It says a lot about the industry search when there’s so much happening that it’s best to bundle it together in a round-up post. Any doubts that mobile search is the must-watch trend were dispelled at 3GSM, which was the showcase for a slew of announcements and several sessions dedicated to the hot topic. Indeed, mobile search has crossed the chasm and companies are battling it away in the bowling alley. And who says mobile search is sewn up by the usual suspects? Naseej, an Arabic Internet solutions company, has quietly released RAHEEB (which means “awesome” in Arabic), a new search engine technology, in Saudi Arabia. The service goes beyond searching operator mobile content, indexing content belonging to third-party content companies. It also includes a couple of interesting applications including a mobile favorites list, and lets users forward search results via SMS. (And thanks to MoCo readers for bringing this to my attention.)
Egypt’s Orascom Telecom has launched a mobile version of its search engine. The Arabic-language engine, onkosh.mobi, is seen as bid by the operator to compete for a share of the growing mobile search market and the opportunity to deliver sponsored mobile advertising. Thailand’s mobile operator DTAC, which counts over 12 million subscribers, has teamed up with search platform provider Mobile Content Networks (MCN) to provide mobile search.
Microsoft has expanded its range of mobile search facilities. Users of Live search for Windows or for Java will now be able to use a category-based search which limits typing requirements in search commands. Users can also choose the option to “map all results,” functionality that shows several results listings on the device screen at the same time and even allows users to access satellite images, GPS services and to send search results to another user. Not to be outdone, Nokia has fine-tuned its Mobile Search Application to search for content – ranging from emails, text messages and calendar entries to videos and music files – stored on users’ devices. The application, which effectively resembles desktop search, is available as a free download for select Nokia devices from http://www.nokia.com/mobilesearch. In related news, Nokia (following in the footsteps of Google with similar local mobile search aspirations, I wonder) has started offering smart2go, letting users put localized search and route-finding services into mobile phones for free. Nokia said today the platform has been downloaded around 30,000 times during the first two days of being made available.
White label search providers Fast Search & Transfer and InfoSpace have allied to deliver an ASP mobile search service, one that lets mobile operators and media companies cash in on mobile search and advertising opportunities. In addition to search, the companies will collaborate to develop messaging, portal features and WAP index functionality, as well as storefronts offering ring tones, wallpaper and content. The focus on metasearch
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