Guia Campsa launch its Mobile Local Search Portal

Guia Campsa, one of the most famous Route Planner and Tourism information provider in Spain (subsidiary of the Repsol YPF Group), has just announced the launch of its Mobile portal.

The service FoC to end users is for the moment only accessible by Telefonica eMocion users, but should be soon available on other networks, such as Vodafone and Orange. The new service also provides a direct connection to Telefonica's 11822 Voice DQ service.

Furthermore, the service should be integrated soon with Guia Campsa's Web site. A converging capability which allows end-users to for instance select places, routes or PoIs on the web and retrieve it automatically on their mobile device.

See below the coverage in the two most important Spanish newspapers:

http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internet/Guia/Campsa/llega/movil/elpeputec/20080430elpepunet_4/Tes

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundomotor/2008/04/30/usuarios/1209546791.html

The power of communities

MySpace announced yesterday the launch of their SDK. A new platform, which with the coming launch of the iPhone Developer platform and Open Social, will certainly provide more opportunities for applications providers to increase their visibility on the Web using Social Networking sites.

Applications on third party sites, as well as Widgets and Gadgets represent indeed a fantastic opportunity for Specialist local info sites and Directory providers amongst others to piggyback on existing communities or Web portals.

When everyone today acknowledges that the Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool, the new social tools of the Web (Networking Sites, Instant Messaging, Widgets, etc.) are turning it into a ‘word of web’ !

A new tendency which can’t simply be ignored by all DQs providers and Voice DA providers (e.g. 118 and 411) seeking to attract more customers and offer more convergence between the different channels.

Opplysningen 1881, a Norwegian voice DA provider has for instance launched a service available from MSN Messenger, thus targeting a younger audience than the traditional base of users.

m-spatial, my company, has developed a new service - Spacemark - offering both a Facebook application as well as an iGoogle gadget, which allow to share your favourite places with your friends/contacts.

Would these new channels represent the next big things for all local information providers? Will they be able to use the power of web communities and the new social tools?

Mobile Search and its influence on the Web

Last week I was attending the 2^nd Mobile Search event organized by VisionGain in London.

Unsurprisingly, one of the main point which emerged from all the presentations (e.g. from Nokia, Vodafone, 3, IBM, etc.) is the paradigm faced today by the Mobile search services and the Mobile Search industry players in general.

Indeed, on one hand, users are expecting the same experience on the mobile as on their favourite Web sites. But, on the other hand, mobile devices limitations (e.g. small size screens, usability, etc.) makes it hard to replicate a similar user experience.

As a result, all industry players are working hard to try to find the best answer and ease the navigation through the user interface, offering for instance solution using non hierarchical menu and/or a mix of content search and discovery.

Now if we consider the uptake of mobile and mobile services, I imagine that it wouldn’t be unlikely to have in the future more users accessing Search and Local Search services through Mobile devices instead of fixed internet access. We could also certainly imagine once again that most users will access these services more often from a Mobile device than their desk. As a consequence, these users might therefore also possibly expect, while accessing to their favorite mobile service from a fixed internet connection, to have the same kind of user experience.

For instance, if because of "Made for mobile" Search services, users start to get use to have their search results displayed into different specific clusters, and their local results displayed in a Discovery oriented User Interface (browsing vs. search box), will they not be expecting to have the same kind of experience while accessing to Web services?

What will be the influence of mobile services on the web services user experience in the future ?

A more open mobile world ?

The wall garden strategy adopted by Mobile Operators has often been considered as one of the main reason for the slow uptake of Mobile internet, due mostly to the small services offering.

Such wall garden approach has indeed been avoiding the implementation of "open" environments, and therefore also avoiding application developers to provide users with a wide range of applications such as widgets, gadgets and other mashups, which are increasingly popular on the internet. However this might be changing soon.

Indeed, while this week La Mobile demonstrated the first applications developed on the Android platform, Yahoo! was also announcing a new open platform for the development of widgets to be made available on Yahoo! Go and Yahoo’s new mobile home page.

Local Search Ads Market still growing...

Working for a company specialized in Mobile Local Search, I always give a special attention to the news in the Local Search area. I'm also obviously delighted when I can see some encouraging signs of the development of this market. And a couple of interesting news have caught my attention lately.

The first one was released last week, when Google announced the launch of the AdWords Local Plus box. With this feature, when doing some local searches, the sponsored listings contain a plus sign, which when clicking on it expand into a map. Google is currently rolling this out to AdWords accounts in the US, Canada, UK, and Germany.

I found the second one in a new report published by Borrel associates, which says that "local online advertising" is worth $8.5 billion today. This includes "local banners" and local video. Furthermore, Borrell associates expects local search to become almost 50% of the total local online spend next year, which is projected to reach $12.6 billion.

In conclusion, it seems that the love story between advertisers and online local advertising is just starting. And companies like Google, are doing their best to make this channel always more appealing, and attract more advertising dollars. The mobile Channel will surely benefit from this growing interest in Local advertising, as advertisers might find in this medium a growing a opportunity - due to the context of usage and the immediate intention of purchase. The only question is how soon this will happen?

Google "My Location" to ease mobile map use

Google has announced the launch of a new "My location" feature, which should ease mobile map use, yes but when?

The service - being offered in test mode to U.S. users - apparently relies on a database of cell towers Google has constructed by using anonymous readings of mobile signals from previous Google Maps users to help locate My Location users

It seems to me that using GPS enabled devices to build a map of cell towers, in order to provide low accuracy automatic location feeds to legacy devices is a smart idea, nevertheless looks like building this database could take forever.

I'm wondering if there are any data available on how many Gmaps applications have been downloaded so far in the US and Europe.

The percentage of GPS enabled handsets is still quite low in the US and Europe, and the percentage of GPS handsets with Gmaps downloaded most definitely even lower. I also assume that to be really useful for Google, these users should access the application from different locations.

Speaking at the Schober 118AB Forum in Madrid

I will be speaking next week at the Schober 118AB Forum. A must attend Voice Information Services to Multi-Channels Information Services event for DA industry players in Spain. The forum is being held on Thursday 13th December at the Mirasierra Suites Hotel, Madrid

I will take this opportunity to talk about 118 service providers’ new challenges - and especially the growing competition of Search Engines and PNav providers - and how Mobile Local Search can help them to sustain/grow their market share and revenues. Convergence and especially ways of sharing informations between channels (Web, PNav, Mobile, Voice, etc.) and people will have an important part in this presentation.

The title of my presentation: "Mobile Local Search - Friend or Foe?”, in Spanish "Servicios de Búsqueda Local, Amigos o Enemigos"