Smart Phones & Mobile Local (Mo-Lo) Search
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Smart Phones &#038; Mobile Local (Mo-Lo) Search The WSJ (sub req&#8217;d) reports that Palm announced it wouldn&#8217;t hit its numbers &#8220;amid lower-than-expected retail sales of its Treo smartphones.&#8221; Hmmm . . . I wonder why? The %$#@ phones are so expensive &#8212; that&#8217;s why. By contrast the &#8220;Q&#8221; is being offered at a breakthrough price point by [...]
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(InfoWorld) - YahooÂ is schmoozing mobile phone operators atÂ the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona in the hopes of enlisting partners for its new mobile search services. With mobile phones soon expected to push PCs aside as the most popular tool to access the Internet, the company has given mobility a top priority and is taking steps to establish its mobile search engine as the technology of choice for mobile operators Marco Boerries, senior vice president of Yahoo Connected Life, said Tuesday at a news conference at the mobile phone show in sunny Spain. A gamma version of the company's new Java-based search application, Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0, is now available afterÂ a beta version was released in January at the International Consumer Electronics ShowÂ in Las Vegas, according to Boerries. The application is designed to help users easily navigate a selection of personal channels for such areasÂ as news, sports, entertainment, and maps. "Mobile search so far hasn't worked because it's been an adaption of PC search," Boerries said. "Mobile users want instant answers" that are intelligently selected for small devices. A key feature of Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0 is oneSearch, a new search engine designed specifically for mobile devices. Instead of returning a list of Web sites, the search engine provides facts related to the query term, according to Boerries. More than 400,000 users have downloaded the beta application to about 100 different devices. Yahoo is particularly keen to have mobile phone operators and vendors preinstall the application. On Monday,Â the company reached a deal with LG ElectronicsÂ that will bring its brand to the screens of tens of millions of LG cell phone handsets shipped later this year. Under the deal, LG will preload Yahoo services, including Yahoo Go for Mobile 2.0, Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Messenger on phones sold worldwide. Clearly set on establishing an ad-funded search service on mobile phones similar to its service for PCs, Yahoo said Monday it will start showing mobile display ads on its Yahoo Mobile Web service in 19 countries across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Major advertisers include Intel, Pepsi, and Proctor & Gamble. The use of ad-funded search services will help mobile phone operators generate revenue that they may want to return to customers in the way of free services, Boerries said. "You can only give something away if you make something," he said. "Mobile advertising will enable this." Â
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Web portal Yahoo has launched a web search service for mobile phone users in the US, according to a report from Reuters today. Its rival, internet search company Google, had introduced an SMS service to access
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Ziff Davis - Cell phones and other portable devices are ideal for on-the-go and emergency situations&#151;unless the battery's dead.
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One reason that mobile users don&#39;t access more content from a mobile phone, like video clips, is because finding content is cumbersome -- but that should change in the future with intelligent network services, said one expert speaking on a panel at the Consumer Electronics Show.Currently, smartphone users may not be accessing as much content or online services as they&#39;d like because it&#39;s difficult to do so. &quot;If to discover content you have to type in a URL, it&#39;s never going to happen,&quot; said Muzibul Khan, vice president of product management and engineering at Samsung Telecommunications America.He suggests that using voice commands is the best way to look for content from a mobile phone. &quot;Voice is the most natural medium,&quot; he said.But Intrinsyc&#39;s CEO thinks that even voice command technology is rooted in the past. &quot;We&#39;re talking about a paradigm for Web searching that was built for the PC,&quot; said Glenda Dorchak, who is also chairman of Intrinsyc.While there may be a transitional period in the near future when voice or other improved search techniques are used for content discovery on mobile handsets, ultimately a more intelligent system will prevail, she said. In the future, a context-aware, server-driven system will emerge, where the network will forward relevant and useful content to users. The type of content that users will get will depend on their location and other preferences that they&#39;ve set.Key to that vision will be multiple radios in mobile devices working together. She imagines a time when a phone might have Wi-Fi, GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications), GPS (Global Positioning System), Bluetooth, satellite and WiMax, each finding and delivering information to end-users, possibly simultaneously. The phones will be smart enough to pick the most appropriate network for delivering the content, she said.But running that many radios in a single device consumes power and requires sophisticated algorithms, so she suggests a few years will pass before it happens. However, the technology already exists to support part of that vision, such as converged cellular and Wi-Fi offerings that roam between the networks without dropping voice calls.In the meantime, operators and content providers are working to figure out exactly how to deliver video to users now. The Tivo generation wants to be able to choose what they want to watch and when, said Jeff Finkelstein, multimedia product manager for Palm. &quot;They don&#39;t want to wait for the headline news to start on the hour,&quot; he said.However, companies building mobile broadcast TV networks around the world like DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld) would likely disagree.Easier sharing capabilities could boost mobile video use too. For about the past year and a half, statistics about how much video people watch online from their PCs haven&#39;t changed much, said Frank Barbieri, CEO of Transpera, a company that provides technology behind mobile video services. &quot;Maybe in five years the phone could surpass the Web in terms of video snacking,&quot; he said.
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Yahoo adds a search feature for cell phones, following a similar move by Google. Also:  Start-up Seven gets addicted to Java.
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They know where we are - and it's for our own good... Mobile internet users can now prove their location to a website or remote network service, according to geolocation specialist Quova.â¦
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By David Crow  Browsing the internet on a mobile phone can be frustrating. Cramped screens, tiny keypads and slow download speeds do not lend themselves to the rich multimedia experience offered by Web 2.0.
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Google is working with mobile content providers on a search tool for cell phones.
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When deployed by mobile phone service providers, the business finder technology allows a consumer to find and use the nearest, most highly rated and available service vendors like plumbers, electricians, carpenters or doctors.
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Yahoo! has announced the debut of a new suite of search services for mobile users at the CTIA conference. This new search offering enables mobile consumers to search for local information, images and Web resources on mobile devices.
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ChaCha, a search engine powered by people, is hoping that it will be more popular on the mobile phone than it was on the Web.
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(InfoWorld) - Starting on Tuesday, when Sprint Nextel customers use the search bar in their phone browsers the results will automatically incorporate the users' location. Some customers will also be able to use voice commands to conduct searches. The capabilities are an extension of aÂ relationship that Microsoft and Sprint formedÂ late last year that initially involved including Microsoft's Live Search in the browser on Sprint phones. Microsoft is now adding automatic location detection to search results so users won't have to input their zip codes in their phones before getting local search results. Search results will include results from the Web, the phone and local information such as maps. Most recent Sprint phones include location-finding capabilities. In addition, users of five of Sprint's high-end phones will be able to download a client that will let them use voice commands to conduct searches. Once they have the application, users press the talk button on the phone to speak a search term. If the search is for a local business, for example, the results will include directions, the ability to press a button to call the business and the option to send directions to the place to a friend via text message. Sprint users of the Samsung a900, Samsung a920, Motorola Razr, Sanyo 840 and LG 550 phones will be able to download the voice search client. The application is based on technology from Tellme, the speech recognition company that Microsoft bought earlier this year. The services are not exclusive so they could become available via other operators in the future, said Phil Holden, director of mobile services at Microsoft. While other similar services are available to mobile users, this location-based search offering is more apt to be used because it comes built into the phones, Holden said. Earlier this year Ask.com came out with an applications that phone users could download and use to combine search with location information. In August, Nuance Communications began offering a service for BlackBerry users that lets users search and get driving directions using voice commands. Microsoft rivalÂ Google offers a mobile serviceÂ that automatically combines maps searches with a user's location. It's available for download on certain phones with location capabilities. Microsoft earns revenue from such offerings in two ways, Holden said. Microsoft shares in the revenue stream from the data services offered by operators and also from advertising, he said. The software giant hopes that it will be able to deliver more targeted advertising along with services like these that offer local search results.
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A service starting next month in Paris will allow a cellphone or GPS navigation device to search a parking lot database for nearby parking spots.
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YAHOO! has expanded the reach of its mobile search service, Yahoo! oneSearch beta, to consumers in Malaysia.  OneSearch reinvents search on mobile. It is designed to provide people with what they want on their mobile device - instant, relevant answers.
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AOL&#160;plans to unveil a number of new mobile services Tuesday, including the customizable MyAOL for mobile phones as well as a redesigned AOL.com portal page for mobile phones.The beta version of the mobile portal has been available since September but is now being formally introduced, said Scott Falconer, executive vice president of AOL Mobile. The portal includes the type of news, entertainment, and sports content that is available on the desktop version of the portal.In addition, it features AOL&#39;s mobile search technology that returns tailored results for mobile users. For example, if a mobile user searches for a music artist, the first results may be ringtones. In addition, AOL&#39;s search crawls an index of sites designed for mobile use, so it will return those sites near the top of the list.The search results will now include paid listings. That addition started last week, said Falconer.AOL is also announcing that MyAOL, the customizable home page, will be available to mobile users. People will get access to the same MyAOL they build in their regular PC browsers.Other new mobile services from AOL will include a shopping service that lets users enter a barcode number or product name and receive comparative prices for the product at various retailers, as well as contact and location information for the retailer.AOL is also launching a downloadable client called MyMobile. Initially available only on Windows Mobile devices, MyMobile is designed to offer an easy way for users to download and use AOL services of their choice, such as mail, MapQuest, and CityGuide, within a single application on the phone.AOL isn&#39;t alone among Internet services and content companies pursuing mobile users. So far, none seems to have a clear advantage. &quot;I would say it&#39;s still an open market,&quot; said Falconer. &quot;Google of course is the leader in online search but mobile search is fundamentally different.&quot; In addition to the online giants, a number of startups are targeting the mobile search and content market.AOL has two reasons for offering mobile services, including as a way to maintain loyalty among its existing user base and as a way to grow its advertising business, Falconer said. Analysts are predicting large growth in mobile advertising and AOL hopes to establish a foothold in the market, he said.
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InfoWorld - Fast Search &amp; Transfer&#160;and InfoSpace&#160;have expanded the scope of a years-long collaboration in mobile search, aiming to improve the technology they offer to carriers and end users.