It’s no secret that trying to find content or information on a mobile phone is a daunting task for most consumers.
Carrier deck layers can seem like concentric circles of hell, wireless Web searches are often ill-suited for wireless devices, and the screen sizes of most wireless phones aren’t much bigger than a postage stamp. And entering data via a 12-button keypad is a concept Torquemada must have dreamt up.
So carriers and software developers are hoping to offer some contextual healing, developing services that take into account all the information that can be gleaned from a phone to deliver the most accurate search results possible.
More with less
Contextual search is nothing new on the Internet, of course. While the term has sometimes been used interchangeably with contextual advertising – paid links that appear on content pages as opposed to listings of search results, a la Google Inc.’s AdSense – contextual search is generally defined as using more than just search terms in an effort to find what a user is looking for. A PC user who types “Bush” into a search box, for instance, might get a much different return if his most recently viewed site was a landscaping page rather than a political blog.
And mobile services could leverage far more information than simple user behavior. A single search could take a host of factors into account, from location to time of day to the type of device being used.
“It’s fairly compelling,” Nellymoser Inc. Chief Strategists John Puterbaugh said of mobile contextual search. “The better you can make the query – like doing an advanced search in Google – you can get very targeted searches. I think you get a lot of that information free from the phone.”
Strong and growing
Interestingly, mobile search is already enjoying decent uptake despite its shortcomings. A January report from Nielsen Mobile found that 46 million U.S. mobile data consumers used mobile search services during the third quarter of 2007, with 411 services barely outpacing text-based offerings as the most popular form of search. As ad-subsidized SMS and WAP-based services become easier to use – and as they evolve to deliver more accurate results – they’re likely to overtake 411 offerings, which can cost $2 per call or more.
Which helps explain why industry analysts are so bullish on the mobile search advertising space. In separate forecasts, market research firms eMarketer.com and The Kelsey Group both predict the U.S. market will explode in the next few years as advertising spending zooms from less than $35 million in 2007 to more than $1.4 billion in 2012. Other markets are expected to see similar increases, with Asia-Pacific growing from $26 million to $1.16 billion by 2012 and Western Europe shooting from $18.4 million to $968 million, according to eMarketer.
“Mobile search providers across the board are reporting sharply increased mobile search traffic,” eMarketer analyst John du Pre Gauntt wrote last month. “The numbers coming from the U.S., Europe and Asia-Pacific suggest that mobile search traffic is starting to resemble Internet search traffic both in variety and potentially in volume.”
Putting it in context
And it seems much of that uptake is already being fueled by contextual information. Yahoo Inc.’s oneSearch, which came to market last year, remembers a user’s location to help deliver the most appropriate business listings and other information. And Medio Systems, the Seattle-based developer that powers search services for T-Mobile USA Inc. and Verizon Wireless, credits much of its recent traction to several variables its technology considers when compiling search results: user behavior patterns, the device and network being used, and physical location. Such factors not only minimize the chance a high-powered business user is presented with a ringtone from an unknown band, they help weed out content that may be unusable.
“We are actually doing real-time detecting whether your handset is in EV-DO coverage or in 1xRTT,” according to CEO Brian Lent. “If we can’t physically show you a video either because of your device or because you’re standing in the middle of a building, we’re not going to return that content.”
Android, iPhone to fuel growth
Those kinds of highly targeted search offerings are expected to come to market in a big way in the next few years as developers try to leverage Google’s Android and Apple Inc.’s iPhone SDK to grab a piece of the mobile search market. Advertisers are already trying to take advantage of such finely honed offerings, of course, dropping paid links into custom-fitted search results.
And while plenty of online and mobile marketing campaigns can feel like a virtual stalker, paid search has the benefit of being a pull, not push, application. Unlike Facebook’s Beacon and countless other efforts, search delivers ads and information to consumers who are already looking for something, and thus less likely to be put off by a come-on, Lent said.
“I think there are legitimate concerns,” he opined. “Anytime you start opening an ecosystem like the OHA (Open Handset Alliance) is doing, even the carriers in general, the fact is you’re going to get applications that have more access to that consumer information, and that can definitely be seen as creepy. . But when a consumer is proactively telling you ‘I’m looking for something,’ and we use the behind-the-scenes data . that’s never seen as creepy. That’s different than a lot of guys who are pushing mobile advertising today.”