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

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

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

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

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

WILL WE PAY FOR CONTENT?

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

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

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

CONTEXT & RELEVANCE

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

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

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

KOOABA MAKES MEDIA INTERACTIVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Granted, Nokia has been talking up its visual mobile search capabilities since 2007, when it snapped up Pixto, a San Francisco-based startup specialized in the technology. But now we’re seeing real results and Nokia execs say a launch is imminent. (More specifically, the app will enter public beta testing “very soon” in the U.S. and the U.K.)

But the real news is Nokia’s bid to be the leader in visual search and the implications for the other players up and down the value chain.

It’s good news for the user. Reams have been written about features and functionality (visual and voice-enabled schemes as well as the tighter integration of location and maps) in the mobile search experience, improvements that are sorely needed to deliver a better quality mobile search experience. (Take my word for it. Together with Peggy Anne Salz, I am road testing mobile search services and documenting their many shortcomings.)

Nokia’s Point & Find’s is more than a mobile search tool, however; it represents the core of Nokia’s larger business strategy that brings together software, services and advertising. Put another way, Point & Find is a perfect articulation of a new vision within Nokia and a new emphasis on ways to bridge the physical and virtual worlds.

Search is already the de facto interface to all things digital in online and mobile settings. Add to that location and harness the camera capabilities of the device we have with us at all times and you have a powerful combination.

The true potential of this scheme can be seen in the rise in visual search and the advance in bar code/QR code campaigns. In fact, Peggy Anne has conducted briefings with a number of visual search companies and the companies, including Mobile Data Systems (MDS), which provide barcode technology and symbologies to get the inside track on progress to date and issues to tackle. Her take includes a look at the competitive landscape and constructive criticism directed at an industry white paper that tips the scales in favor of proprietary solutions, so please check back.

But MSG isn’t the only one excited about this new territory. As Philipp Schloter, Nokia’s general manager of Point & Find, told me at the event: Nokia is gearing up for “exciting journey.” Now that I’ve had a glimpse into Nokia’s product map and future innovations, I can only agree. While a few concepts such as nano-scale wireless technologies are a few years away (more on that in another post), Point & Find is here NOW. Fortunately for all of us at MSG, it’s a search, discovery, and advertising application we can track from day one.

So how does Point & Find work? The user points the camera at a physical object and is presented with a selection of Internet links associated with that object. (They are displayed on the screen.) It’s then up to the user to click on whatever link they’re most interested in to access a service or content related to that object. The service is pretty much a no-brainer. It serves up Internet links to the handset (zero-click).  Speed is another plus: The content comes up on the screen immediately, as soon as the device “sees” the physical object.

And how does it work on the back-end? Nokia has created a simple tagging tool for Point & Find that the company and its content, brand and advertising partners are using to build content for the service. Once tagged, the URLs for all images and related Internet information that have been tagged for the service become part of the Point & Find database. Obviously, at the outset, this database will be specific to the particular services offered, and Nokia will be building it and commercializing it one content sector at a time. But the concept is unlimited, and Nokia clearly intents to build it out as far as it will go.

Where will we see Point & Find? Well, it’s literally coming to a theater near you.

Nokia will kick off Point & Find with a full-fledged service around movies–a category sure to be a crowd-pleaser–that also allows Nokia to exploit the full capabilities and features of its new service. Use cases and scenarios are easy enough to imagine. A user can point the camera phone at a movie poster and Point & Find returns links to related content and services such as the film trailer, reviews, the nearest cinema showing the film, ticket sales sites or nearby stores that sell related retail products.

The list goes on – and so do the applications. In fact Philipp mused that Nokia’s Point & Find could sit at the center of a wide variety of services. Whether the physical object we capture with our phones is a building, a public landmark, city street sign, restaurant, item in a store window, a book or a magazine cover-it doesn’t matter. The system can deliver information, content and advertising related to the object. Looking ahead, Nokia believes the service could also evolve to include user-generated content and content published via social networking or other sites. (Peggy Anne adds: Smart move, since this content is popular and tough for the usual pick of search engines to index. Could Nokia take the lead in creating linkages between physical content and the cool stuff WE create? Now that is an interesting business model indeed! )

But it’s not just about content; context is also critical. Philipp and his team have combined key devices capabilities and features – such as location-awareness artificial intelligence and pattern recognition technology and analysis – to intuit the real-time context of the user when they use Point & Find to capture an object. As Philipp pointed out: Knowing context allows the system to predict what the consumer needs to know about the object. “Phone search is limited,” he said.  “What if the phone could guess what you want?”

But even more fundamentally, the phone now becomes the way to access information and interact with the world around us. As Philipp explained it, it’s all about creating a world in which everything is interactive (a concept that also sits at the center of Nokia strategy).

Indeed, the ability to create interactivity out of non-interactive objects is one of Point & Find’s most vital attributes. And if Philipp is right it may also develop into a hugely lucrative business for Nokia as brands and advertisers take advantage of the service to connect with consumers at the point of discovery–the best moment to encourage an impulse buy. Not to mention the pitch Nokia’s mobile advertising arm can make to its clients.

Point & Find will be free to consumers. To start they can download it to their N95 devices (a rather limited demographic for advertising), but plans are to make it available to run on any GPS-enabled camera phone.

How will it make money? Nokia and its partners will generate revenues through advertising and other tools such as lead generation and ecommerce capabilities. Philipp is also betting on Nokia’s partners to come up with other innovative ways to generate revenues from the service. To this end he’s staffed professional services team at Point & Find to help Nokia’s partners develop and deploy monetization strategies.

To be clear: There are other image-based mobile phone discovery tools out there (here’s a good list to use as a primer). And Peggy Anne is investigating a variety of bar code companies and applications already on the market from the likes of SnapNow. But let’s get real: This is Nokia, with all the market scale and established ecosystem that the name implies.

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My take: Nokia is committed to owning the visual search space and has committed a staff of 30 to build the business and further develop the technology. The business area has the buy-in of Nokia senior execs and “quite large” funding from the company (as Philipp put it). The market is crowding as players ranging from Google to Kooaba line up for a piece of the action. But the connection between the app and the phone – which Nokia can exploit to its advantage – plays in its favor. The space will heat up in 2009 – but that’s precisely the excitement and interest we need to move this mobile search/mobile advertising scheme a giant step forward.