Received via e-mail from J. Gerry Purdy, VP & Chief Analyst of Frost & Sullivan.
I think it's the same FANTASTIC and a MUST READ, as my previously blogged viewpoint from Tony Fish about Mobile Web 2.0.
Mobile Search: Why It's Different from Desktop Search
December 2007
When data services became rich on wireless handsets, search began to be used by wireless handset users, much in the same way they thought of using search on their a desktop PCs: they simply provide some keywords and the search engine responds back with hundreds of links that likely will provide the information that was requested (along with a number of ads).
The method of input to mobile search is close to the same as the method of input for desktop search (except for the obvious need to be more concise when typing using a 10-key numeric keypad instead of an alphanumeric keypad). However, the methods of output from desktop and mobile search are really quite different. Here??s why.
Users think about their search requirements in the same way, whether they are on a desktop or using a wireless handheld with wireless broadband connectivity (such as Wi-Fi zones or wide area wires connectivity). So, while your requirements for search are basically the same, your expectations for replies are drastically different between desktop and mobile: mobile users are focused entirely on results, not just links to results.
Google, Yahoo!, and all the other major mobile search firms have a new challenge: design their software to generate and display results that will best answer the user??s search inquiry - not just provide links to that information. This is one of the main reasons that mobile search is very different from desktop search.
Take a look at typical Google search result shown below (searching on ??mobile search??). You can see that there??s a list of links providing information about mobile search and, correctly, showing both Google and Yahoo! at the top of the list.
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 | Now, take a look at the way in which Yahoo! oneSearch for mobile presents output to a typical search: you can see that the mobile screens (shown to the left as a pallet) contain actual content - not just links to other websites. This allows users to get information on the mobile display that is useful and, in many cases, does not require any additional action. The challenge in doing this, of course, is to determine a user??s query intent and then figure out which content is the most relevant and what users would find most beneficial. That takes a new expertise that is over and above the talent and experience for doing traditional search. |
Google does this kind of useful direct display results in its desktop search when you search on a popular place like a restaurant. Here??s the result of a Google desktop search for ??Bice in Palm Beach?? (one of our favorites):
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Therefore, in mobile search, it is important to give the user results and answers - not just the links to the information. Google, Yahoo!, and other mobile search engines are all working on this kind of output.
Yahoo!??s website shows why it feels that oneSearch is better than Google (at least at this point in time). The company provides a side-by-side comparison of the output from a number of mobile search requests. The following comparison is from the search request ??Pizza.?? Google does provide some results (rather than just links), but oneSearch does appear to provide a great deal more information than Google in a robust and easy to navigate interface. Both mobile search requests recognize that the phone is in New York. Eventually, specific location will be available on all mobile phones, which will make the mobile search results even more relevant than they are today.
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Yahoo! feels that it has an early advantage in this method of focusing on results by providing a lot of useful information for each search. Recently, Yahoo! incorporated content from Yahoo! Answers and Wikipedia to increase the amount of rich content available in consumers' mobile search results.
The company also recently introduced Yahoo! oneSearch Flight Tracker with up-to-the-minute flight information, including flight departure/arrival times, departing/arriving terminals, and gates. Consumers simply need to enter the airline and flight number (for example: United Airlines 97 or UA 97) into Yahoo! oneSearch, or send an SMS query to 92466 (spells YAHOO), and Yahoo! will provide detailed information on the specific flight.
I want to point out that there are a number of companies besides Google and Yahoo that are doing good work in mobile search. Mobile Computing Network (MCN) has developed a concept of ??federated?? search for mobile, in which it analyzes results from other search engines and then provides users with a combined integration of what it feels is the best available answers to the search inquiry. Medio is a ??white label?? mobile search company that provides mobile search to wireless operators so they can provide mobile search under their own brand. And ClairMail provides a means that users can ask search questions inside their wireless email system, such as BlackBerry, and get answers sent back via email.
Thus, you??ll quickly come to expect that doing a search on your wireless handheld will give you more relevant results than using desktop search. And I suspect that the lessons learned from mobile search will migrate back into the desktop to make those results more relevant over time as well.
Written by:
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J. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D.
VP & Chief Analyst
Mobile & Wireless
Frost & Sullivan
Keywords: Frost & Sullivan, Gerry Purdy, Mobile & Wireless, Mobile Search, Mobile Web 2.0, Tony Fish, Desktop Search
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