While people in other countries use their mobile devices more frequently for online access, the U.S. continues to fall woefully behind. Google has deals with telecom providers including T-Mobile, Vodafone, and China Mobile to preload certain Nokia and Samsung devices. This allows Google a head start in Europe and Asia, but does little to elevate their mobile presence within the U.S.

Google and Yahoo! both offer mobile modified versions but carriers are aggressively pushing their own search tools. Mobile carriers in the US maintain tight control over the content provided on their devices, arguing that they can provide better results based on customer data. People, however, want consistency when they search, regardless of device, and would likely welcome consistency. Though the argument by the mobile carriers makes sense, there are deeper issues at play.

Mobile carriers harbor ill will towards search engines for making billions from the free broadband access they provide. In addition, Google has made no secret of their plans for the gPhone. Lastly, Google lobbied the FCC for open access and standards that could determine how we access the Internet in the future. The underlying issue at hand is the fight for control of mobile advertising.

Mobile carriers are anticipating that search behavior within mobile search will not mirror that of traditional search. Mobile users typically search for local information (weather, restaurants, etc.). Given the drastically limited screen space, carriers expect the lion’s share of mobile search revenue to be generated from a pay-per-call model. If mobile carriers can lock up this space, they can dictate terms and take a greater share in advertising revenue.

Consumers will ultimately dictate their preferences for mobile search. Mobile carriers may lose out if standards are put in place and more open access phones are developed. Either way, it is clear that they do not intend to allow the search engines to easily swoop in and dictate revenue terms. Let the battle for mobile search revenue begin, and let the consumer determine the winner.

Article by Peter Karellas

Joshua Palau writes about the launch of Powerset in this feature on Natural Language Search.

In June of this past year, SES hosted their 2^nd annual search conference dedicated to Search in the Latino community. This conference is of particular interest because marketers are increasingly determining the opportunities in the Latino search market. Among the many questions that marketers are asking are: “Are we targeting this community?” “Is our audience there?” And “Do we have an offering to satisfy this community?” When answering the first two questions, it is easy to look at the numbers and reply with an emphatic “Yes!”

The U.S. Latino demographic is the fastest growing ethnic audience in the U.S. Consider the following:

• There are 14.7 million U.S. Hispanics that use the Internet
• The predicted growth rate is a 5% increase year over
• 89% of U.S. Hispanics use search
• 64% use the Internet to learn about brands, and 68% use the Internet to make final purchase decisions on brands and products

In terms of “Do we have an offering to satisfy this community?” there is a chicken vs. egg scenario that exists. Search engines will tell you that the Latino community searches in English. However, we do not know if this is the case because Spanish results are poor due to the lack of sites that focus on servicing their community. The sites that do exist are somewhat “cookie-cutter” and not truly optimized for search. This makes an even better reason to take advantage of this opportunity. Something to keep in mind when getting ready to create a Spanish site is that it takes dedication to serve such a market.

We have worked on several sites and use the following as our guide:

• Know your audience and speak in their language – do not literally translate from English to Spanish
• Use identifiable imagery – if they don’t look Hispanic, don’t use them
• Design based on their technical abilities and conform to their needs – if a large percentage is older or does not have a high speed connection, then don’t slow them down with fancy designs because the English version has them
• If they exist, promote benefits that are specific to that culture. Highlight that your product performs better or meets an unmet need in the Latino community

At this stage we are clearly passed the leap of faith that US Latinos have embraced the Internet. The challenge for marketers is to meet this demand with a culturally relevant solution.

Article by Lisa Pena

Keeping with the theme of Powerset, they are set to launch. This Business Week article takes a look at how Powerset can unseat Google.

In a recent announcement, The New York Times is dropping their subscription fees. The move will cost the Times $10 million in revenue lost. However, they believe that they will gain more traffic from people who would end up at a login page instead of the article.

Microsoft will be hosting Searchification 2007 on September 26^th. The invite will have bloggers and journalists to highlight Live Search 2.0. Much like a kid before Christmas, Microsoft couldn’t wait and debuted a new Live.com homepage.

Joshua Palau will be hosting an SEO and Wikipedia panel at OMMA NY

Wikipedia: The Perfect SEO Storm
Monday 9/24
11:15-am-12:00pm
The power of the people: do you know how to leverage it to fuel your organization’s SEO campaign? Anyone who has been searching on Google recently has surely noticed that Wikipedia is ranking well for a staggering number of search phrases: from competitive terms as diverse as Christianity to Hell’s Angels. Come to this session and learn the secrets behind Wikipedia’s unprecedented success and how you can apply similar SEO techniques to expand your keyword list and increase your rankings. The talk will include examples of ‘Wiki-like’ SEO techniques, both for the small Website owner as well as large, CMS powered Websites. Attention will be given to SEO techniques such as CMS modifications that can be made for content publishers and etailers, as well as ways to leverage your visitors so that they create the content and do the work for you. The seminar will also discuss how to balance marketing and conversion best practices with heavy internal linking.

Panelists:
Don Steele, Director of Digital Marketing, Comedy Central
Tom Troja, VP of Marketing and Sales, Pajamas Media
Craig Hordlow, Chief Search Strategist, Red Bricks Media
Moderator: Josh Palau, Group Director, Search, Avenue A | Razorfish