Why Mobile Search doesn't work
Many search engine providers such as
Google (who?) provide a "specialised" mobile version of their search tool. Others such as
Exalead and
Motion Bridge offer search engines specifically designed for the mobile interface.
However I believe that Mobile search is very different to PC based search and will never work effectively in its present form.
Reason 1: "skimming": Internet search is all about skimming the results. Most PC search engines return the search text
highlighted as it appears in context within the page. The human brain is very quick at scanning these results to establish if it is what they are looking for. This happens subconsciously. To prove it I suggest you time yourself next time you do a search. See how quickly you click the next button to see the next page of results or to view a particular page you have decide is worthy of further inspection. On the tiny screen of a phone it is not possible to view such detail without scrolling down through pages of text. It takes far far longer.
Reason 2: Tiny Screen: Google on the PC for example gives you by default 10 results on first page. On the mobile phone this is reduced to 5 due to lack of real estate. If this wasn't bad enough the search usually just returns the title of the page. This can very often be meaningless in relation to the specific search term. This leads to a very frustrating and time consuming exercise, where the user select try several WAP sites results purely on the basis of the page title.
Reason 3: Shoe-horning Web sites onto mobile devices: Many mobile search engines - in particular Google - default to search the PC internet.
Surely it makes far more sense to search the mobile internet on a mobile device. Especially when the vast majority of PC sites will not render properly on mobile browsers.
The end result is that mobile users
will not use search. This is why
Tribes was developed as it offers a totally new way to find mobile content. The tribes toolbar is persistent in every site you visit and it learns your preferences in order to bring you to the sites you need.
Look our for next week's installment in this series entitled " Why Mobile Portals don't work".
Obigo thumbnail
The Swedish company
Obigo has an interesting approach to tackling the problem of rendering web sites on mobile devices. The idea is to show on the "tiny" screen only a portion of the website and enable the user to scroll around the site to find the content required. The image below illustrates this in more detail.
Cannot figure out from the website blurb if this is a java or symbian application or something else entirely. I don't think one can be sure if it would really be useful until trying it on a real device with a real website.
As I have always maintained in this blog I think that this type of approach is an "answer" to the wrong "question". Let me explain: rather than trying to shoe-horn websites into mobile devices this industry should concentrate on making the current crop of mobile internet sites more accessible. This is exactly what the
Tribes toolbar does.
More on WAP advertising...Coca Cola joins the fray
The big brands are finally seeing the opportunity of WAP advertising. According to
Clickz , Coca Cola have recently done two campaigns in Germany and Spain.
But it seems that most brands see the WAP channel as nothing much more than brochureware at present. I call on brands and their agnecies to be a more creative and provide much more than the usual common and garden download of branded wallpapers and logos. This is unfortunately where most WAP advertising seems to be at the moment.
Alatto have recently completed a unique WAP advertising campaign for a major drinks brand in Ireland and UK, please see details in a single diagram below:
The unique point is that our Tribes service encourages the user stay browsing the mobile web with persistent brand placement.
Mobile Content World London 2005
The alatto stand at
mobile content world in London last week was very busy for the whole 3 days of the show. Met a lot of content providers who are very interested in getting direct access to live operator portals through alatto
Tribes.
Aubrey entertains some interest from a content provider.
The alatto blimp soars overhead the tradeshow floor in search of good mobile internet content.
The event was quite focused with all the big players in mobile internet attending. Still interesting to see that the US market still doesn't understand the European market all that well. Many big US firms such as
Action Engine and
Motricity had stands but no real customers of any significance in Europe.
WAP advertising
Another
good article on WAP advertising on
Clickz. Good case studies from major brands Nike, Walker Crisps (they will never break
Tayto's hold of the Irish market. Never!), Mercedes and Levi's.
However these campaigns to date are still just in the WAP brochureware stage. That's if they exist at all - a good search could find no real WAP site for Walker's for example. Using
Tribes brand managers for FMCGs can really exploit the WAp channel opportunity.
The
Nike campaign is the most interesting I suppose as punters can use their "cellphone"to design their own runner, by sending instructions from phone to a billboard in Time Square.
Daft idea #6
Celljump out of the US has an "interesting" pitch that caught my eye.
"The MCP (Mobile Content Provision) is a revolutionary product that delivers mobile content directly to the user without connecting to a server." When I checked it out it is true granted, but is actually a physical device that attaches to your handset.
Begs the obvious question: why don't they just load the content on an SD or MMC card. Much cheaper and certainly compatible with many more devices I am sure.
