LocalMobileSearch

AAA Mobile: Nice Try

AAA just released a mobile application (for Sprint). It requires a download and costs $9.99 per month. It offers directions, points of interest and AAA ratings and discounts. But for all the competition (already) in local mobile search it might be a nice service. My sense is that the AAA brand and value add isn't strong enough to drive acceptance of the $10 per mo. fee on top of the carrier data fees. Where/uLocate and InfoSpace FindIt! and Ask Mobile are all $2.99, I believe.

In addition, free services (voice, text, apps and WAP) are good enough -- and getting better -- and are broader and more usable than the AAA offering. Thus I think this will have very limited adoption. It makes good sense for AAA to get into the local mobile search game, as a travel resource. This is another "bite at the apple" after they largely blew it online.

But the service will need to be much better than it appears from the online demo and/or cheaper to get consumer adoption or attention. It should probably be offered for free on a trial basis to get people to adopt it before asking for any subscription fees. It could also potentially be a way to drive additional conventional memberships, but that doesn't appear to be something they've thought through.

Given its current approach and positioning, AAA is probably overestimating the strength of its brand among consumers.

Mobile Social Networking a Growing Niche

M:Metrics released numbers on mobile social networking in the US and Europe. Here's their data:

The American audience for mobile social networking sites was the largest, with 7.5 million, or 3.5 percent, of mobile subscribers. Italy follows, with 1.3 million or 2.8 percent, then the UK with 1.1 million, or 2.5 percent, Spain with 751,000 (2.3 percent), Germany (1.9 percent) and France (1.7 percent). MySpace garnered the most mobile users in the United States and United Kingdom whereas MSN was the forum of choice for mobile Web 2.0 users in the other geographies surveyed.

MySpace and Facebook are the top two social networking sites accessed via mobile in both the U.S. and UK. MySpace attracts 3.7 million U.S. and 440,000 UK mobile users. In America, Facebook's mobile audience is about 2 million, and in Britain, about 307,000. Rounding out the top three is YouTube in the U.S., with 901,000 mobile visitors and Bebo in the UK, with 288,000.

We anticipate that mobile social networking functionality (to varying degrees) will be popular and mainstream and move beyond mobile versions of online social networking sites. It will be a layer of many mobile applications (contacts integration, presence awareness, etc.). Ask Mobile offers this and so does uLocate's Where and Loopt, among others. Indeed, mobile IM (if it becomes inter-operable and widely available) could also eat into text messaging usage over time.

Related: Facebook just released an iPhone application that is getting rave reviews.

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Here's MediaPost's related article on the M:Metrics data.

uLocate's Where an Impressive Mobile Platform

Dan Miller and I were briefed yesterday on uLocate's Where mobile widget platform (the description doesn't really do it justice). The company is building relationships with operators/carriers and then extending itself to third parties as a development platform for mobile distribution. The recent ShopLocal mobile launch is an example. But there are many companies and brands that are already on the platform, which enables rapid development and deployment of a mobile capability. It effectively compresses to days what otherwise take more than a year of negotiation and development to create.

The carrier relationship provides "on deck" distribution (through Where) for the third parties and enables all widgets to benefit from GPS functionality. ZenZui has a similar strategy (as well as look and feel), but doesn't have the carrier relationships to extend GPS capability. uLocate currently has two U.S. carrier relationships (Sprint, Alltell) but expects to have a majority of North American carriers soon.

Right now the revenue model is a $2.99 monthly subscription (unlimited widgets) with an ad model anticipated in the not-too-distant future.

There are also very interesting social media elements to uLocate/Where, as well as a nice "drag and drop" desktop integration: widgets can be added to the mobile phone simply by dragging them on the site to an image of the user's phone after registration.

The value proposition (vs. traditional mobile search) is a better user experience with more structured information from favorite sites and brands. There's essentially no reason for sites and publishers not to develop on the Where platform which can be done in parallel with other mobile strategies (i.e., SMS, WAP, voice).

uLocate's CEO is Walt Doyle, who was formerly at MapQuest.

Gannett Rolling out Local-Mobile Sites

Newspaper publisher and TV station owner Gannett is rolling out local news oriented mobile sites for its 84 dailies and 19 (or 23) TV stations. It already has a mobile site for its flagship USA Today. MediaPost has more:

Users with handsets and data plans that allow for Internet browsing can access the sites for free by entering an 'm' before an existing Gannett site's URL (such as http://m.tennessean.com), via links from the home pages of all Gannet newspaper and broadcast Web sites, or by texting a unique daily short code to 59523. The short codes are being promoted through Gannett's print, online and broadcast news presentations.

The sites have traditional news and entertainment content with links to USAToday. The challenge will be broadening out the experience to meet user needs/demands for non-news local information, directions and so on. If they fail to do so they will have limited usage.

Gannett already owns a significant stake in 4Info, the SMS-based mobile content and advertising platform. Here's more from MediaWeek.

AOL Upgrades Mobile Search

AOL has improved its mobile search capability, especially for Windows Mobile devices. Earlier I had incorrectly reported that there had been a full relaunch of its mobile portal. Only the search functionality has been improved and relaunched.

There are now two types of search experiences: an enhanced Windows Mobile experience and a non-Windows Mobile version, which is also improved but with a slightly different presentation.AOL noticed that a disproportionate number of users were using Windows Mobile devices (and mobile search), so the company created an experience with horizontal tabs that dynamically change depending on the query or context of the search.

Here's an example for sushi, San Francisco:

Here's an example for movies, 94118:

The new AOL mobile search seeks to leverage AOL's branded content (e.g., MapQuest, AOL CityGuide, Moviefone) to attempt to deliver a better experience and more structure in search results.

Shop Online, Buy Locally: A Closer Look at Recent Survey Data

Featured Research is available to registered users only.

For more information on becoming an I2G client, please contact Pete Headrick (pheadrick@opusresearch.net).

RESEARCH: Shop Online, Buy Locally: A Closer Look at Recent Survey Data

Last week, two studies described how Internet search is used by the large majority of consumers as a research tool before buying locally. The Web has now overtaken all other media, including printed Yellow Pages as a primary source for local business information. Directory assistance and cell phones were only used 3% of the time as a primary source. However, Local Mobile Search (LMS) expects that will change over time.

Advisories are available to registered users only.

[protect]Registered CAS Clients - Click Here to View the Full Advisory[/protect]

Predictive Text + Speech = Improved Input for Mobile Search

The $265 million that Nuance Communications is paying for Tegic is a sign that predictive texting (like Tegic's T9 protocol) can complement, rather than compete with, automated speech-based dictation. When the leading automated speech processing technology provider makes a point of acquiring a company who's core product had long been trying to make dictation systems unnecessary, there's obviously more to it than meets the eye.

Today, a three-year-old company called TravellingWave came out of stealth mode to announce that it is fast approaching the point where it will formally introduce embedded speech processing software that supports "predictive speech-to-text" translation. Ashwin Rao, the founder of TravellingWave, told us that, while other embedded speech recognition software vendors position their products as "keyboard replacements", TravellingWave sees it as a keyboard enhancement. Thus the stage is now set for solutions providers to support more efficient and speedy entry of data or text in the form that is most appropriate to the task at hand.

TravellingWave sees dictation of text messages and e-mail, as well as the input of mobile search terms, as core application areas. The product is at a "very advanced beta stage" right now. Today's press release was to serve notice that it had received funding from a sophisticated set of angel investors with experience at McCaw Cellular, Microsoft, Nextel and Google.

Predictive speech-to-text is a subtle enhancement to multimodal communications. Classic xHTML+Voice Profiles (X+V) based of multimodal applications let Web-based services treat spoken words like text-input. Most instantiations use speech for input and render prompts or system responses as text, graphics or Web pages. Predictive speech-to-text allows for users to toggle back and forth between modes of input using keyboards or keypads if necessary or appropriate to overcome noisy conditions or protect privacy.

According to Rao, the technology is designed to "build on what people use already." The intellectual property is built around handling tens of thousands of of words in ways that support both predictive typing and spoken utterances. The beta software is a stand-alone speech-to-SMS application. According to company spokespeople, users "have the impression that it would have taken them a much longer time to finish their tasks if they hadn't used the application."