Give Up & Give In To Google?
This interesting and highly controversial post suggests that this is the action mobile operators should take. Rather than reinvent the wheel (or in this case mobile search), mobile operators should learn from the lessons of the Web and grant Google a top-notch spot in their mobile search schemes. Put simply, operators that endeavour to create (let alone brand) their mobile search offerings are blind to the obvious dominance of Google. The author wrote:
But, on the phone, Google is hardly the search you need. The average query on Google returns in 0.8 seconds with results, yet the average user takes 11 minutes to find anything on it. Not happening on a cell….
Sameer, You and I both agree that Web search is not made for the mobile space. Your stats are interesting and I invite you to share the source. I have also collected stats for my mobile search industry report that you might find interesting. 2005 usability research conducted by the Smart Media Institute evaluated 7 mobile search engines including Google. In general they all did poorly when it came to retrieving relevant results in an acceptable timeframe. (If this topic interests you, then pls feel free to take this discussion off-line – peggy.salz@gmx.net)