Today’s Free DA offerings are the most visible (or audible) entry points for mass market local mobile search. In this advisory, we assess the offerings of AT&T, Google, Jingle and Microsoft to see how well they fulfill the promise of delivering valuable, current local information to people on-the-go.
Continue Reading March 5th, 2008 Greg Sterling
This is a transformative period for directory assistance (DA) service providers and callers alike. Call volumes are skewing toward mobile devices and competitive threats exist in the form of mobile Internet search, downloadable mapping applications and free DA alternatives. These competitive challenges raise strategic and tactical questions for mobile carriers and their service providers (about pricing and content) in the near term. The findings of a new Local Mobile Search consumer survey, sponsored by V-Enable, present a snapshot of mobile DA usage and of an industry very much in transition.
Continue Reading February 4th, 2008 Greg Sterling
Microsoft is set to pay a hefty premium ($44.6 billion) to pre-empt others from acquiring Yahoo. While there are several areas of duplication and redundancy, a Yahoo subsidiary of Microsoft is well-positioned to take on Google and capture a significant share of local search and mobile commerce spending.
Continue Reading February 1st, 2008 Greg Sterling
In a potentially industry-changing move, Google has announced an open-source mobile platform and an alliance of mobile industry heavyweights, including carriers and OEMs, that contributed to and are embracing the platform. The intention is to push cost, fragmentation and complexity out of developing for the mobile Internet and help create dramatically improved user experiences to drive mobile Internet adoption.
Continue Reading November 5th, 2007 Greg Sterling
Last week, two studies described how Internet search is used by the large majority of consumers as a research tool before buying locally. The Web has now overtaken all other media, including printed Yellow Pages as a primary source for local business information. Directory assistance and cell phones were only used 3% of the time as a primary source. However, Local Mobile Search (LMS) expects that will change over time.
Continue Reading August 13th, 2007 Greg Sterling
A recent Ingenio-sponsored survey by Harris Interactive explored a range of topics pertaining to mobile voice and data usage, as well as consumer acceptance of mobile advertising. The results show consumers are quickly expanding the use of mobile phones beyond voice-only capabilities, but monetizing those activities through mobile advertising remains an uphill battle.
Continue Reading July 17th, 2007 Greg Sterling
In a vaudevillian display of man versus machine at last week’s Conversations customer and partner event in Orlando, Florida, Nuance effectively demonstrated speech recognition as the most efficient and “intuitive” interface for wireless phones. By outpacing the world’s fastest text messenger, Nuance showcased the potential in speech-enabled mobile search [SEMS] – a critical competitive battleground that includes the Internet heavyweights (Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL) and represents the next “disruptive” opportunity. With billions at stake, there are opportunities for first movers to differentiate and adopt go-to-market strategies with voice as the interface or a key component of a mobile-search offering.
Continue Reading October 31st, 2006 Greg Sterling
