Mobile Search event (26 May) Wrap up
Posted on: June 2, 2008 – Filed under: Shanghai
Again a landmark event with record participation of over 130 people. Thank you all for your interest and participation. Thanks to our speakers, especially those coming from out of town (Roboo, Cgogo, Google)!
Photos here:
Take aways/downloads
First of all, we are pleased to announce that thanks to everyone’s participation, we have collected a bit more than RMB 5,000 during the event alone for the victims of the earthquake in Sichuan. We donated it to the Red Cross Society of China. More here:
Second, we had a terrific event the other night, and had the opportunity to compare “live” 5 different services. The demo was clearcut. A small competition led with a few volunteers highlighted cgogo has the best service in entertainment and general search (followed by Google). mInfo came first in the local search (followed by Google as well).
Third, when it comes to business models, the preconceived view about advertising seems not that obvious, according to Cgogo. Zhu Bo, the CEO, was actually pessimistic about the mobile search industry’s future, at least for “small players” else than Google or Baidu. In this regards, he considered advertising was only representing a tiny fraction of Cgogo’s revenue. Most of the revenue coming from content download (MVAS). The traditional SP model is back? we can definitely wonder and ponder. if actors like mInfo definitely rely on local search sponsored ads, all the other players (cgogo, Roboo and uucun) who thrive on content and entertainment, have build more balanced revenue streams. 2008 and 2009 will really tell if small actors can truly survive in a world dominated by search giants.
– Download the presentations here:
minfo.pdf
roboo.pdf
cgogo.pdf
uucun.pdf
See you on June 23rd for new event on Mobile User Interface design, with the likes of Lenovo, Microsoft, Longcheer, Ideo Design, etc.