Mobile Search is Finally on a Roll

Personal Decks, Content Aggregation Could Help Monetize Mobile Search

Ah, mobile search. It’s one of those topics that has gone from hot to not to eye-roll-inducing in the space of a year, since lackluster user interfaces (WAP portals?) and the dismal loading times have made searching the mobile Web a Sisyphus-like exercise in futility. Those obstacles also have made monetizing search a near impossibility. But there now are signs that we may be able to roll the rock up the hill and have it stay there, thanks to some fresh partnerships and, dare I say it, fresh ideas. Think content aggregation. Think location-based services that are pushed to the phone rather than pulled via a query. Think “concierge.”

The key to mobile search’s new business model potential seems obvious: mobile content. In an era in which iPhones seem to lurk around every corner, smartphones have become one of the only truly growing segments of the handset industry (well, given that everyone outside of preschoolers seems to have a cell these days — what’s left but upgrades?). The point is, with more and more of these wonderful 3G-enabled mini-computers walking around, uptake in data services and content consumption will follow. But for better content and cheaper price points to make their way into the market, spurring on ever more consumption and ever-better content, there has to be a way to monetize it — the monthly data plan charge won’t be enough. The no-brainer answer is advertising, but that has been a dismal failure thus far. Who wants to deal with spam text messages and slow-to-load display pages on the carrier content deck? And banners and similar Web-like advertising simply take up too much real estate on the mobile screen.

Enter PC-like search and location-based services, which not only make content discoverable, but can be a platform for providing widget-style access to personal content; Google-style advertising, i.e. sponsored links and keywords; and targeted opt-in offers that blur the line between trying to sell you something and a concierge service. In other words, it’s gotten personal.

It could pay off, too: Visiongain Intelligence notes in a brief that the “interactivity with the content and advertising in ad-funded mobile content will drive the market, and content providers and advertisers will feel the benefit of subscriber uptake.”

The New Face of Mobile Search

The first order of business is to take the search experience out of the WAP portal. Partnerships are starting to fall into place for this. Take Verizon Wireless and Google Inc., which are rumored to be oh-so-close to signing a deal where Google search bars will crop up on all Verizon handset home screens — that’s 68 million users. The kicker is this: the search experience may be wrapped into Verizon Communications’ FiOS television service and Web portal, too. So content from all personal sources of entertainment, etc., can be aggregated to the mobile handset and made searchable. And that gives Google that much more information to serve up on targeted links. Anyone with Gmail knows how it works; the engine crawls the content of the message and then presents links to similar topics on the Web. Some call this creepy; Google calls it profitable.

And with this new opportunity Google has an even better chance to prove its mettle in making the mobile Web safe for search with the first phone based on the company’s Android handset OS stack, released exclusively with T-Mobile USA. Some have argued that Android is merely a Trojan horse for Google’s Web applications; but if there were ever a search and advertising-optimized user experience, one would think Android would provide it.

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