Is Mobile Search a Slam Dunk for the Google?
October 17, 2011
Can Mobile Search Be as Big for Google as Desktop Search? generated some poobahing in the digital anther today. I can answer the question:
Google sure wants it to be.
In our work, we look at search in different “environments.” The mobile terrarium is one crazy place. Different demographics do quite different things. As a result, “search” is losing what semblance of meaning it had. Here are three examples
- Little kids don’t search. Little kids immerse themselves in a flow. Yikes, ads don’t work the same way in the pre literate world of the two year old fooling with an iPad.
- Type A professionals don’t type lots of stuff into small devices when moving around. Excuse me. I call someone or use a short cut. Yikes, bad for ads.
- College students watch videos and send Facebook messages. A search is more like a question fired off to someone who is in the person’s “friend” list. Yikes. Another problem for the Google. Maybe Facebook has an edge at the moment, but there is always Google+ or Google Plus. Try and search for that name from a BlackBerry that doesn’t work. Yikes. Bad for ads.
Net net: Google is a company forged in the portal days of the late 1990s. Mobile is a newish thing and requires newish solutions. Think Google finds these examples a slam dunk? I don’t.
Stephen E Arnold, October 17, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google Fixes Maps in 15 Minutes
October 15, 2011
Let’s say that an address or landmark is wrong on Google Maps and someone, somewhere uses Google Map Maker to fix it. How long does it take to show up in Google Maps? And how long does it take to populate out into all the embedded Google Maps around the world that are powered by the Google Maps API, the most popular API in the world? According to the company this week, it now takes as little as fifteen minutes.
Now that’s customer service. Lots of competition in mobile apps, especially in maps, drives Google to keep refresh rates very high, and update times very short. To stay dominant in this market, Google has to stay fast.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 15, 2011
Oracle Plans for CRM Expansion
October 12, 2011
The consulting firm Ovum is weighing in on Oracle’s pending acquisition of InQuira; a move that expands Oracle’s CRM capabilities. Read the full review at, “InQuira buyout firms up Oracle CRM sway.”
Oracle’s pending acquisition of InQuira is a sensible move, providing it with tools to help enterprises unify web information with internal CRM data and provide more targeted sales, marketing, and customer service. Although Oracle already had a partnership and integration with InQuira, the acquisition will ensure that knowledge becomes an intrinsic part of Oracle Siebel and Oracle Fusion CRM applications.
Just as every other sector of the corporate world, customer service channels will need to respond to the ever-changing mobile technology. Oracle will likely bring InQuira’s information expertise to work alongside its already successful suite of process management and business expertise products. The match is a good one and will likely prove fruitful for Oracle.
Emily Rae Aldridge, October 12, 2011
http://www.telecomseurope.net/
Quote to Note: Google on Motorola Mobility
October 4, 2011
Quote to note. We read “Google’s Schmidt Says Acquisition of Motorola Won’t ‘Screw Up’ Android”. In addition to the professional sounding phraseology in the Bloomberg news story, we noted this passage:
The Android ecosystem is the No. 1 priority, and that we won’t do anything with Motorola, or anybody else by the way, that would screw up the dynamics of that industry,” Schmidt said in an Oct. 1 interview with Bloomberg Television’s Erik Schatzker in Nantucket, Massachusetts. “We need strong, hard competition among all the Android players. We won’t play favorites in the way people are concerned about.
Okay. So if Google owns a company like Motorola Mobility and provides support to that outfit, will the treatment of Motorola be identical to the treatment of other Android centric manufacturers, partners, and ecosystem dwellers? Will attendance at a Google company meeting impart any special insight? Will having Googley online meetings or time shifted chats in MOMA provide the Motorola folks with some ideas, insights, or information?
My hunch is that the likelihood of the information remaining compartmentalized is an interesting one in theory. In practice, I am not certain that “we won’t do anything with Motorola or anybody else by the way that would screw up the dynamics of that industry.”
Great quote. Let’s see how the future arrives for deals that get put together quickly, engender so much controversy, and have already made best friends out of Samsung and Microsoft.
Stephen E Arnold, October 4, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google Rings Up Spain
September 30, 2011
Google continues to make many announcements. One caught our attention because it hooks into mobile and ultimately into mobile search.
As a multinational corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies, Google is jack of all trades company. Photographs were recently leaked, which may not be authentic, of a Google-branded SIM card, along with rumors that the search giant is branching out once again and setting up operations as a MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) in Spain.
Spanish Google employees will receive company branded SIM cards to test Google voice features on Nexis S Handsets. The company plans to eventually do MVNO testing with its employees all over Europe. According to the September 22, 2011 “Google to Become a Mobile Virtual Network Operator in Spain, Rest of Europe Coming Soon?”:
While Google doesn’t own its own towers or infrastructure (it buys bulk data from the local telecoms – in this case Telefonica, Vodafone, etc.), the move allows Google to control more of the phone experience. For instance, it can pay one price for bulk data rather than on a per phone basis. It can also dictate which carriers the phones pull in data from based on quality of service or price. Roaming internationally can also be controlled and owned as well.
Google appears to only be using this technology for it’s own staff, but could expand it’s operations in the future. This could lead to some disgruntled traditional telecommunication vendors.
Jasmine Ashton, September 30, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Google and Its Good Enough Method for Android Fragmentation
September 7, 2011
I avoid cabbage and I dodged it at dinner tonight. To celebrate, I did some quick headline scanning and found this enticing item, crisp and tasty like cabbage: “How Android’s Fragmentation Issue Is Slowly Receding.” I found the analysis interesting, and I noted this passage:
The only way to eliminate the problem is for Google to either cease licensing the platform and build its own devices, like Apple, or for the Android-maker to be very specific in terms of hardware requirements, like Microsoft. I don’t expect either of those things to happen. And that’s OK, because the fragmentation issue is less of a problem than it was 18 months ago.
Call me old fashioned, but I don’t get it. There are multiple versions of Androids. Developers have to pick one and then figure out how to support the app on various Android platforms. I am probably wrong, but Android is growing fast and imposes some different types of friction from Apple’s in or out approach and Windows 7 “no users yet” methods.
The point I thought important was swerved around the way I dodge cabbage. Amazon, I thought I heard, was creating what I call “Bezos-Droid” or “An-Zos.” So now we have to support the Amazon variant. What happens if certain Google partners take open source Android and go a different direction? These possibilities seem to add some spin to the Google Android fragmentation management task. Will developers avoid certain Android variants the way I avoid cabbage?
I also think the notion of “less of a problem” is a facet of Google’s “good enough” approach. I am not sure “good enough” will pass muster in the present business climate. I have to keep reminding myself that South Korea’s alleged police action, the US government’s hit and miss scrutiny of Google, and the EC’s stack of legal actions involving Google could make “good enough” management show even more stress fractures.
Fragmentation may be less of an issue that forks and fractures.
Stephen E Arnold, September 8, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Local Deals Appeal to the Google
August 26, 2011
Google seems to be interested in the mobile advertising business. First they purchased AdMob for $750 million and now they are combining local searches with mobile advertising. This strategy is discussed by Jason Spero, Google’s head of mobile for the Americas, in the Tech Crunch article “Google’s U.S. Mobile Head Talks Local Intent, M-Commerce, Geo-Targeting and More”.
Spero says the move to combine local and mobile advertising was simply driven by consumer behavior. They found that one in three mobile interactions had local intent. So they have been exploring several different local ad formats, they have been particularly focusing on click-to-call ads.
[T]hese ads perform well on phones because the natural path for a consumer is to want to engage the phone and get more info from a merchant or service. The key in these advertisements on mobile phones is a ‘call to action’ element, which can work for a retailer, florist, insurance company and many other smaller businesses. So far, he says that over 500,000 Google customers are running click-to-call campaigns on a mobile phone.
Google’s strategy seems to be right on target. I cannot count the times that I have used my phone of look up a local pizza joint or a retail store. This could lead to some major advertising dollars for Google, a significant profit increase for the advertiser and a happy customer with the quick and easy ad format. Seems like a win-win-win to me. What about exisiting local ad and deal vendors? Maybe a lose-lose?
Jennifer Wensink August 26, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
EasyAsk Enhances User Experience in Mobile Apps
August 24, 2011
EasyAsk is a company that leverages its incorporation of natural language processing in order to boost its information retrieval technology. EasyAsk offers an alternative to traditional enterprise search and is having a strong impact on eCommerce as it relates to “findability.” The company told us:
Founded in 1999 by Dr. Larry Harris, a computational linguistics professor and internationally recognized expert on database systems and computerized natural language. EasyAsk technology is used today by leading retailers, manufacturers, financial services institutions, government agencies and pharmaceutical and health care organizations around the globe.
Mobile commerce is the undeniable way of the future and EasyAsk is shaping how it will look. John Morell, VP of Product Marketing, wrote “Mobile Apps and User Experience” for the company blog, addressing how navigation and search must be treated differently in the mobile context. He spoke to some of the considerations made when developing EasyAsk eCommerce mobile. We learned:
The screen real estate on a mobile browser is vastly smaller than that on a PC or Mac. This says that excellent search is critical. You need to pinpoint search results because wading through pages of results in a mobile browser would frustrate a user and cause them to abandon. But excellent navigation is also important due to the screen real estate constraints. Using richer, dynamic search criteria in the navigation, such as product attributes . . . allows visitors to find products in 1 to 2 clicks, rather than plowing through pages of categories – increasing the chances of conversion.
Other vendors, such as X1, are pushing into this territory as well. However, EasyAsk has a definite edge in its tested usage of natural language processing. An “Interview with Craig Bassin,” EasyAsk CEO, is a good reference for how the company got its start and why it can currently stand toe-to-toe with others in the field like Endeca. Mr. Bassin said:
EasyAsk’s unique natural language technology helps people find information faster and easier by enabling them to perform e-commerce searches or enterprise data searches in plain English, making it easier for users to express what they want and delivering a more accurate answer. The technology is used in two products: EasyAsk eCommerce Edition, an e-commerce search and merchandising solution that has proven to drive the best buyer conversion rates in the industry, and EasyAsk Business Edition which offers the easiest, most intuitive manner to search and explore corporate data.
EasyAsk is proven in the market, but it is not stuck in the success of its past. Continuing to innovate, the company looks for new ways to improve not only user experience, but also client satisfaction. EasyAsk and its natural language processing looks good to me.
Stephen E Arnold, August 24, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
Microsoft Tunnels into the Google Search Lead
August 24, 2011
We think Bing.com is getting better. Either that or Google’s focus on Oracle, mobile phones, and assimilating the aged Motorola Mobility are distracting the company from its core competency.
It would appear that Microsoft is systematically whittling away at Google’s dominance. It’s bad enough that the veteran tech giant gains royalties from Google’s OS, Android, but now their search engine, Bing, is slowly eating up popularity points that were previously monopolized by Google. According to the article, Microsoft’s Bing Leads Google in Delivering Users to Websites: Report, on eWeek, Bing is still not as popular a search engine as Google, but creaming the big G where it counts – user clicks.
Google has dominated the search engine scene for quite some time now, and while it is popular, other search engines have definite benefits that Google does not provide. A very important number to look at when comparing search engine competencies is the percentage of searches that end with the user visiting a website. As the article reports,
According to analytics firm Experian Hitwise, some 80.04 percent of searches executed on Bing resulted in the user visiting a Website. That’s in contrast to Google, which clocked a 67.56 percent success rate. Yahoo led both companies with 81.36 percent.
On top of Bing and Yahoo beating Google in website clicks, they also are slowly rising in use while Google is slowly losing percentage points. According to ComScore, Google’s share of the search market went down in June 2011 from 65.5 percent to 65.1 percent, a small decrease, but definitely not the direction Google likes or is used to.
Microsoft appears to have a great deal of patience. Their slow-growing gain on the search engine market isn’t going to topple Google today, tomorrow or anytime soon, but in cahoots with other anti-Google operations Microsoft is working, has its impact.
Microsoft led a consortium of tech companies in winning some 6,000 Nortel mobile industry patents in July 2011 – a patent portfolio over which Google was practically salivating.
Windows Phone 7 is not flying off the shelves, but Microsoft is making money via its Android “tax”. Thanks to Redmond’s hefty patent portfolio (around 17,000), Microsoft is apparently receiving royalties from licensing agreements from manufactures of mobile phones using Android. Not too shabby, Microsoft.
How Microsoft’s sly erosion of Google will turn out, no one knows. What is known is that Google’s God-complex needs to be checked at the door if they want a chance at keeping their strong-hold in the markets they saturate.
Catherine Lamsfuss, August 24, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
X1 Rolls Out iPad Search Application
August 18, 2011
With more and more people using tablets instead of personal computers, companies are racing to make their technologies, previously only available on PCs, ready for the tablet. The article, New iPad Release | X1 Technologies Announces New Release Of X1 Mobile Search Enhanced For IPad And IPad 2, on iPad Touch Blog, explains how X1 Technologies have scored big by offering their search services to iPad users.
Based in Pasadena, California, X1 emerged onto the techie seen in the early 2000s with a solution to a growing problem. It seemed that people were utilizing more and more networks of data without any way of connecting the data for easy searching. X1’s answer was to create a powerful search service that allows users to search across “emails, files, attachments, or information scattered across networked servers and document management systems.”
Search has changed since X1’s début in 2003. Today people live and work from their smartphones and tablets. Because of this, service providers are racing to get technology into those tiny little pads. X1 has succeeded and now can proudly say, “We have an app for that.”
As the article explains,
Helping with the passing from one to another to the Post Personal Computer era, the X1 Mobile Search app turns an iPad in to an prolongation of a user’s P.C. by bringing the award-winning and law X1 finding experience to mobile devices. The app enables present and secure remote finding of desktop-bound email, attachments, papers and more.”
With people demanding faster, more accessible modes of information-getting, X1 has responded quickly to this opportunity.
Catherine Lamsfuss, August 18, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
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