Opportunities in the Mobile Search Market

Success in the mobile search market will come to those who provide value-added apps that exploit unique mobile functionalities, especially those related to personalized and context-based services

Promising Prospects in Mobile Search: Business As Usual or Techno-Economic Disruptions?

It has taken more than a decade of intense technical and market developments for mobile Internet to take off as a mass phenomenon. And it has arrived with great intensity: an avalanche of mobile content and applications is now overrunning us. Similar to its wired counterpart, wireless Web users will continuously demand access to data and content in an efficient and user-friendly manner

CHORUS Deliverable 4.5: Report of the 3rd CHORUS Conference

The third and last CHORUS conference on Multimedia Search Engines took place from the 26th to the 27th of May 2009 in Brussels, Belgium. About 100 participants from 15 European countries, the US, Japan and Australia learned about the latest developments in the domain. An exhibition of 13 stands presented 16 research projects currently ongoing around the world

Mobile search, a case for next generation information society policies

After more than a decade of development work and hopes, the usage of mobile Internet has finally taken off. Now, we are witnessing the first signs of evidence what might become the explosion of mobile content and applications that will be shaping the (mobile) Internet of the future. Similar to the wired Internet, search will become very relevant for the usage of mobile Internet. Within the mobile ecosystem framework, this paper will discuss if and how intense public action in the mobile search domain should (could) be. Potential actions refer both to ‘conventional’ and 'non-conventional' regulatory approaches. Public administrations as procurement bodies may leverage services and thus acting as early deployers of applications is an example of a ‘conventional’ case, while the use of the wealth of public data with high added value in mobile search scenarios would be one of a ‘non-conventional’ case. The paper will present a list of different policy options and analyse their feasibility. These include policies options aimed both at the demand side (user-oriented) and at the supply side (innovation-support policies, regulatory policies, industrial-type policies, …) of mobile search

What is Missing for the Full Deployment of Mobile Search Services? Results from a Survey with Experts

Web search providers have developed a highly successful business model, which has rendered them amongst some of the most profitable companies operating on the internet. Many observers regard mobile search as the next new big market. In contrast to search on PCs, however, the provision of search on mobiles is still in its infancy. In order to shed light on the real prospects of mobile search we performed a two-round Delphi exercise with experts, in which we included two innovative elements. First, the Delphi exercise included seven forward-looking scenarios for discussion. Then, the second round of the Delphi was carried out during a workshop with 19 of the original 61 participants involved. In this paper we present the findings from the discussions of this final round. Our study confirms the high expectations put into the mobile search market. We found that this optimism is rooted in the view that critical technological components are already available. Our paper argues that the technology push is not yet matched by a corresponding market pull. Web search engines, mobile phone manufacturers, and telecom operators are already starting to take action to place themselves in a favourable position. They are exploring trial applications, but business models are still unclear and companies are experimenting with very different approaches. Our Delphi study identifies interfaces as critical for increased mobile search usage. Moreover, experts think that perceived usefulness is valuable but trust is essential and that privacy should be seen as an opportunity rather than a constraint. The paper concludes with some suggestions for fostering innovation, growth and competitiveness in the mobile search domain by increasing the interoperability of services, assuring the openness and mash-ups of content and services, and developing personal identity data management systems to improve user acceptance and enhance trust

To Search or not to Search: Where is the Mobile Search Market Heading? Results from a Survey with Experts

Web search providers have a highly successful business model in place, which has rendered them amongst the most profitable companies on the internet. The mobile sector is expanding rapidly with the number of worldwide subscribers estimated to reach 5 billions by 2012 and with two-digit growth rates in the number of mobile internet connections. Consequently, many observers consider mobile search as the 'next big market'. However, there is little evidence so far to support such high expectations. In addition, we spot a general lack of studies based on large public data sets, which employ reproducible methods to forecast the evolution of trends in the sector. Surprisingly, whereas some market research reports dedicated solely to mobile search were published a few years ago, just when mobile search is moving to become a mainstream application, there appear to be no comprehensive recent studies about where the mobile search market is going. In this paper we report and analyse the collective opinions of a group of experts on the prospects of mobile search. The research we present is based on a two-round Delphi exercise. The first round of such exercise was conducted online in order to reach a wide community of experts and to cover a broad range of expertise. The second round was carried out face-to-face with a selection of respondents to discuss in depth the results of the online questionnaire. To get the prospective dimension into the Delphi discussion, we proposed seven distinct scenarios. This set a common ground for participants to engage into a forwardlooking debate and to focus their attention onto prospective drivers and barriers rather than solely onto today's landscape. Our Delphi study confirms the high expectations and bright future experts see for the mobile search market, but with noteworthy nuances. We found that the experts' optimism is rooted in the conviction that all critical technological components are already available and that only some system integration is missing. Our paper argues that there is no adequate market pull response to such technology push. Undeniably some (trial) applications are under way, but their business models are still insufficiently defined and companies are experimenting with different business ideas. Irrespectively of the business model, however, experts single out user-centric interfaces as the most The manuscript was submitted on 15th February 2010. This work was supported in part by the European Commission's coordination action CHORUS+ (ICT-2009.1.5 Grant 249008). Corresponding author: [email protected] critical element for increased mobile search take up. Today's interfaces and applications are not satisfactory in terms of users' needs and desires, which is delaying massive adoption. Another essential component for adoption is trust in the service provider. The liability and responsibility of the different players (telecom operators, search engine providers, device manufacturers, etc) needs to be scrutinized. Our study also presents the views of experts on how privacy and personal data usage are influencing the evolution of mobile search. The paper concludes with some suggestions for fostering the evolution of the mobile search domain by increasing the interoperability of services, assuring the openness and mash-ups of content and services, developing personal identity data management systems to improve user acceptance and enhance trust and by supporting research, both on the technologies that are required to enable more advanced used of mobile search applications, and supporting living labs a experimental platform to test new application and innovative business models

Factors required for mobile search going mainstream

This article aims to review the technological and socio-economic conditions which will influence the development of the mobile search market

CHORUS Deliverable 3.3: Vision Document - Intermediate version

The goal of the CHORUS vision document is to create a high level vision on audio-visual search engines in order to give guidance to the future R&D work in this area (in line with the mandate of CHORUS as a Coordination Action). This current intermediate draft of the CHORUS vision document (D3.3) is based on the previous CHORUS vision documents D3.1 to D3.2 and on the results of the six CHORUS Think-Tank meetings held in March, September and November 2007 as well as in April, July and October 2008, and on the feedback from other CHORUS events. The outcome of the six Think-Thank meetings will not just be to the benefit of the participants which are stakeholders and experts from academia and industry – CHORUS, as a coordination action of the EC, will feed back the findings (see Summary) to the projects under its purview and, via its website, to the whole community working in the domain of AV content search. A few subjections of this deliverable are to be completed after the eights (and presumably last) Think-Tank meeting in spring 2009

CHORUS Deliverable 3.4: Vision Document

The goal of the CHORUS Vision Document is to create a high level vision on audio-visual search engines in order to give guidance to the future R&D work in this area and to highlight trends and challenges in this domain. The vision of CHORUS is strongly connected to the CHORUS Roadmap Document (D2.3). A concise document integrating the outcomes of the two deliverables will be prepared for the end of the project (NEM Summit)

CHORUS Deliverable 2.1: State of the Art on Multimedia Search Engines

Based on the information provided by European projects and national initiatives related to multimedia search as well as domains experts that participated in the CHORUS Think-thanks and workshops, this document reports on the state of the art related to multimedia content search from, a technical, and socio-economic perspective. The technical perspective includes an up to date view on content based indexing and retrieval technologies, multimedia search in the context of mobile devices and peer-to-peer networks, and an overview of current evaluation and benchmark inititiatives to measure the performance of multimedia search engines. From a socio-economic perspective we inventorize the impact and legal consequences of these technical advances and point out future directions of research