Yahoo answers Nokia’s queries — MobileMonday Global: Industry News

^{Santamäki compares mobile search business to Google’s rise to billion dollar revenue} Yahoo answers Nokia’s queries

3 Dec 2005 at 10:56 GMT Timo Poropudas

Mobile search is an exciting opportunity for Nokia, search companies and directories. Harry Santamäki of Nokia Multimedia will not reveal Nokia’s expectations pf the value this emerging business but refers to Google rise from zero to billion dollars in less than four years.

Santamäki, vice president, Strategy and Business Development, point out that the business model of mobile search reverses the flow of money in mobile world. Users will be able to get the results of their searches free while producers of goods and services pay the information channel for getting the information to users and connecting user to sales channel.

Division of labor

Nokia has limited its role in mobile search services to queries. Nokia provides smart phones with search application and open application interfaces. Its up to the partners to find the information and deliver to the user’s phone in a useable form.

According Santamäki partners have expressed satisfaction with this division of functionality.

The Nokia query is not a browser but an actual application. The answers are presented with a browser,

Nokia’s application has three different search categories: general text search, directory search and picture search.

Nokia will have a few global text search partners. Yahoo has participated in the three-country test running till the end November. Directory search partner have been Eniro, Fonecta, Yell.com and Medio.

Local services

The user application will recognize when the phone arrives in a new country and offer to change the directory search service. Santamäki says, that the search business will be taken to world one country at the time.

The chosen search service selection stays until the user changes it.

It takes only a few days of work to build the plug-ins between search API’s and directory service system.

Nokia is talking to all the largest search services.

The money will flow from advertisers to yellow page and other directory services and then to search services and those web and mobile content providers that attract users up the chain. With Nokia’s huge number of phones the earning potential of mobile search is quite sizable.

Phone first

Mobile directory search result offers the phone number of the business as primary contact information.

Not every flower seller has web pages. And it is easy and natural to call the service provider when you have a phone in your hand, Santamäki says.

Santamäki refers to an American survey that found that about one-third people are using the Internet in order to buy something. Another study found that 27 percent of the contacts made as a result service search lead to an actual sale.