Start-ups
Searching the Cell Phone Web
France’s MotionBridge has developed a fast, simple search engine for the mobile Internet. This Siemens-financed start-up has become the market leader in Europe, with customers such as T-Mobile, Orange and O2.
Anyone who’s spent time exploring the mobile Internet knows about long loading times. A search drags on for minutes because a user has to click through numerous links when navigating a site or painstakingly type in a Web address. But things could go much faster. French start-up MotionBridge has developed a user-friendly search function that reaches the goal with just a few clicks. "With our intuitive input system, which is even equipped with an automatic correction function for typos, users reach a site 50 to 70 % faster than they would with a conventional search function," says Emmanuel Marot, one of MotionBridge’s three founders. The Paris-based company has become a sort of Google for the mobile Web. Its search function is already used by leading cell-phone operators throughout Europe, companies that serve a total of about 75 million customers. These operators include T-Mobile in Germany, the United Kingdom and Austria; Orange in France; and O2 in the United Kingdom.
Weater becomes Weather. "For navigation, we use keywords like ‘weather’ or ‘sport,’" Marot explains. "That allows our Classic search function to bypass a Web site’s hierarchical structures." Using conventional navigation to track down a weather forecast for a particular region requires clicking through several steps before finally accessing the information. MotionBridge, on the other hand, sends the user to the correct site immediately after the word weather is entered. And typing in "weater" or "weat" isn’t a problem. The system recognizes the words and asks if the user means weather. It makes no difference whether the search result is located on the cell-phone company’s Web site or on the entire mobile Web. And it doesn’t matter which underlying standard is used either—whether WAP, i-mode or UMTS. A user who enters Lufthansa or Siemens is sent directly to those companies—or right to the pages of Amazon or eBay when the names of these online companies are entered. Entering numbers works too. Instead of sport, a user can type in the corresponding numerical keys: 7S7P6O7R8T. This makes the cell phone’s small keys much easier to use. Other search engines haven’t taken advantage of this input option, which is commonly used for text messages.
Fast Wizard. The program installs a predefined list of keywords in the cell phone, and these can be selected just like telephone-book entries. When the letter w is entered, weather appears immediately, and one click later, the user lands at the desired page. The system's advantage is that this Wizard function performs the first step of the search offline, which accelerates arrival at the target site. And if the keyword doesn’t appear on the list, the Classic search function goes into action. At present, Orange customers in France are getting to know Wizard, and other European cell-phone companies have expressed interest as well. For the time being, Wizard works only on cell phones with the Symbian operating system, but it will also soon be available for Java-capable cell phones and various smart phones.
Telecommunications companies expect the mobile Internet, in particular, to be a future revenue source that will enhance their telephone business. And with an intelligent search engine like MotionBridge in their product lineup, the companies have a feature that will attract customers into the cell-phone Web. "Studies have found that with MotionBridge, data traffic rises by as much as 50 %," reports Ulrich Bolze, who manages the MotionBridge investment for risk-capital provider Siemens Mobile Acceleration (SMAC). "Pure search queries have even tripled. It seems that a lot of users are searching just for the fun of it," says Bolze. The service pays off for providers offering such standards as GPRS and UMTS, which are billed by the volume of data traffic rather than by the minute. They also earn money from additional services, such as the ring tones that can be called up on MotionBridge and downloaded.
After a user enters a search term, MotionBridge automatically directs him to the correct page in the mobile Internet
MotionBridge also offers network operators other ways of optimizing their product ranges and boosting sales. The software’s comprehensive statistical program operates in the background and can track the 20 most frequently used search terms. Providers can place these terms in a prominent position and thus raise the number of hits. Studies have shown that 20 % of services attract about 80 % of data traffic. The faster users reach these popular sites, the more frequently they will return to them. Soon, MotionBridge plans to package the search results. Users who type in "Beckham" won’t only find out the latest news about the British soccer idol now playing for Real Madrid—they’ll also get links to Beckham’s fan site and to a cell phone being marketed with the star’s name.
The software also tracks frequently used search terms that produce no results. This is how one mobile communications provider learned that a frequently used e-mail provider wasn’t represented in the mobile net, even though many potential customers thought it was. Everyone involved would profit from a WAP site for the e-mail provider.
Mobile Business. MotionBridge also wants to simplify access to mobile business applications—an area where market researchers expect to see significant demand. "Right now, we’re working on a Java application that loads online companies’ product lists onto a cell phone," says MotionBridge founder Marot. As a result, Amazon’s 100 best-selling CDs or DVDs could be available offline and could be searched quickly. The cell phone would re-contact the server only if an order were placed or additional information obtained. "The supplier could constantly change the lists, and they would be updated as soon as the user went online," Marot adds.
MotionBridge gets a share of the telecommunications companies’ revenues generated by use of the search service. The cash register rings every time there’s a successful click on the mobile Web, and MotionBridge expects to reach the break-even point this year. "With UMTS, it will be even more important to make navigation easier and faster because more content will be available," Marot says. "With our innovations, we’ll remain the leader in mobile communications." And it’s also possible that MotionBridge will follow in Google’s footsteps one day—possibly with a listing on the stock exchange.
Norbert Aschenbrenner