Mobile search companies offer human touch

While Google, Microsoft and Yahoo engage in an all-out race to dominate the automated mobile search market, several companies are counting on human interaction to drive uptake of their services. With one billion searches under its belt, traditional directory assistance provider kgb is one vendor entering North America to answer its next billion questions via “special agents” responding to text, mobile and Web queries.

The service answers any variety of questions from movie listings, train schedules or price comparisons to more abstract questions about relationships, philosophy or art that are text-messaged to its shortcode, kgbkgb. A database of frequently asked questions then provides some answers, while thousands of global, in-home agents working 24/7 take on the rest. Their answers come from questions via their own Web searches and knowledge-generation bureau, where kgb gets its name. The company is also launching mobile Web apps for smartphones, a WAP site and an alpha web service to reach any handset though any desired means of communication.

“We created the kgb special agents – making sure they are delivering very relevant, accurate and timely responses back to people,” said CEO Bruce Stewart. “That requires a combination of technology plus humans, which we believe is a very unique combination. Human-powered search plus new technology will create, day-over-day, a data knowledge base that will get increasingly better.”

Kgb has found that consumers would rather find the exact answer they need in minutes than search for a response from a series of close matches, Stewart said, even if that means paying 50 cents for the answer. The company’s cross-platform service, along with a multiplatform advertising and marketing strategy, is being kicked off this week in the US, where it will be up against more than just the online search giants. Free services like ChaCha, launched one year ago, have picked up traction here. ChaCha lets consumers do Internet searches from a mobile handset by making a phone call or sending a text to ChaCha. Like kgb, the company employs human guides to answer SMS questions. In the second quarter of last year, the service surpassed both Google and Yahoo in text-based search growth rates, according to Nielsen statistics.

Companies like kbg and ChaCha have the advantage of human power and the most powerful mechanism of delivery, text messaging, according to Mark Donovan, senior analyst at comScore. Their disadvantage comes in monetizing a service that relies on only 150 characteristics for a response. While kbg gets revenue from a per-text charge, Donovan pointed out that there is also little to differentiate it from a free alternative, like ChaCha.

“When I look at the human-power search world, there are some interesting things about it, but it still seems to be ways away from having a business model that will make it float,” Donavon said.