Mobile Local Search - War Of The Giants
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China became one of the world’s largest handset markets, when it produced 450 mobile phones last year. 350 million of them were exported with the largest share to Nokia and Motorola, with more than 58 percent of sold handsets. In 2006 the number of mobile users in China reached 461 million.
Reports from Europe that a consortium of mobile phone operators is considering the co-operative development of a search engine could be another threat to the concept of net neutrality.
dotMobi, the Internet address designed specifically for mobile phones, today announced its “Go Mobile!” initiative, a program for dotMobi’s network of global registrars and resellers to help businesses accelerate their move to the mobile Internet.
As the mobile web expands explosively, it is clear that search and particularly local search on mobile devices including cell phones is a mountain of gold. All the major players on the mobile web want to get the biggest share of the gold they can.
Two groups start with advantages here. Clearly the Telcos may feel they’re in the driving seats. However when one thinks of search, names such as Google and Yahoo come to mind. A third group has historically been involved and that’s the online Yellow Pages services.
In this pitched battle, it might appear that the one to beat is Google. Google has almost owned the search world as visited through desktop PCs. Does this mean that they will be the inevitable winner in this even more important war?
Let’s consider the reasons for Google’s success.
- An effective search algorithm
- Weak opposition
- Well resourced to index the web rapidly and deliver results fast
- Very simple user interface
It should be noted that these apply to regular search. In local search, it’s a very much more open contest and Google hasn’t yet developed a competition-crushing solution. Since local search will be the biggest application by far on the mobile web, this makes for a very much more even competition.
This lack of Google dominance seems to be confirmed by news that the Telcos are secretly plotting a mobile search alternative to Google. As the Chinese would say, we’re in for interesting times. As the Chinese are the biggest travellers on the mobile web, perhaps they may have a big influence on how the war goes.
Related:
Comscore?s mobile search findings
Tags: Mobile, local search
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