Friday, September 15, 2006
Mobile the Final Frontier for Search
Even though mobile phone networks had the jump on the Internet, the most exciting applications such as search have not taken hold in the mobile space. But Google, Yahoo, eBay, Microsoft and others are committed to developing worthy mobile services, and search needs to be at the heart of it all.
The most likely things people are going to search for from a mobile phone are entertainment, shopping and news, and Google has been buying companies to this end.
Searching from a mini keypad on a wireless network requires a subset of web search that delivers accurate results more quickly than general search. Attempts to get publishers to optimize content for mobile applications have died on the vine, so it's up to the search engines to filter results for mobiles.
At CTIA media moguls talked about the need for quality applications to deliver content. While mobile media consumption is exploding, why are media companies stuck in a service model where people have to sign up for only a fraction of the available content? Couldn't advertising pay for some of the bandwidth cost, with search engines aggregating the best content?
By forcing consumers to purchase services ala cart, they may be getting decent margins on the product they are selling, but they could move a lot more product with a search-driven buffet.
Posted By Jason Dowdell at 12:32 PM
Permanent Link: Mobile the Final Frontier for Search
| Comments (1)
Subscribe to The MarketingShift Feed