Operators may create a single mobile search engine, writes John Collins

If you are one of the estimated 15 per cent or so of mobile phone users who uses your handset to access internet and data services, there may be very good news from the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona next week.

A number of multinational mobile phone operators will come together in private meetings at the annual get-together for the world's mobile industry to discuss the possibility of creating their own mobile search engine to rival Google and Yahoo.

A mobile-specific search engine supported by all the big networks could make it much easier to find useful content and services that have been designed to display and run on mobile devices.

For the operators it presents the possibilities of a lucrative new revenue stream from displaying advertisements relevant to a user's search term - the model that has proven massively successful for Google.

The companies involved in the talks represent all the Irish mobile networks - Vodafone, Telefónica's O2 and 3, which is owned by Hutchison Whampoa - with the exception of the Eircom-owned Meteor.

Other names that have been mentioned include France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia and US network Cingular.

Well-placed Irish industry sources confirmed to The Irish Times this week that the discussions will take place in Barcelona, with one industry executive saying that the decision had been taken at the highest levels in the operators to tackle the issue of mobile internet search.

Their combined search strategy could take include creating their own search engine, partnering with a third party to create a white label product that each can brand as their own.

This search strategy could also simply mean cutting a deal with Google or Yahoo to guarantee them a bigger slice of advertising revenue.

"It's difficult to see where this is coming from, because the operators have no expertise and no brand in the search space," says Andrew Robertson, vice-president of product management with Cibenix.

Cibenix produces phone-based software to help users discover services.

"There is no point in simply trying to replicate the internet experience on a mobile. The operators should be using the strengths that Google doesn't have, such as subscriber profiles and geographic positioning, and work with the existing search companies."

While it is telling that the competitors are getting together for a pow-wow at 3GSM, there is no guarantee that the talks will amount to anything.

The typical mobile operator still makes over half of its data revenues from customers simply browsing content on their portal.

A service that makes it easy for customers to branch out on to the public internet may not be in their interests as it could eat into existing revenues.

The track record, however, of the major operators coming together to co-operate on initiatives is patchy at best.

"If they are not serious about this, then they should be serious," says Vincent Ryan, vice-president for sales and marketing with personalisation software specialists, Changing Worlds.

"There are lots of roles for different content-discover technologies on mobile, but to simply hand over control of content discovery and the associated advertising revenue to Google or Yahoo would be crazy."

The discussions at 3GSM may be a direct response to recent comments from Google chief executive Eric Schmidt.

Schmidt said he expected mobile search to grow substantially this year and signalled that Google could make significant profits from it.

"Our current model is to use targeted text ads and we have evidence that the monetarisation of those ads is higher than in non-mobile uses," said Schmidt.

"So it looks like the advertising revenue on a per-search query is likely to be significantly higher on mobile than on non-mobile."

In effect, Schmidt was saying what many in the mobile industry know but are still struggling to deliver - if advertising relevant to a mobile searcher's current location can be delivered to them in a targeted fashion, there could be big bucks to be made.

Earlier this week Google launched a version of its Gmail e-mail service that users can install on their mobile phone, which could also become a place to display relevant ads to users.

Some in the industry are far less gung-ho on the potential for mobile search. Patrick Fearon, managing director of Trust5, an Irish software company that offers a directory service to help mobile users find content, believes the demand for search on mobile devices will be less than on PCs.

"Our thinking is that you need to make it easy to find the limited set of services that mobile users need to find, like the BBC for news or their online banking service, rather than an all-encompassing search engine," says Fearon.

"Google is likely to own that space."

Ryan does not believe, however, that it is a given that Google will dominate mobile search. While he acknowledges they are a significant competitor, he says Google has not figured out all the issues associated with searching on a mobile phone, such as how to easily enter a long search term on a keypad.

In fact, rather than search being the key to driving up mobile usage, Fearon says the introduction of flat-rate pricing plans for mobile data will have a much bigger impact.

As operators embrace this model, it will eliminate the phenomena of "bill shock", whereby users shy away from using mobile services for fear of the large charges they will incur.

And while a mobile search engine that makes it easy to find content from a phone would be welcomed by customers, certainty about their monthly bill for data would be even more welcome.