Over on the excellent MSearch Groove website, Peggy Anne Salz gives us a preview of a very interesting report to be released at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next month. The real attraction is the Netsize survey, the company’s first-ever online poll of some 1,800 industry professionals.
Two key takeouts - respondents to a survey for the Netsize Guide (a respected mobile industry report and almanac that documents the developments that marked 2007 and the trends that will impact 2008) suggest that white-label portals will lose to the search giants, and importantly from my perspective, location based services are key for mobile content and services search.
While I have not seen the report, I’d make two comments on these headlines:
On location enabled services being key: I totally agree. As my previous posts on Google’s My Location have shown here and here, the addition of a subscriber’s current location significantly increases the usability of mobile search engines.
What is needed is an efficient and effective way of providing location without the need for GPS and my post It’s not just privacy concerns preventing mobile advertising from taking off explains in more detail how this can be achieved.
Location for the mass market will NOT be accomplished via GPS, so clearly there is a need for a new approach that uses existing or enhanced location elements.
On white-label providers will lose to the search giants: It is not surprising that in late 2007, 1800 industry executives might predict that the big 3 search engines will prevail in 2008. For the first half of 2008, this may be the case, as the existing deals that have been cut between the branded search giants and the mobile operators will have a while to run commercially. As we move further into 2008, I predict that the end users (and not the 1800 telco execs) will find that these 3rd party search services are not delivering the most relevant content or queries (and advertisers may agree also).
Mobile operators will finally work out how to monetize their CRM to enable demographic and user information (age, travel habits, numbers and areas most called, how often I roam and to where etc) and will want to apply this to their mobile search engines. What they will find (in the UK at least) is that the data protection laws prevent the operators from passing my information held on their computers across to a third party. Those mobile operators that have installed a white-label solution (such as Telefonica who have a Jumptap white-label engine) will brag about how the searches they are delivering are more contextually rich and relevant to the end user.
I believe that towards the end of 2008 we will see the unbundling of the branded search engine deals on major mobile portals, as operators realise they need a white-label system (which will appear to the end user much the same as the existing search box) hosted internally to allow them to utilise the rich subscriber data that they cannot pass over an API to a 3rd party. Importantly for advertisers, the white-label powered searches will utilise intelligent mobile search data, yielding better ad targeting and more relevant results for the user which equals increased ad revenue and repeat usage and acceptance from the end user.
Mobile operators are worried about the big 3 search engines treating them as bit pipes, and a white-label approach means that the operators can keep the relationship with their customers, rather than delegating the experience to someone who may not be totally aligned with the operator’s best interests.
I believe therefore it will be the better end user experience that drives how subscriber data is applied to search queries – favouring the white-label approach – which will triumph by the end of 2008.
Below is an extract of Penny’s post - the full post is here
….Which brings me to mobile search. I’m the first to see the results - they will be formally released with the guide at Mobile World Congress - and they blow me away. Consider this: When asked if white-label search will win the mobile search battle against GYM (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft), the survey respondents are convinced size (and marketing) matters. A whopping 76.2 percent think white-label will lose to the search giants.
And here’s another for the nay-sayers who insist location-based services are more of a toy than a tool. Is location an essential element in mobile content and services search? Almost 75 percent of respondents think location is essential. That’s all I can divulge — for the moment — but there is much, much more…
Read more here or go to www.netsize.com and register for the report. Should make interesting reading - all I can say is watch this space (location).
3 Comments
“Location for the mass market will NOT be accomplished via GPS, so clearly there is a need for a new approach that uses existing or enhanced location elements.”
Could you expand why you feel that GPS will not be the mainstream solution? With the latest developments for the iPhone (http://www.htlounge.net/articles/4798/1/TomTom-is-developing-a-GPS-module-for-the-Apple-iPhone) and the lauch of the N95 is this not an indication that the mobile manufactures may think otherwise?
Regards,
Bob
Bob, looking at the iPhone link you mentioned, this also points to the fact that GPS will not be a mass market solution. Research has shown that when a feature is available only via an add on (that also sticks out of the iPhone from the picture on the site) then only the tech savvy will buy this.
For true mass market adoption, it has to come built in and part of the phone (good examples are the Nokia N95 and Nokia 6110).
That aside, GPS is still not suitable for all location applications. Even my new Nokia 6110 goes flat after just THREE HOURS when the GPS is turned on, and GPS is severely challenged indoors, providing a poor user experience.
When a user has the choice between a day of phone or music use, or just 3 hours when the GPS is on - you will find many people turning the GPS function off - rendering the benefits of a GPS phone useless.
See my earlier post (http://blog.andrewgrill.com/blog/_archives/2007/12/27/3433218.html) about how subscribers will often need a location fix indoors for location applications such as local search, making GPS unsuitable in these cases.
For quick time to first GPS fix, an external A-GPS server is required and not every consumer is likely to be able to set all of this up with the appropriate data plan etc etc.
In summary, it is my professional and personal opinion that mass market location solutions thrive when they exist on the handset (in software, bundled with an application like Google Maps or Yahoo! One Search or loaded on the SIM card) using existing radio information rather than using a GPS or external receiver.
Andrew
There is something of a solution to this being developed by german company Spotigo. Admittedly their system will only work within WiFi zones, but if you’re out wandering in the wilderness then a REAL and exclusive GPS solution would be needed anyway. Also, this tech works perfectly indoors and to a greater accuracy than GPS. Though that is what their sales manager told me….