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RSSI ask this after spending time exploring a partnership between Yahoo oneSearch and HFMUS's ELLE magazine. During New York Fashion Week, searching "fashion" at m.yahoo.com will return a prominent helping from its promotional partner ELLE's coverage of the event. There are blog entries, an image of the magazine cover, a direct link to subscribe, and sign-ups for ELLE text alerts. This is not to say that there aren't "natural" search results down there somewhere, but on my Samsung phone they were a good ten screens down.
So, my question is -- is this essentially selling a search result to a partner? It clearly is a cross-promotional deal, because when I go directly to ELLE's Fashion Week coverage at its mobile site, there are ads for Yahoo. Isn't this taking sponsored search to a whole new level? Elsewhere in oneSearch results the ads are dutifully labeled and in blue boxes. But the ELLE placements appear to be, well, a search result.
Let me start by being fair to Yahoo and to mobile search as a platform that is by tradition distinct from online search. The oneSearch model always followed the idea that mobile searchers don't want standard search results so much as content and answers. The idea of the oneSearch product, which I myself praised when it launched, is to pull together different content types into a result. In most oneSearch queries I will get back things like FlickR images, links to Web sites, links to related business categories, directory listings, etc. As the Yahoo spokesperson I contacted explained to me in an email exchange, "As you know, Yahoo oneSearch delivers content from Yahoo properties, partners and content from both Mobile Web and Web -- all of which come together to deliver an optimal mobile search experience."
I recognize that mobile search is a different animal from Web search. After all, you do a search on Verizon and you get ringtones and wallpapers from their store. Clearly a search box on a phone deck is different from a Web search box.
But should it be so different that a content partner for a respected, major portal essentially gets the first ten screens of real estate when you enter a generic search term like "fashion"? After all, whatever may be discrete about the mobile search experience, the Yahoo brand and the white search box carries with it some expectations of impartial results somewhere near the top. Perhaps I am making too much of this, but it appears to me that a search result this horrendously skewed towards a specific partner undermines the trustworthiness of mobile search, or at least raises questions in a user's mind about what mobile search is anyway. Just because we in the industry are playing with models for mobile search doesn't mean that consumers are shifting their expectations accordingly.
But I mean this to be an open question, because I think it does raise issues about the identity of mobile search for developers and for consumers. I have asked this question of a few people in the field and gotten a variety of responses, some thinking Yahoo goes way over the edge here and others less exercised by it.
And I don't mean to beat up on Yahoo here, although the company has served up a great example of a bad idea. What do we expect from that box on a handset, especially after a decade of experience with a similar-looking box on our Web browser? Aside from all these other questions, the "fashion" search on oneSearch is a truly terrible experience for the user. Is screen after screen of links and content on Fashion Week all from a single partner what a "fashion" searcher really wanted, or what Yahoo and ELLE wanted them to want?
But I ask you. What the hell is mobile search anyway?
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Then, create a standard platform having a clamshell form factor with two displays (the second display is instead of the keypad e.g. MotoRAZR). That's all - Mobile Web 2.0 is here - it just needs two displays for navigation: main display - logo at the top, the web content is below; the second display - first, the full-sceen ads are displayed, then there is the menu of a website.
Remember, the first steps of the Internet - there were the versions "with or without" frames - the situation is the same for mobile websites: the current Mobile Web 1.0 - PDA versions without frames. Note that a new standard platform with two displays has the screen area that is one and half bigger than iPhone's.
That's the answer for developers and users - Cell PC Platform - http://geocities.com/gene_technics/
Search has been making strides in this direction but mobile search has always been the worst offender: this continues one of the things I do not like about search on mobile which takes an existing human need (to search) and returns nothing but advertising. This will be successful for Elle and Yahoo in the short term but long term will result in declining brand equity for both Yahoo! and Elle as consumers catch on to this game (it won’t take long).
I understand the concept of providing different results for users on mobile phones because they might be looking for ringtones but unless this is clearly delineated it is ultimately confusing to the consumer (particularly if they are a first time user of mobile web/search) and breaks the metaphor they are used to. If yahoo or any other mobile search provider wants break the use case then they should let the consumer have control over the results before they begin the search. By this i mean there should be a check box or pull down that allows me to choose mobile content, web content, all, etc.
"Mobile search" as a noun, implies a specific tool, technology, or usage. In that case, the platform better deliver a good experience else consumers will flock to something else. Especially in this evolving market where everyone is trying new things, there's very little stickiness.
However, using "mobile" as an adjective, implies just a different way to achieve a result. In that case, mobile search is contextual, something I may or may not use depending on where I am, what I'm doing, who I'm with, etc. In that case, I have other options besides mobile, and if I don't get a good experience, then I may abandon mobile altogether (or use it in a very limited way).
To answer your question Steve, I think it comes down to whether developers consider "mobile search" as a destination or just one way of a number of ways to get there. I think Yahoo may be missing the boat on this one and trying to make their mobile search too much of a destination.