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Tuesday, May 15, 2007 |
Millions of handsets rest in pockets and purses around the world, and they represent little foldable parts of a multi-billion dollar pie for the search engine market.
Editor's Note: The local business of today could be a spoken word away from the customer of tomorrow. Sophisticated plans by search engines to integrate search with mobiles could be separated into winners and losers just on the basis of which product offers the simplest method of finding an answer. Do you think the mobile search technology will improve electronic marketing? Let us know what you think.
Simplicity has been the trait of many successful tech-related services. Google, Digg, Delicious, and Flickr come to mind as examples. Such simplicity will be needed to make mobile search fulfill its promise to consumers and to the companies providing it.
An Opus Research report by Dan Miller and Greg Sterling said that mobile search success will start with a word:
The spoken word is the most natural way to initiate mobile searches – For safety reasons in the short-term, and convenience in the long-term, the seamless integration of a speech-based interface should take hold.
Driving the mobile commerce market, which the report predicts will move from $4 billion last year to $8 billion in 2010, will be the ever-familiar search metaphor. Moving around the mobile web will start with search, just as the PC-oriented web does today.
The wireless service providers know how valuable voice directory assistance is, as they charge a fee for each individual call to 411. Sprint Nextel charges $1.25 per call, for example, and if that doesn't make the appeal of ad-supported, free directory assistance calls evident, nothing will.
Google has a toe dipped in the market, with their very-much-in-beta free directory assistance product. Ask.com just launched a GPS enabled product for search and other services with Sprint Nextel.
Microsoft did a cannonball into the pool, acquiring TellMe Networks for its voice technology that provides a variety of services to callers. Bill Gates believes the end of the Yellow Pages is coming, because of mobile search.
That last point is up for debate, for the reason of simplicity we stated earlier. Flipping through an alphabetized index is dead simple.
Mobile search as it pertains to directory assistance, call it the key to the local mobile ad market, has to be as close to that ease of use and effectiveness as possible.
About
the Author:
David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and
business. He has appeared on NPR's "All Things Considered," and has been referenced by many online tech publications. |
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Surviving The "Google Shuffle"
 By Mike Sachoff
Staff Writer | WebProNews
What do you do when your Web site falls in Google's page rankings for reasons due to a shift in their algorithm known as the "Google Shuffle"?
Over at Search Engine Land, Eric Ward offered some sensible tips on how to handle such a scenario. He writes," Two weeks ago, for the fourth time since last October, a site showed up in position one at Google for the search term 'link building strategies.'
"Now, this is a keyword phrase that I have ranked first or second forever, and it annoys me if I don't rank well for it. Given my history and focus, if I can't rank high page one for that phrase, then send me and my Link Moses Linking Commandments packing."
While annoyed by the drop in page ranking, Mr.Ward did not panic and did some research on the issue instead. "The site that was showing at position one above me was a link spamming service from another country that was so bad it was funny. I did a little research and found thousands of junk links. A week later, my site was back at position one, page one. The other site was gone."
Mr. Ward advises that if this happens to your site not to worry. Google may give the site a high ranking for a few days but will eventually recognize it as not being credible. He adds that you should be more concerned if a site that is outranking you is a true competitor.
Continue Reading
About the Author:
Mike Sachoff is a staff writer for WebProNews. |
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WebProWorld Reputation System
We're going to implement a multi-level reputation system in an upcoming
forum update. As such, I'd be interested in your input in terms of the
naming/designation of the levels.
Below I will list the current (default) designations and what level they indicate. Some of the defaults aren't horrible, but for the most part they are a bit drab. I am thinking we can come up with some better descriptions of proficiency (and infamy). So, take a look and let me know what you think.
The Defaults:
Negative level 3 = User is infamous around these parts
Negative level 2 = User can only hope to improve
Negative level 1 = User has a little shameless behavior in the past
Unknown/No Reuptation = User is an unknown quantity at this point
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