Yahoo! Launches Go 3.0 Beta, New Open Mobile Widget Platform, and Mobile Homepage

Yahoo! Go has several exciting announcements that are launching today:

· Yahoo! Go 3.0 beta:
o New features include:
§ Enhanced user interface, optimized for the mobile phone
§ Improved performance
§ For the first time, consumers will have access to third-party widgets from leading publishers through Yahoo! Go.
o Yahoo! Go 3.0 also includes display advertising from Yahoo!’s major global advertisers. Consumers will be able to interact with these ads by clicking to call the advertiser directly or to learn more about the offer.

· New Open Mobile Widget Platform:
o The platform is an open environment for deverlopers to create mobile Widgets for instant access by millions of consumers.
o Widgets created on the Mobile Widget Platform will be available to consumers from various starting points, including Yahoo! Go 3.0 and Yahoo!’s new mobile homepage.
o The platform will enable developers to write code once and publish their content across Yahoo!’s mobile network, allowing accelerated delivery of a feature-rich mobile experience.
o The platform will enable consumers more control over their experience, as well, by providing the functionality to add and delete Widgets at any time.
o Full-featured SDK for developers to be introduced over the coming weeks.
o Third-party Widget launch partners include, eBay, MySpace, and MTV.

· Redesigned Mobile Homepage
o New features:
§ Completely redesigned and engineered mobile interface from the ground up.
§ Homepage centers around intuitive navigational structure where consumers can tailor content according to needs, interests and location.
§ Available to consumers in the United States on high-end mobile browsers, which are included in devices such as the Apple iPhone, sever Nokia Seies 60 devices, including the N95, and select Windows Mobile devices. Availability across additional devices and countries to come in the near future.
o Key features:
§ Personal Vitality and Status Updates: Provides an at-a-glance update of what’s new since the last visit – including recent emails, Flickr photos from your friends, upcoming calendar appointments and status of Messenger contacts – without moving away from the home screen or logging into a separate application.
§ Customizable Content: Offers a collection of mobile content modules - or Snippets - that provide previews of the user’s favorite content - news headlines, weather conditions, etc – whatever the user wants. In many cases, Snippets are extensions of mobile widgets and can be used to launch a full-featured widget built on Yahoo!’s Mobile Widget Platform.
§ Quick Links: Customizable links at the bottom of the page, providing fast access to the Yahoo! features or sites across the Internet that consumers use the most. Consumers can easily add and remove Quick Links as they desire.

That’s alot to digest! Will 2008 be the year mobile breaks through?

Medio Systems Expands Mobile Search Marketing to Europe

I received this form Medio Systems late last night:

Medio Systems, Inc., the leading provider of mobile search and advertising solutions, today announced the availability of its performance-based Medio MobileNow™ Ad Network to advertisers and mobile publishers in the UK and beyond. A component of Medio’s complete mobile search ecosystem, the ad network maximises the latent potential of the mobile phone by targeting mobile consumers with relevant, pay-per-click ads. With the incorporation of search-based advertising in 2008, Medio MobileNow will create additional revenue streams for mobile operators, publishers and other off-deck mobile properties while offering advertisers even more targeting precision through highly relevant ad messages based on consumers’ search queries.

The Medio MobileNow Ad network has been live in the United States since its launch in March this year. The expanded network has already begun to serve ads for advertisers in the UK , Germany , France , Spain , Australia and South Africa , achieving conversion rates of up to 15% with access to over 100 million page impressions per month across an international network of publishers.

Notice that last reference, it talks about potential. This Business Week article questions the growth rates of the mobile advertising industry not reaching projections, likely due to carrier friction rather than the lack of actual potential. This is why my recent endeavors have focused on local, traditional Internet and other spaces, it appears the will to bring in the needed financial services backgrounds to take mobile search and advertising to the next level just isn’t there right now. Not because they don’t need it to go to the next level, but more likely that they can’t afford the eventual differentiation luxury under current burn rates.

Microsoft Launches Mobile Advertising on MSN Mobile

Microsoft just announced the launch of mobile advertising on MSN Mobile.

I wish they would have given more details about the release instead of pointing us back to overly dated speeches on the mobile advertising subject. I would have expected to see more examples than just movie tickets.

Microsoft has the potential to lead this market with it’s array of assets if they are integrated in the right manner - see my post on Web 2.0 was NEVER a business strategy for ideas.

Maybe they will start a larger conversation on this subject once they see this post? We’ll see.

Google Will Apply to Participate in the FCC Spectrum Mobile Auction

My question is simply this…

Low marginal cost public relations opportunity or serious about participating in the auction?

New York Times Article Andy Rubin Google Gadget Guru

I rarely see things like this anymore, but oh my what an amazingly well researched story by John Markoff about Andy Rubin at Google.

The article talks about the changing face of the smart phone market and you really get a feel for the history of Mr. Rubin. While the parts about Mr. Rubin’s doorbells and girlfriend dismissal methods are certainly interesting, I found the article to be lacking in one major area - his history of successfully monetizing any of the projects he has worked on in the past.

It is great reading about him as a person though and hope to see people expand on the overlooked area as time goes by.

FCF07 - The Role of Mobile Search in Social Computing

Presenter: Charles Golvin, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research

I didn’t get around to posting this last week, these are some high points of Charles’ all too short talk:

Mobile data adoption is growing, but skews young. Many people still have not been exposed to mobile ads.

They don’t trust SMS ads. They also don’t want to pay for something in lieu of advertising. In the current state this creates contradictions.

The most interesting thing he said in his talk was when he showed Google mobile search and then stated, “I think Google imitated Yahoo! in this regard”.

Offline visual codes are powerful mechanisms for simplifying mobile call-to-action. (I’d expand this to state that it will become powerful for creating an effective multi-channel strategy as many people are too focused on mobile alone.)

Mobile should eventually be abbreviated, transactional, measurable and integrated with physical world.

Yahoo! Onesearch Adds Content and Airline Flight Time Information

I’ve been informed that Yahoo! Onesearch has added content starting today…

Yahoo! is giving mobile search results a boost by integrating Yahoo! Answers and Wikipedia content into Yahoo! oneSearch results (available in 18+ countries, including all of North America, the UK, a variety of other European, Latin American, and Asian countries). In recent months, Yahoo! has added to the functionality of the oneSearch experience in an effort to deliver instant answers and relevant results to consumers on the go. With this latest addition, Yahoo! is augmenting its mobile search product with community-based information from the largest knowledge-sharing community and reference site on the Web.

Of higher relevancy to me is the addition of airline flight time information via a simple query. This week I rushed to the airport only to learn that my flight would be delayed for takeoff by 90 minutes! Assuming the airline data is accurate at the time of the query this is an example of a highly useful mobile query.  A query of UA 90 shows a canceled flight today. It’s great to see incremental improvements like this being made to Yahoo! Onesearch.

To try mobile search on Yahoo! Onesearch visit http://us.m.yahoo.com/

eComXpo is October 9,10,11, 2007

Chicagoland’s very own eComXpo is October 9,10,11, 2007. You can join the fun and learning from anywhere in the world though!

eComXpo is the premier virtual Internet Marketing conference that is FREE to attend. I’ve also had the honor of speaking there previously. It’s a great resource for learning Internet marketing concepts and networking. Register now.

SMXLOMO Denver - Day 2 - Show Me the Money!!!

Moderator:
Greg Sterling, Founding Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence

Speakers:
Ian White, CEO, Urban Mapping
Shawn Riegsecker, Chairman & CEO, Centro
Justin Sanger, CEO, LocalLaunch
Alfred Chow, Head, Yellowbook

Justin Sanger, Local Launch

I can’t help but get caught up in some of the hype. “Context galactic scale” – thanks Google. He then said, “Talking about local search in 10 minutes is like spitting into the grand canyon.” Then said a few words to get Greg Sterling to actually blush! Really funny stuff.

Tremendous opportunities in the IYPs. Local and vertical are merging. Social networking is also converging with local. What is the differentiation of these local search sites? Even within Yahoo! you have a multitude of options. SMEs are overwhelmed and confused. The mission of marketplace consolidations – our goal is to remove the complexity not only for our small businesses but for our sales forces as well. The traditional relationships

$                                             Cost of Traffic                     $$$
Content>>Proprietary>>Organic/SEO>>Paid Placement>>Paid Search / SEM

Silos and advertisers don/t mix in local search!!!

You need to be inventory agnostic…

Shawn Riegsecker, CEO, Centro

Brand marketing increases future clicks. Newspaper growth is slowing in terms of rates of growth, national advertisers are exploding this year. Next will be the regional advertisers, which now comprise less than 3% of advertising.

Ian White, CEO, Urbanmapping

? Where the hell is the money?

7FTE, San Francisco based, geo-spacial data to enable advertisers

Why and what?

Technical limitations

User behavior

Search Engine “Keyword Lockdown”

GEO IP lookup “geotargeting” SUCKS

99% accuracy country level

95% accuracy state level

SMXLOMO - Day 2 - Introducing the Mobile Search Engines

Moderator:
Gary Price, Director of Online Information Resources, Ask.com, resourceshelf.com

Speakers:
Omar Tawakol, Chief Advertising Officer, Medio
Matthew Snyder, Header of Business Development, Nokia
Brendan Benzing, Vice President Mobile Search and Marketing, InfoSpace
Matt Tengler, Senior Product Manager, JumpTap

Gary Price, ask.com, resourceshelf.com
http://tinyurl.com/2fy249 (awesome resource his full presentation)

Omar Tawakol, Medio

Mobile is a new media and there is an assumption that Internet players will dominate, this does not make sense. People thought TV companies would dominate the Internet. None of them are. Top spenders in mobile will not be the same as TV or Internet.

Browse the mobile Internet – the searches are still early in nature - downloadables.

On handset, downloadables, information and off-portal

Search ads are perceived differently. Banners are not content. Sponsored links have the same relevancy as other engines.

Matthew Snyder, Nokia

Fragmentation of media consumption

Rise of Advertising and Mobile

Mobile as a cross-media local interactive medium is emerging

Shift to Multimedia Computer

Opportunities in mobile search

Mobile phones will have as many full browsers in 2010 as PCs!!!

Embedded experience – mobilesearch.nokia.com

Medio was in this but is not now…

Discussed “active idol” concept.

Mobile is the ultimate advertising platform
- Personal however, double-edge sword
- Always-on
- Always with you serendipity
- Billing and payment is possible

Nokia Platform – syndications, syndications

Brendan Benzing, Infospace

MCore – portals, storefront, search, messaging and managed web

Has a partnership with Infogen in Israel

Accessed through – downloadables, mobile sites, www sites, vertical apps

Recently launched - Infospace Search at Sprint

Matt Tengler, Jumptap

Products
- Mobile Search
- Mcommerce, operator storefront and operator, deck search solutions
- Full “off-deck” search capabilities across the mobile web and web

Deliver ALL content that is relevant to the user and capabilities of their handset

check out ppc.jumptap.com

Carrier intention platform

The iphone was never mentioned in this session - WOW!

Nokia Nokia Nokia

So Nokia won the NAVTEQ derby - assuming there is not hostile takeover counter bid. This is one of my favorite acquisitions of 2007. Why? Quite simply, it’s a highly strategic move that I don’t think many will appreciate the importance of for quite some time.

The comments at Techcrunch are not only positive - they are all highly intelligent.

Clear positives:

- Ability to drive standards

- Ability to reprice a scarce resource

- Relationship acquisition in new markets that matter to Nokia like automobiles

- Clear indicator of my belief that Nokia is determined make serious attempt at being the world’s premier mobile search and advertising engine.

Concerns/Risks/Potential Mispricing:

- Lack of execution of deal due to anti-trust concerns

- Has Google been building it’s own Navteq-like map database?

- Transformation of revenue streams to Internet and mobile models with existing partners

- Corporate culture - the differences in the culture of these two companies could not be more different - can Nokia reconcile these without difficulty or disruption?

What are your thoughts? I’d like to hear them.

SMXLOMO 2007 - Search Marketing on Maps

Moderator:
Chris Sherman, Executive Editor, Search Engine Land

Speakers:
Alex Porter, Vice President, Location3 Media
Alan Beiagi, Director and GM, Mapquest
Michael T. Jones, Ciheif Technologist, Googl eEarth, Maps and Local

Alex Porter, Vice President, Location3 Media

Offshore Data Entry >>>Axciom, Infousa, Amacai >>>Search Engines Directories, IYPS, etc

How to incorporate into marketing? Directly submit to each engine for a free basic listing it results in an enhanced map listing.

ROI measurement:
Utilize call tracking
Employ trackable URL and coupons

Alan Beiagi, Director and GM, Mapquest

The next wave of Internet user growth will come from mobile and offline usage.

Creating experiences – friend is in Denver, you decide to get a ticket to tonight’s playoff tiebreaker. Only 15% of 233M cell owners use data services. 85% of the market to go!

Search for your destination, get directions, find parking, watch video of player interview, etc.

Is this reality? All of this is already possible but you have to reach 30 different web sites. Mapquest.

Michael Jones, Google

Showed maps, API and other ideas, visit Google Maps Mania - talk about an example he asked to stay in the circle.

SMXLOMO 2007 Day 1 - SMX Local and Mobile Denver Keynote

Michael T Jones, Chief Technologist, Google Earth, Google Maps and Google Local Search

What and Why? Ask yourself during the conference – “Is this the right problem to solve?”

Understanding the Competition
Discreet (Privacy)
Courteous (Did you mean?)
Empathetic
Multi-lingual (Translation)
Quick Spirited (Transactional)

Concierges must know their
Hotel (Hyper Local)
City (Local)
Country (National to Global)
Colleagues (Universal Search)

In a world where the present is everything, concierges must “get a feel” for clients and their needs without fail and in a very short lapse of time.

I *REALLY* liked Michael’s concierge analogy because it showed the ideal future state with optimal characteristics.

Users might type a question…
Web page of local results

Users might ask a question
Sequence of spoken local results

Expanding definition of Local Data
Traditional –
YP business listings
Public resources
City and restaurant guides
Map-related data

Emerging Local data
User reviews
Business self listings
Neighborhood definitions
Local weather forecast
Local traffic status

Books mentioning Denver, Colorado

This 1863 GPO book sentence is a local search result

Google Geo Mission

“To geographically organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Showed some Google Earth then said – context at a planetary scale…and beyond interplanetary and galactic.

Ohio State Highway Patrol (OSHP) Google Earth Fatal Crashes – showed maps.

Election results in France

How do you connect the last mile?
Web browser > map

Pages intersect with Map/Globe
KML Geosearch attribution - attribution is not linking!!!!

Users are the Local Experts.

SMXLOMO

Arrived in Denver at SMX Local and Mobile!!!

I’m here in the lobby of the hotel in Denver where the first ever Search Marketing Expo Local and Mobile show is being held. I’m thrilled to be here to see the creation of Chris Sherman and Greg Sterling! Karen Deweese was here to greet me with a great big hug and is hard at work making last minute preparations. It’s so great to see Karen, I had not seen her since last December! The SMX complimentary Internet is already up and running to. This rocks! I’m looking forward to this cozy and focused show, it’s going to be awesome.

I haven’t been to Denver in a long time, it’s such a wonderful city. It’s a gorgeous day without a cloud in the sky. So much clean, wide open space with those mountains teasing you to want to drive your rental car westward and forget why you are here! It’s a city I certainly wouldn’t mind living in someday if I was asked to.

It should be a fun evening of getting to know some great search engine and marketing pioneers before the show starts Monday!

SMXLOMO 2007

Mobile Versus Web 2.0 Bickering

It sounds like Scott Karp should be attending the SMX Local and Mobile next week as two of the five areas he gripes about will be covered in detail there. While his carrier and wifi complaints are somewhat relevant, the rest is unfortunately plain ignorance.

Russell Beattie is a quite a bit more blunt in his not safe for work response. His web 2.0 comment makes me chuckle in quite a few ways.

Will You Attend SMX Local & Mobile Denver Next Week

I’ll be attending the first ever SMX Local & Mobile conference next week in Denver!!! Chris Sherman, who talks about why he is excited about the event in this post, and Greg Sterling have both put in a tremendous amount of work into researching and programming this highly unique and special event.

You may view the full agenda and you may still register for the event.

I arrive at Noon on Sunday (where is the Sunday pre-conference meetup - The Hyatt?) and hope to meet with as many attendees as possible before and during the event as I look forward to learning about people and seeing the demos in this soon to be revolutionary space.

See you in Denver! I’ll also have room for one or two on the way back to the airport as I’m renting a car while there.

SES San Jose 2007 Day 3 - Mobile Search Optimization

Moderator:

Speakers:

Cindy Crum, Blue Moon Works

- Many aspects of Mobile Optimization follow Traditional SEO Wisdom
- Optimal Mobile Experience = Return Mobile Traffic = Better Results in Mobile Search Engines
- Device Independence: Traditional sites being viewed on Mobile Technology

What is Different About Mobile?
- Industry is in infancy
- Different bots / Crawlers
- Mobile Search Engines More Like Portals
- Many Different Browsers possible
- Slow Download Speed and Connectivity Issues

Development Best Practices
XHTML
Traditional Browsers are forgiving – Mobile Browsers are not
Infinite Combinations possible
Right Accessibility Standards Make it ideal
Avoid unnecessary code
Separate Content from design with CSS

External CSS
- Separates content from design
- Minimizes Code Required
- Decreases Load Time
- Ensures Correct Display on Different Screen Resolutions
- Allows you to specify rendering

Have mobile specific stylesheets
- One set of code, two stylesheets
- Screen first, handheld is second one in cascade
- Caveat: “display:none” to hide elements in either rendering

Use appropriate headers - HTTP User-agent, Accept and MIME types

iPhone

Google has a separate search page for the iPhone

Log in omitted, features and some ads are omitted

Follow all SEO Best Preactices
- Minimize File Size
- Submit your Site to Mobile Search Engines

Testing is important
- Opera, Skeezer, Google device simulators
- Test transcoded versus non-transcoded versions of Your Site

Validate your Site with mobile code checkers…

Embrace the Interactivity
- Provide relevant Info for People who are mobile
- Include your main address in the footer
- Make Phone Numbers and Email Addresses

Move your navigation to the bottom

Gregory Markel, Infuse Creative, LLC

No longer a WAP/Mobi world

Nokia S60 and Opera True web browser

Goog-411 (live demo rendered incorrect result)

Get listed in Google Local Business Listings

.mobi is diminishing in important

Optimization is synomonous with marketing

Mobile voice search is becoming more important

Rachel Pasqua, iCrossing

iCrossing started looking at mobile in 2005

3rd screen will come first

2.3 billion mobile subscribers as opposed to 1 billion users

Summarized the iCrossing “How America Searches Mobile, April 2007” report

SES San Jose 2007 Day 2 - AOL Mobile Search Lunch

Speaker Senior Product Manager Farhan Memon discussed the recent launch of AOL mobile search over a special lunch session. I was impressed by his presentation.

One thing that is quite clear is that they clearly get that mobile search is about leveraging data from other traditional web properties (which AOL has plenty of) and for this reason, I now wish to learn more about their offering and plans. Presently, they get ads from a combination of Ingenio and Third Screen Media a recent acquisition. It’s unclear what causes which ad type to show up when.

Afterwards Farhan and Scott Knowles, Senior Program Manager said they’d follow up with me in more detail, I look forward to learning more about the offering.

FAST Lays Off 148 People About 20% of Workforce

As reported by Search Engine Journal and elsewhere - FAST is laying off 148 employees. Based on the last public number I have of 735 this would be about 20% of the workforce, which is rather significant.

A 23 minute audio presentation by FAST is available here in English at the bottom. There is no information on the breakdown of the country distribution of the layoffs or how this will affect mobile search though it would seem that it might cause a slowdown of this activity.

This news may rekindle the news of potential merger of FAST with Infospace.

Search Engine Strategies San Jose - Silicon Valley August 19-23

I look forward to seeing all of my wonderful search engine, mobile search and mobile advertising friends next week at Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose!  While I’ll definitely be in Mountain View for the Google Dance (hopefully they won’t run out of XL t-shirts in 2 minutes like last year), I’m unsure whether I’ll make it to Palo Alto, San Francisco, Sunnyvale, Oakland, Monterey or Santa Cruz to visit and see some other awesome things. I do hope to make it to Barcamp Block.

Who else will be there and what spontaneous events, product launches and parties are you looking most forward to? I’m getting very close to some of my goals! I look forward to seeing you.

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