T-Mobile USA Changing Up T-Zones Search With Medio

Seattle-based Medio Systems is announcing today that it will be providing technology for T-Mobile USA’s new t-zones application. T-Mobile is launching the portal first on the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) 6263 and the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Razr II phones with more phones coming this quarter. Infospace was the previous search provider to T-Mobile (INSP’s mobile search service has since been sold off to Motricity).

T-Mobile USA customers will notice as Medio’s technology is rolled out on more phones. Today, t-zones is a slow-loading WAP experience, where a user must click on one link to get to another, which leads to even more. To find out how many minutes they have remaining that month, or the weather, can take forever.

With Medio’s technology, which is embedded directly on the device, news, sport scores, weather, flight status and directory listings can be found much faster. A search bar at the top of a screen predicts what users are looking for as they type, much like Google (NSDQ: GOOG). And, at the bottom of the screen, icons provide access to subject areas such as ringtones, games or news. And, one of the new features will allow users to preview a ringtone before purchasing it. Another option will allow for advertising over time. Currently, Medio says “educational graphics” will appear while pages are loading that will teach users about new features.

It was a year ago that Medio announced it was providing the search engine to T-Mobile’s t-zones — it didn’t take long before T-Mobile let them re-do its entire deck.

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