Mobile: The next frontier for search

Source: Exec Digital Canada

Date :2/13/2008 7:01:26 AM

Keyword search is looking old-fashioned, even on a PC. The fact is that users want to do it all on their new generation mobile handsets, and that is shaking out a lot of new technology

By John O' Hanlon

Since the advent of the iPhone - and the realization that you can now do almost everything that you use your PC for on something that you can hold in one hand - more people have been asking just what is possible. We have had mobile phones that can access the internet for years now; in fact, around 70 percent of the devices on the streets today have that facility, but ask your kids why they still spend their evenings on your computer at home chatting on Facebook and buying clothes on your credit card. The answer of course is that they can’t be expected to use all the functions on their phone – it would use up their credit too quickly but if you’d like to pay...

Tell the truth - how often do you embark on an internet search via your mobile? Only if you are stranded in snow, I’d guess. Here’s a true story: recently, in the interval of a ballet, unsure of what was going on and too mean to buy a programme, I turned to Wikipedia for the summary I knew I would find there. It worked, but the 20 minute break was only just long enough to complete the job, and of course I knew what I was looking for. This was a desktop search done using a cellphone. However, internet access is the most underused function of mobiles not just because it is slow: the web is designed for large screens and capacious processors – it just doesn’t suit mobile devices.

Vertical structure

The launch of iPhone showed that mobile has become a much more realistic way of searching instantly for the things people used to save up for their office or home computer. In particular it has given a huge boost to the many vertical search engines that until now have been clinging to the edge of the space occupied by the likes of Google and Yahoo.

What is meant by vertical search? Unlike the ‘horizontal’ searches that users tend to do on their computers, which yield unlimited results from all over the World Wide Web, vertical search engines confine their results to a sector defined both by business (property, entertainment, cars, for example) and by location – local search is a defining feature of vertical search, and as such is clearly ideal for mobile users who want to know what is going on where they happen to be at the time.

You don’t want 354,000 results on your cellphone (very few people go beyond the first page of a Google search, I know, but on the small screen it’s vital that all the results are much more targeted). Google gives you everything and is great at taking you to places you didn’t know you wanted to go…

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