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Mobile Search System

Posted on: Sunday, 2 April 2006, 06:00 CDT

By Salz, Peggy Anne

2006 is set to be a banner year for mobile search, and Medio Systems' Medio Mobile Search is one of the first products out of the gates to understand that mobile search cannot merely be a retro-fit of the solutions we know in the fixed Internet. To perform mobile search properly, a solution must meet unique users' requirements, with aspects of personalization and localization. More importantly, device compatibility is crucial so as not to deliver a disappointing user experience or, worse, confuse users so that they attempt to purchase content or services that do not run on their devices.

Another issue mobile search has to grapple with is the nature of the mobile Internet itself. First, mobile pages are much smaller than their Web counterparts, which means there is less information available for mobile search engines to index. Second, the transient and short-lived nature of mobile content offered in connection with one-off events, such as news and product launches, means the information that search engines can index is in a constant state of flux. Finally, user query ineffectiveness-already vague in Web search and limited to two to three terms-is exacerbated by the limited input capabilities of mobile devices, such as screen size and small, tedious keypads.

This all leads us to another problem an effective mobile search solution has to tackle: click distance. In the fixed Internet, content providers generally lose half of their audience to frustration or boredom at every additional click it takes them to find what they want. The situation in the mobile Internet is likely to be quite similar-or even worse. Studies reveal that users expect useful content and actionable results, not just a list of links, within 12 clicks or 30 seconds. Thus, the first generation of mobile search products has a lot of hurdles to jump.

MEDIO TAKES THE CHALLENGE

Medio takes the challenge of providing useful results, regardless of screen size, seriously. It federates its searches and results, collected from several databases, which are all generated by mobile- centric crawlers or filtered from Web-centric real-time feeds. Medio provides direct answers to queries, instead of pages of blue links. Even ambiguous queries generate a list of possible answers. These answers are then ranked and filtered using Medio's patent-pending ActiveRank technology, personalizing and placing the most relevant results at the top and hiding the least relevant results. Altogether, this approach assures that the most useful results are at the top of the screen, decreasing both click distance and user frustration.

To determine whether Medio's Mobile Search solution is both predictive in knowing what users are looking for and precise in delivering results, I tested a Medio-enabled handset supplied by TELUS, a Canadian mobile operator. To date, TELUS is the only operator that has deployed Medio, but more are slated to follow this year. Medio also shipped with Nokia back in August 2005 to countries in western Europe. There, users who own or purchase Nokia Series 60 phone model numbers 6680, 6681, 6630, or N-Series will either have the software installed and ready for use or (depending on country and channel of purchase) will be able to download the software from www.nokia.com.

Medio works hard to reduce click distance in search results by helping users narrow results by breaking them down into categories.

Before TELUS added the Medio Search System to its network, the carrier supplied a rudimentary, difficult-to-navigate search function for its internal WAP decks. Medio has added a system that, while easy to use, actually enables the subscriber to find content with fewer steps. Take a search to find the weather report for Toronto. First, I type "Toronto weather" and click the Search button. The system understands the query and immediately returns the current weather for Toronto-without requiring navigation through a list of links-and offers an option for a full weather report. Also available is an option to browse through other Ontario cities, and an option to browse weather for other places.

Impressed by the click distance, I try a more complicated search and look for Air Canada flights between Vancouver, BC, and Seattle, Wash. To do this I enter "ac Vancouver Seattle" and click Search. The search returns a list containing the most frequently visited categories, including news and weather for Vancouver. (The carrier can control the mix of content in this list.) I find the result for Air Canada flights between YVR (Vancouver International Airport) and SEA (Seattle-Tacoma International Airport) and press the number 2 to go to a list of flights. From the list of Air Canada flights, I choose Flight 8091 to find the arrival and departure times. Moreover, the Medio Search System enables the integration of flight information with other search results. Previously, this search would have come up empty. If the carrier supports it, Medio also enables local mobile search, delivering information tailored to the time of day and the user's location.

COMMUNICATING IN ITS OWN LANGUAGE

Another impressive element of the Medio Search solution is the content representation and response. Medio has invested into its own markup language (MML), a superset of WAP 2.0, which the company says provides the ease of development of XHTML, enhances the formatting dexterity of CSS2, and re-introduces the network bandwidth savings of binary-encoded WML.

MML also includes additional tags for a significantly improved look, feel, and responsiveness, compared to the search experience on a typical WAP browser. Medio developed MML to provide users an optimal display of results and a better overall search experience on Java (J2ME), BREW, Windows Mobile, and Symbian handsets.

From the user perspective, however, the real advantage of MML is the capabilities it provides for user personalization, enhanced query performance, and reduced network latencies. It also allows flash-like animation capabilities, high fidelity audio, and embedded video playback in every search result. Again, I must emphasize that we are still in mobile search's early days and it is not yet possible to test these capabilities with the TELUS service or any other, for that matter, since few content results would require multimedia support. But having this capability will surely grow in importance as more content providers deliver streaming audio and video content.

Future releases are planned that will enable more features on the phone by integrating with core functionality, such as the camera, and allowing users to do automatic searches and store them in the phone for reference. Moving forward, users will be able to initiate searches via text, voice, or a barcode image with the same polished MML presentation of the search results.

COMPANY Medio Systems

PURPOSE:

The Medio Mobile Search System combines patent-pending search, personalization, recommendation, and advertising technologies to provide users with a gateway to information they need while on the go.

STARTING PRICE:

Available on a variety of Nokia handsets (prices vary) or via download (beta) from www.nokia.com.

REVIEWER'S VIEW:

These are the early days of mobile search, and all these nascent products have yet to prove they can deliver. On the face of it, Medio stands out as having the most holistic approach to search, combining various approaches, such as local search, with personalization and recommendation. Another factor in Medio's favor is its XML-based markup language, designed specifically to improve mobile content representation and response times across handset types and not just smartphones.

BUSINESS PROFILE WWW.MEDIOSYSTEMS.COM

Medio Systems, Inc., was founded in Seattle, Washington, in 2004 by highly accomplished entrepreneurs who are collectively known as mobile data pioneers and search and data mining innovators, dating back to the formation of the Google system in 1994. Brian Lent, Medio's CEO and co-founder, has played a defining role in the creation and refinement of personalization and search. As a graduate student, Lent co-founded the group at Stanford called MIDAS (Mining Data At Stanford), which spawned the Google crawler and search engine. He also held various senior technical and marketing management positions at Amazon.com. Other members of the Medio team and its Advisory Board have held senior positions in companies including AltaVista, Cingular Wireless, Jamdat, and Baidu, the number one Chinese search engine provider.

KEY FEATURES AT A GLANCE

PERSONALIZATION

Personalization technologies reorder the search results to bring the most relevant results to the top of the list, specific to each subscriber.

MOBILE MARKUP LANGUAGE

The Medio Mobile Markup Language (MML)-based on WAP 2.0-combines a powerful layout language with mobile-specific tags to optimize mobile content presentation across the vast majority of handset types.

ENABLES DISCOVERY

Supports content promotion and discovery by bringing forth not just items that match what the user has searched for, but also other items that are likely to be of interest, given the user profile and past usage.

SHORTENS CLICK DISTANCE

Medio has developed a system that, whileeasy to use, actually enables the subscriber to find content with fewer steps.

PEGGY ANNE SALZ (PEGGY.SALZ@GMX.NET), A FREELANCE TECHNOLOGY WRITER AND AUTHOR BASED IN EUROPE. TRACKS NOT ONLY THE GLOBAL MOBILE TELECOM INDUSTRY. BUT ALSO THE BUSINESS MODELS AND TRENDS THAT WILL SHAPE ITS FUTURE.

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Copyright Information Today, Inc. Apr 2006

Source: EContent

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