blusjune's Journal: [NewsClip] mobile web search war is coming

What kinds of functional features and security requirements
can be required by mobile telecom operators? (to achieve the goal described below)

http://www.playfuls.com/news_06085_Europes_Telecom_Giants_Declare_War_to_US_Web_Search_Giants.html

Europe's Telecom Giants Declare War to US Web-Search Giants
08:23 PM, February 5th 2007
by Dan Nicolae Alexa
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Vodafone, O2, Hutchinson, Telefonica, Deutsche Telecom and Telecom Italia are planning their own mobile search engine, considering that Europeans use mobile Internet more frequent than Americans.

The only American telecom company ready to join the Europeans in their endeavor is Cingular. The companies will have secret, high-level meetings to establish future plans for the development of the mobile search engine. However, the group also plans to consider asking an existing service such as Yahoo! or Google to back its efforts to develop a mobile-specific search engine.

Although the two US search-engine giants Google and Yahoo have both developed mobile search engines, they are not sharing revenues with the mobile carriers. The telecom companies on the other hand are confronted with declining profits due to competition, cheaper calls and VoIP emergence, so mobile advertising is very enticing source of money.

Another point for discussion is likely to concern the creation of a new white-label service which would utilize a single advertising and technical team, which mobile networks could then apply to their own brand.

The UK's main operators - Orange, owned by France Telecom, O2, part of Spanish network Telefonica, Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and Vodafone - account for around 600 million mobile users worldwide, including 15.9 million users in the UK alone.

A UK executive at one of the companies involved told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper:

"There is a big play in mobile search that we need to be part of, and we are exploring those options at a very high level."

Yahoo launched a beta version of Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2007 in Las Vegas. Beginning with the first half of 2007, Yahoo Go 2.0 will be pre-loaded on select new mobile devices from Motorola. Consumers can also download Yahoo Go 2.0 on more than 70 other mobile devices from major manufacturers worldwide and use it on most wireless networks.

Cell phone maker Samsung Electronics has also agreed on a collaboration with Google which will facilitate handset customers' access to the search engine's mobile services on select phones. The services include one-click access to a search box, Web mail, and maps for finding local businesses and driving directions.

The phone that will mark the debut of this partnership is the slim Ultra Edition SGH-Z720 model.

A study published by ComScore Networks in October 2006 showed that 29 percent of European Internet users within U.S., France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK regularly access the Web from their mobile phones compared to only 19 percent in the U.S.

Of the countries examined, the highest mobile Web penetration is seen in both Germany and Italy (34 percent for each), followed by France with 28 percent, Spain with 26 percent and the UK with 24 percent. The U.S. figure of 19 percent is the lowest of the set.

The comScore Mobile Tracking Study also shows than men are somewhat more likely to access the Web from their mobile phones than women. Across all six countries, although the Internet penetration is split evenly between men and women, 55 percent of those who access the Web from their mobile phones are men.

The comScore tracking study determined that the major online portal sites represent the most popular online destinations among mobile Web surfers, with Google, Yahoo! and MSN leading the way. However, the mobile Web sites set up by the phone operators, such as Vodafone, O2 and T-Mobile, are also proving attractive to mobile Web surfers, particularly in Europe.

"Three-quarters of American mobile Web surfers access content from the leading online portals such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN compared to only thirty percent of Europeans," commented Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe. "In Europe, the mobile Internet appears to mirror the dynamics of the fixed Internet. Google remains strong but the other U.S.-based portals achieve much lower penetration, facing stiff competition from local competitors -- in this case the mobile providers -- who have the structural advantage of a degree of control over the access point and interface from the mobile phone."