Virgin Mobile and Infospace – the natural choice for mobile search?

Leading UK MVNO Virgin Mobile has followed T-Mobile and others in selecting search specialist Infospace to provide its mobile search capability. The announcement highlights the two different approaches being taken for mobile search; one which adapts a PC search experience to a phone, and another that exploits location awareness and maximizes usability.

The two search engine giants, Google and Yahoo adapt a PC browser for their primary search products. Google mobile search replicates and optimizes its desktop application for the mobile environment, and requires users to type in search terms into a box on a web page as they would on a PC. Yahoo’s onesearch does the same, but adds an SMS-based option where users text a search term to a special number and receive the results in another text.

Infospace’s GPS based FindIt! mobile service has been developed with search software specialist Fast, and web-to-mobile content adapter InfoGin. The solution’s automatic location capabilities ensure that results are very accurate, even if the user does not know their position. Most importantly from a usability perspective, it features a click-oriented user interface. This makes it easier and more intuitive to use for most consumers.

Despite the increasing penetration of Internet-enabled mobile devices with a keyboard, the mobile environment is still voice-centric for the most users. What’s more, it’s likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. So could offering a voice-based service be a better mobile search strategy?

Microsoft seems to think so. In March this year, it acquired Tellme, a company that specializes in voice-recognition-based search services, used by up to 40 million people per month in the US. Tellme enables users to call a number, ask for a business name, wait until they hear the result they want, and ask for a text with the details to be sent to their mobile device. This solution is an effective combination of SMS and voice, the two most popular mobile applications. Google is not far behind however, with its own voice directory search currently in testing.

Hamish M.