?

A: Yes. When we put our Long Tail mobile ad network together, aggregating around 2,000 smaller sites, it was about capturing value offered by the smaller sites – sites that otherwise would not be able to attract advertising on their own. It was also about allowing advertisers to reach a diverse audience. After all, if you want 1,000 people to respond to your offer, you’re more likely to succeed if you try to attract 1,000 people from 1,000 different sites rather than 1,000 visitors to a single site.

In fact, the financial crisis has so far has turned out to be a net positive for us.  We expected two things to happen. We expected venture-funded companies that were buying traffic to drive the downloads would likely reduce their spending because they were worried they might not be able to raise the next round of funding because of financial crisis. This did happen, but the financial crisis hit the U.S. and U.S. companies harder than the rest. Elsewhere, companies that were spending on ad networks to buy traffic have not reduced their spending. In addition, we expected mobile value-added service providers to cut back advertising spending, which also happened. But these [VAS] players appear to have moved larger portions of their advertising budget into mobile Internet, which benefits us. We’re also seeing a rise in spending coming from more traditional businesses, such as financial services. They have increased overall mobile Internet and advertising spending because it’s more controllable and measurable [than other media buys].

For example, in India, advertisers are reducing their overall budgets by up to 50 percent. In fact, [publications like] Hindustan and Times of India are reporting 75 percent reductions in the ad revenue. But, in reality, a shift is taking place and advertisers are moving money from online to the mobile Internet.  So, BuzzCity profits from the financial crisis. You have seen that from quarter to quarter we grew about 40 percent, and from November to December we actually grew 40 percent as well, month to month. In January, we see that the trend has continued and we are quite hopeful that in this quarter [1Q2009] we will report either a similar growth rate or an even bigger one.

Q: Speaking of India, you recently launched a feature that enables brands in India to target ad campaigns to four regions around four major cities: Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, and Kolkata. How is demand for that?

A: It’s getting very good response from advertisers. But most advertisers are looking for reach and don’t only want to target individual regions. Overall, India has been growing quite well over the last months, with a number of more traditional companies taking their campaigns to mobile.

Q: Can you provide examples?

A:  A lot of activity from banks. In the last months we’ve seen Sri Lankan Airlines advertising to Indian customers. We have also seen campaigns from Toyota, Dell, Renault – and other big brands using mobile to reach Indian consumers. In fact, activity has increased so much over the last six months that we increased our team there from two to five [people]. We are also planning to roll this feature [being able to target regions] out to two more countries over the next six months. We are deciding the countries and I’ll let you know closer to the date.

Q: You recently announced a deal with MCN in Thailand, where you use its MobileSearch.net platform to power content discovery and mobile search for your myGamma community there. I’ve seen other mobile communities embrace search as well, I’m thinking here of the deal between itsmy.com and Taptu. How are members using mobile search?

A: From my initial observations, it doesn’t seem that users like to search as much as they like to discover new things. We’re talking with MCN about how they could use the social graph to make mobile search much more of an activity involving user recommendations. Of course, we will leave the mobile search technology to providers and not develop our own search service. There are a couple of other initiatives that we are pursuing right now but we’re not ready to announce details. I can also say that we are looking at launching keyword search functions in our ad network, letting advertisers target the advertising based on the user query.

***

NOTE: I’ll also have more about the nuts and bolts of BuzzCity’s ad network in my upcoming mobile advertising white paper, set to be released in time for MWC. As I wrote earlier, BuzzCity understands advertiser requirements for spending control and improved targeting. More importantly, it walks the talk, providing advertisers a balanced mix of mobile analytics and post-campaign demographic data (based on a representative audience sample). In fact, click analytics from BuzzCity (I ran banner ad campaigns across three mobile social networks, including BuzzCity) showed my audience was predominantly male, with over one-third of my clicks in the U.S. coming from the state of Mississippi.

My take: It’s potentially valuable feedback for advertisers wanting to target campaigns to variables such as gender and location, and a clear competitive advantage for BuzzCity over other ad networks.

Disclaimer: The MSG series of mobile advertising white papers is sponsored by Bango.

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.

I caught up with Steve Ives, Taptu CEO, in an exclusive interview where he revealed the recent deal with itsmy.com is just the start. Look for three more deals with mobile social networks before February. Also expect Taptu to sharpen its focus on mobile search monetization, particularly in the U.S. where Steve tells me most of his traffic is. (And there’s an even better reason to concentrate on mobile search sponsored links; sources tell me CPMs around key word search terms are in the $3-$10 range.)

Listen to the podcast here. [20:22]

I should add it’s longer than others in the series, but that is because we deep-dive into a variety of key topics, including mobile search trends, Taptu’s ambitions to deliver mobile search verticals (and allow users to personalize them), the impact of the iPhone, the emergence (and pivotal importance) of a new segment Steve calls “unwired socials” (accounting for over half of Taptu’s users today), and a few details of a strategy Steve would rather keep under wraps to develop a “user interface for discovery” inspired by touch devices.

But for me, the real news is the keen focus on mobile social networks. In November Taptu quietly and cleverly sealed a deal with itsmy.com, an ad-funded mobile-only social network with two million users, to provide core search functionality (allowing them to search for mobile content such as videos, entertainment, music, and images from within the community as well as directly from their personal homepage). The deal also lets itsmy.com monetize those searches through mobile search sponsored links. (By way of background, Taptu replaces Google, and I’ll go into the reasons in my podcast with Vince Staybl, Gofresh CEO, which is coming up in this series. As Vince put it: Google failed to “get” mobile – a serious shortcoming that convinced him to switch to Taptu.) Gofresh isn’t the first mobile social network to ally with Taptu for search and advertising. Moblr quietly replaced Yahoo with Taptu in February 2008 to do much the same thing. (More evidence of a trend: The decision by BuzzCity to partner with MCN for mobile search for its mobile-only social network myGamma in Thailand.)

Another deal from Taptu you may have missed in the holiday hectic: A partnership with ZooVision, a U.S.-based free streaming mobile video portal, to provide mobile search and no doubt increase its entertainment-related inventory. (By way of background, Taptu replaced Google – yet again.)

Other highlights from the podcast:

FUNDING: In December, Taptu secured GBP6.45m in series B funding from its existing investors (3i and Sofinnova) and appointed Andreas Bernstrom to the position of Chief Operating Officer (COO). The money will allow Taptu to focus on monetization. As Steve put it: “We’ve only just started putting ads on our site. So, for 09, the big focus is optimizing the monetization, so for every thousand searches that get made on our site, we optimize the revenue.” (The business model is a rev share.)

AD NETWORKS: Taptu works with Yahoo, Google and AdMob. “We’re focusing on search ads and search ad platforms, so we’ve been working with Yahoo in the U.K. for a couple of months now just to explore what happens when we put those search ads up on our site….For us, a big priority next year is the U.S., because actually the majority of our audience is in the U.S., and looking at how we best monetize that. But it is going to be search ads, in other words ads that are tied into search keywords, because we found from our ad experiments that they have the best revenue per thousand.” (I asked around in the industry and the word is keywords can fetch $3-$10 CPMs.)

RELEVANCY & ENAGEMENT: The industry needs to work on both. Online we have annoying display ads, and users are anything but engaged. Mobile could go the same way – so wake up! “In the mobile world, users can develop banner blindness very quickly. They’re not terribly engaging, and we’re training users to ignore them because most ads are not very relevant to the needs of the user. So we’ve got to increase relevancy on the one hand, and we’ve got to make them more engaging and kind of entertaining on the other hand.”

SEGMENTATION: Most of the audience is Unwired Socials whose first screen in is the PC, but this is changing. Make way for the Pioneer Youth, propelled into a strong second position by the iPhone and other touch screen devices delivering a rich mobile Web experience. (Keeping in mind they still don’t do a great job transcoding sites with flash, for example.)

SEARCH BEHAVIOR: Unwired Socials search for entertainment and some adult; Pioneer Youth gravitates to career and lifestyle. Sensing an opportunity in other verticals such as mobile job search in emerging markets, Taptu is determined to evolve “from a sort of beachhead in entertainment search, which is where we started, to add more and more sources to become a universal search engine.”

FEDERATED SEARCH: Figures prominently in Taptu’s roadmap. “Our strategy is to extend that to allow for hundreds or even thousands of sources and to allow users to create their own vertical channels with Taptu. It’s going to take a while to translate that vision into reality, but it’s the way forward which offers the best scope for improving the relevancy of results because you can have custom scoring systems for each channel which are optimized to that channel.” As Steve sees it, it’s all about “allowing the user and having a discovery into user interface which allows the user to explore these different channels easily and look for related results.”

UI IMPROVEMENTS: Look for them! Steve preferred not to disclose details, but he’s bullish on touch screen devices. As he puts it: “Touch devices give you the opportunity for a much more interesting user interface for discovery than normal phones, so you’ll see some innovation from us in that area.”

2009 TRENDS: A slowdown in the market and fewer people replacing their handsets. The bright spot: The continued enthusiasm for the iPhone and the N97. Another interesting development to watch for: Local search on mobile will develop into a different market – with different dynamics. “The user interface for local search is going to be in a mapping application; it’s not going to be the search engine search box. So, local search will gravitate – it will almost fork into being somewhat of a different market, accessed from a different point on the handset user interface.”

On a personal note, I’m pleased to report Charles Knight, at MSG partner site AltSearchEngines, is back in full-force and looking forward to a fantastic 2009 with more staff, more content and more traffic. And it’s a similar success story at MSG. He is cross-posting this podcast and all MSG mobile search coverage. I’m excited about the cross-pollination because many super-cool online search engines are gearing up to go mobile – giving both our sites loads to track and analyze. Another trait that brings us closer together: Our determination to offer Alts (alternative search engines) a platform. To this end, we are planning yet another event, much like our search engine dinner in Berlin last fall. This time it’s MARCH 30 in San Francisco (timed to the SF Expo) – so please mark that date.

Disclaimer: MSG collaborated with Taptu on a white paper in 2008; MCN has been an MSG supporter.