John Battelle's Searchblog

Vodafone's Future Vision

http://www.vodafone.com/section_article/0,3035,CATEGORY_ID%253D1600%2526LANGUAGE_ID%253D0%2526CONTENT_ID%253D216753,00.html

Mobile is very much the future of search - the new horizon that is just starting to be tapped. There are far more mobile handsets in the world than computers and more time spent with a mobile phone at your side than sitting next to a PC. Mobile is no longer just the networked communication medium for voice, its quickly becoming the preferred networked communication medium for data. This is especially true in underdeveloped countries such as India and China where most people don't own a computer but do have a mobile handset. This shift in mobile utility is shifting the very foundation of search.

As many of you are all too aware, mobile search differs greatly from web search due to the limitations of the medium. Its difficult and time consuming to type long search queries on a mobile device, the display is very restrictive, and data transfer rates are still very slow. Mobile searchers of today aren't interested in viewing large web pages or entering lengthy urls, they want pinpoint answers to short and simple information requests with limited data transfer requirements. They want to know where the nearest coffee shop is, the score of last nights Knicks game, or the current price of Yahoo's stock without the hassle of visiting a slow web page or searching a huge document domain. Traditional search on the web responds to queries with links to information sources, not the information itself. This model does not work within the restrictive mobile domain - mobile searchers want information, not recommendations where they can find the information or they're not going to put in the effort to use the service. It is in this light mobile search is changing the search landscape, and changing it for the better. Mobile search, because of its limitations, is actually redefining and improving search in a manner that web based search never sought to achieve.

Within the last 6 months there has been a huge surge in new mobile search services, including offerings from a host of new upstarts (4Info, UpSnap, Synfonic, etc) and the major players (Google, Yahoo, etc). These companies are introducing new features of search that we have never before see - information instead of links to information.

Take the new service 4Info for example (I'm choosing this service for its breadth of search features and, from what I've found, superior search quality over all others. I leave you to make your own decision, although this is also the only service you can try out on the web so you will be forced to use your restrictive mobile device to test others). 4Info's current SMS search offering has an extensive collection of information domains to search against, everything from 411 style local directory listings to real time sports scores, stock data, flight times, weather, etc. If you type in a query such as "Score New York Knicks", "Knicks", or "what is the knicks score", they return not a collection of links to New York Knicks information sources, but the information itself, the actual score of the game. The restrictive nature of mobile devices has forced them to provide what you really want when you search, an answer to your query.

The job of search engines/utilities within the web domain has always been that of information mapper, indexing the collection of available information/content sources and providing links to those sources when one queries. With the new addition of mobile search, search services are now forced to be information providers. Now, they must actually answer your query, not just respond to it. Let me be the first to say, “Finally!!!�?

its me amber.