Mike The Internet Guy’s Blog

Speakers:
Dan Gilmartin, VP Marketing, uLocate
Lee Ott, Director Mobile Web, Yahoo Inc.!
Mark McCormack, CMO, CallGenie
Sumit Agarwal, Product Manager, Google Mobile

Mark McCormack
What we’ve heard at the conference
-if you don’t have an iPhone you shouldn’t be here
-Yellow Pages will be dead in 4 years
-Microsoft is target of many jokes
-local success requires a local sales force
-what everyone said is CRAP! (Paul Ryan)
-I hope you boss isn’t here
-merchant’s don’t understand ROI
-this content is rich in attendees and content

Call Genie is not a moble or local mobile solution, they are a local search solution and value added technology partner
-customers like directions with landmarks
-call genie overlays neighborhood info and landmarks on top of maps etc

Lessons learned
-you need thick skin to be a transcriber
-place is relevant, local knowledge trumps technology
-voice in, voice out is good, but multi-modal is future
-merchants get voice search if packaged correctly
-taking credit for calls you deliver validates ROI

Lee Ott
-2 to 1 ratio moving to 3 to 1 of mobile devices vs computers
-Yahoo is focusing on taking advantage of mobile devices while being careful of limitations
-users want instant gratification, or users or bored
-shows demo of m.yahoo.com, and what search results look like
-Yahoo is classifying ‘query type’ to produce relevant results
-appears to try and give answers not just links as much as possible
-shows another example of searching for movie title (results show reviews, show times, etc) , location is derived
-challenge: 89% of mobile users don’t know how to access/use search on their phone
-Yahoo wants to improve usability of devices
-challenge: Mobile web pricing is complicated with variable charges, 64% of users believe there is additional cost
-challenge: it is hard for publishers to develop for mobile due to device types
-Yahoo wants to move towards more standard technology formats
-challenge:How do you monetize? lack of global advertising standards, limited experience in mobile
-Yahoo wants to educate and enable advertisers, help MMA standardize formats, provide full ad suite

Dan Gilmartin
-uLocate creates applications that run on mobile devices
-what.com was too expensive so they went with where.com
-provides library of GPS enabled widgets that allow users to personalize where

Sumit Agarwal
-iPhone made visible impact on blended mobile product usage with in 15 days
-2 orders of magnitude better than any other device!!
-Google places emphasis on local content (used in search and modules, precconfigured)
-You can use iGoogle to perform PC-Mobile integration
-if you say “Map it” on an iPhone while calling GOOG-411, the mapping application appears with locations!

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