Last week AOL quietly relaunched its mobile portal. (MSN did this not long ago too.) The site boosts mobile desktop integration and boasts an improved user experience. This comes a few weeks after AOL upgraded the search experience on its WAP site. AOL intends to use desktop integration and promotion -- you will be able to access and/or send lots of online content to mobile -- to build awareness for and drive mobile adoption. The company also plans to emphasize personalization and simplicity.

Personalization will eventually become an important part of the mobile Internet experience for many reasons. Although, on the desktop, people have been generally unwilling to so it very much. In mobile, however, there are functional reasons: for greater accuracy, relevance and efficiency of content and search results. But a mix of incentives to get users to personalize and "passive" personalization will need to be employed to create the best overall experience given the mixed track record of personalization online.

Stepping back, the new AOL WAP portal is a nice mix of structured content, browse and search functionality that might be called a "Wapplication" -- a WAP experience that starts to approach the depth and usability of a rich client.

Unlike the Internet where search can be the starting point for all navigational or content queries, and consumers can perform repeated desktop searches without difficulty, mobile search right now is highly awkward. Mobile providers need to offer structured content for the most common or important categories. Search can then be used, not as a regulation navigational tool, but as a way to find new or additional information on the go. That's unless or until voice or other usability upgrades make mobile search as easy to use as on the desktop.

On the advertising side AOL's recently acquired mobile ad network Third Screen Media is going to be integrated into the company's "Platform A" initiative, which is aimed at providing a one-stop-shop media buying opportunity for agencies and brands. In the near term ads will be mostly from large brands, which may have limited success (absent offers/coupons or high levels of targeting). Indeed, "banner blindness" will be even more pronounced on mobile phones.

A couple of years ago AOL was often criticized as being too simple or too basic by some: "training wheels for the Internet." However, that legacy of simplifying and reaching out to mass audiences will serve company well in thinking mobile.