Issues You Feel Strongly About: The Comments

Mobile search is a very important aspect of the mobile content environment — if people can’t find the content they want they are precluded from buying it…in response to a post on branded mobile search platforms versus ‘white label’ ones Gideon Marken opined that operators should stay out of the mobile search business:

If any one ‘species’ dominates the environment, you loose the chain and make it difficult for anyone else to grab on.

If operators want people to fully embrace the Mobile Web, they need to play their role and not try to take on every business opportunity that can be pushed through their phones. Not all of us want a canned ‘AOL-like’ experience.

Plus, I think there’s a certain trust issue here with the topic of mobile search. I would think the search results wouldn’t be so open if my operator was in control, that I would see a filtered down world. How can I trust that the operator isn’t just selling spots?

A company called Allisblue was recently granted a patent on sending information to mobile phones in response to a request. Tom Chamberlin from Telescope filed a comment containing a different he claimed would improve the user experience and not violate the patent…it’s fairly detailed so I won’t go into it here, but it’s definitely worth looking at if you’re in that business.

Finally, the mobile content industry has a bad rep it needs to work against…If you want to see how the actions of a few companies are ruining the reputation of the industry this comment gives a classic example. In response to news that QMobile received $5 million in funding an anonymous poster expressed strong disapproval at the way the companies operate:

Qmobile and companies like these (Dirty Hippo, Jamster, etc) appear to be slamming their services to unsuspecting wireless phone customers. Many complaints have been filed with various government agencies on both the state and federal level. Complaints have also been filed with state public utilities commmission against wireless phone carriers for unlawful activity and conduct with respect to non-communication charges…Once action is taken by government or the carriers, revenue will be substantially lower for companies like Qmobile.

The comment goes on to say that investors should steer clear of these companies and questioning why investment houses are not doing so.

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