Peggy Anne Salz

Publisher & Chief Analyst, msearchgroove.com

Author, Mobile Search & Content Discovery

Generating Revenues At The Intersection of Content & Context

search

recommendation

dynamic personalization

Matching users with content that matters most

Finding & Buying Content is Tougher Than You Think

Mobile devices - with their screen-size limitations and restricted input capabilities – only exacerbate the problem of finding and exploring the wealth of content at users’ finger tips.

To be genuinely useful, content must be brought to the user in 30 seconds.

Norman Nielsen: Data shows that most mobile users are capable of making 12 clicks in the space of 30 seconds

An analysis of 20 leading European mobile portals revealed the average click-distance from the portal homepage to the desired content is at least 16

A closer examination of the content available within 12 clicks from the portals found that on average just over 35% of portal content services falls within this limit

In short, a whopping 65% of mobile content is “positioned too far away from the homepage, making it invisible to users(!)”.

Click distance (no of clicks) Verizon Cingular

T-Mobile USA

Orange UK

Vodafone UK

Vodafone Germany

E-Plus Germany Average

Ringtone a 14 -- 9 31 26 -- -- 20 Ringtone b 11 23 10 22 64 14 21 24 Game a 8 19 19 35 28 41 24 25 Game b 38 31 21 34 32 34 37 32 Time needed (mins/secs) Ringtone a 5m -- 0m40 4m20 0m50 -- -- 2m42 Ringtone b 8m 2m48 0m62 5m10 1m17 0m44 1m26 2m54 Game a 2m 2m04 1m32 8m25 1m09 1m27 1m02 2m32 Game b 4m 3m03 1m15 6m10 1m16 2m13 2m14 2m53

Informa Benchmark Results

December2007/January 2008

Improved discovery techniques would improve operator revenues around $10 billion cumulatively in Europe and just over $4 billion in North America, over five years, amounting to just under $14 billion in the two regions combined.

MOBILE SEARCH

A properly executed mobile search decreases clicks to content and delivers mobile operators an indisputably potent way to generate value

Consumers find what they want; marketers gain traffic by providing relevant offers and advertising; and mobile operators and service providers capture increased revenue as a result of the increase in mobile content purchases by consumers

Mobile search also provides the capability to cross-sell and up-sell by presenting new content types side-by-side with the search results. The result is a non-intrusive, demand-driven marketing approach to new mobile content, services and applications

Search - which is already the de facto interface to content in the online space, with more than half of all users going straight for the search box when they enter a website – has also become the primary means to access and monetize the legendary Long Tail of mobile content

In summary, mobile search – like its online counterpart – is destined to be the core capability required by any company that wants to sell content or information successfully. Whoever can organize and control mobile search will own the next interactive interface to the consumer.

Mobile Search In The U.S.

Mobile Search In Western Europe

In the U.S. 46 million mobile data users used mobile search functions in 3Q2007, according to Nielsen

The most popular form of mobile search 7 was 411 (18.1 million users), f followed closely by SMS-based searching (14.1 million users)

Local listings lead the pack followed by information such as sports scores, news or weather.

Nearly 25 percent (11.3 million) said they searched for mobile content

Nielsen numbers

Google and Yahoo! are the overall leaders in mobile searchGoogle leads in mobile Internet search provider share followed by Yahoo!,together accounting for 79% of the mobile Internet search market.            Top 3 Mobile Internet Search Providers for Q1 2008 by Provider Share1. Google (61%)2. Yahoo! (18%)3. MSN   (5%)

More about mobile Google and Yahoo! search users        At 9.0 searches per month, Google users search more frequently than users of any other mobile Internet search provider.  Yahoo! is the third most frequently used provider, with Yahoo! users searching 6.7 times per month.

Search Engines:

The usual suspects – and then some

Google Medio Systems

MSN Motricitiy

Yahoo! JumpTap

Mobile Content Networks

VERTICAL MOBILE SEARCH

December2007/January 2008

“Imagine trying to search for Web videos of ‘Arnold Schwarzenegger’ by using a typical phone keypad. That’s 40 key strokes – talk about a case of thumb fatigue! Now imagine trying to find all the Web videos of the press conference he did recently, as well as movie clips, TV appearances or even satires, as opposed to just text articles. This is the kind of challenge that Veveo solves with vTap™.”

CONTENTDISCOVERY

On-device portalsOn-card portals

Server-side solutions

Discovery on the device

Access Netfront Dynamic Menu Action Engine

Adobe (FlashCast) Airmedia

Cibenix Communology (mobile catalogue) ComverseCrisp Wireless (mLogic platform)

Everypoint Geniem (MediaCast and Superstore)

Handmark (Pocket Express) InFusio (nMap)

ITfinitiny (2Go) mPortal

MobiComp Mobinex

Nellymoser (ASAO platform) Nokia (Content Discoverer)

Opera Platform Qualcomm (uiOne)

Reporo RefreshMobile (Mobizines)

Streamezzo SurfKitchen (SurfKit series) Tricastmedia (TWUIK) U-Turn

Volantis (BuzzCast) weComm (wave)

Yahoo! Go UIActive

Action Engine Proprietary and Confidential

Action Engine MAP and Advertising Engine used by biggest brands

Results: Average of 99 ad impressions per user per month, 2.8% CTR

Download numbers vary based on supported devices and marketing effort: Range = 2000 – 20,000 downloads per month per application

RECOMMENDATIONENGINES

Was it good for you too?:

The pivotal role of recommendation

AgentArts (Microsoft) Aggregate Knowledge

ChoiceStream Gracenote (SonyEricsson)

Motorola Xiam (Qualcomm)

MyStrands Nokia

Sony Network Services (Real Networks)

Xiam Recommendations on Orange World

Key goals of up-selling and cross-selling more content and significantly increasing content revenues.

Key goals of up-selling and cross-selling more content and significantly increasing content revenues

Xiam Recommendations deliver uplift in revenue and volumes First 12 weeks. Calculated by taking the control group average and applying it to the Orange World weekly visitor number (c1.12 million)

Mobile content discovery driven by

FoneStarz retails mobile content on 25 operator portals in 20 countries. With variable connectivity and tiny screens, discovery is key – recommendation and search encourages that and adds salesRecommendation adds 12% to sales volume

Search adds 6% to sales volume

www.fonestarz.com wap.kazzip.com

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Multimodal Search

Voice

Voice in / text out

Visual

Bar codes

The presentation of a clear course

of action is as vital to the value of

mobile search as the results

themselves.

In practical terms, maps, click-to-

call buttons, icons, text messages,

buddy lists and other actionable

results have to be generated and

displayed faster and better.

A recent survey from Jupiter Research shows 64% of users will try a service or content recommended by a friend, and 69% will pass what they like along to between two and six friends.

Social networks + mobile search = revenues

MORE IS BETTER

Traditional search technology falls short on too many counts to make it part of a viable mobile search strategy

Can’t cope with the array of mobile content types Can’t spider the content in real-time to promote the freshest content first Can’t deliver mobile content readily adapted to the plethora of mobile

device types and client applications Prevents content providers from cashing in on the lucrative opportunities

around delivering content in tune with the individual user’s context, including location, time, and profile

To complicate matters, traditional mobile search schemes are built on the false premise that a few branded portals will be able to answer all

of the highly contextual queries users have. In reality, users will gravitate to the companies that have the answers—and that can be any number of destinations ranging from directory providers, to niche content providers, to news agencies.

In summary, mobile operators that merely retrofit Web search solutions for the mobile Internet short change themselves—and their users.

There is a perception that all search engines are similar in function, deliver similar results and index all available content on the Web….

However, overlap analyses conducted in April 2007 by researchers from Queensland University of Technology and the Pennsylvania State University, show each search engine's results are largely unique.

Methodology: Evaluated Google, Yahoo!, Windows Live & Ask Measured 19,332 user-entered search queries

Findings: Overlap across the first page of search results from all four of these search

engines was found to be only a staggering 0.6 percent on average for a given query.

Compelling evidence that allows us to infer searchers cannot find what they are looking for with a single search engine. (Only Google--searcher misses 72.7 percent of the Web’s best first page search results. Only Yahoo! -- 69.2 percent missed)

Search result ranking also differs: Only 3.6 percent of the #1 ranked non-sponsored search results were the same across all search engines for a given query.

More is Better

1) Storefront – includes all mobile downloadable content offered both on mobile operator portals and via D2C destinations.

2) Mobile Internet sites – including all WAP and made-for-mobile sites and sources

3) Internet sites – includes all the Internet brands and destinations, as well as the so-called “transcoded Web” of Internet sites that have been specially adapted for display on mobile devices

4) Vertical – includes a plethora of newcomer sites that enable users to search specifi c groups of content - including RSS feeds, blogs, and sites - for content and answers. (Examples include Vtap, a mobile video search engine; AbPhone, a French mobile search service specialized in images and mobile music; and Juice Wireless, a mobile social networking company that has introduced mobile video search allowing both members and non-members to search user-generated video content.)

MOBILE SEARCH DEFINED

MOBILE SEARCH PERFORMANCE REPORT

Quarterly performance report

Each report will effectively:

Road test mobile search services

Document the end-user experience and provide insight into the key performance metrics such as

• Click-distance to genuinely useful and relevant results

• Search engine company strategy for achieving results set relevance and ranking

• The location, presentation and relevance of search advertising

Thank you for listening!

peggy@msearchgroove.com

The source of news, analysis and commentary on mobile search and social media

“At the intersection of content & context”