Mobile search firms take on Google

As the mobile search market continues to grow, at least two search vendors are claiming Google status today. Both human-powered search engine ChaCha and new North American entrant Mobile Content Networks (MCN) said they rank right up there with the search heavyweight.

ChaCha had its claim backed up by the Nielsen Company’s fourth-quarter mobile messaging report, which measures both incoming and outgoing text messages. While still beat out by Google, Twitter and Facebook, ChaCha ranked seventh amongst the top 10 SMS messaging services. Its SMS search volume came to 70% of Google’s in the fourth quarter, and 3.5 million unique mobile consumers total used the service in its first year.

As a free company, the service has struggled with finding a reliable business model but now counts on a pay-for-performance text-based mobile advertising platform to fund the business going forward. To date, Palm, McDonalds, the Obama campaign and H&R Block are among the organizations launching ad campaigns with ChaCha.

ChaCha introduced its free mobile answers service in January of 2008. The directory-assistance inspired text or voice platform uses human agents to answer any question via text message that a consumer might text or call in to ask. The service has seen the most traction with the text-crazed under-25 age group.

Although not making Neilsen’s top 10 list, vertical paid search provider Mobile Content Networks (MCN) today announced it has signed up Fox Mobile’s Jamba and Jamster content sites to deploy the MCN allwords vertical paid search program. MCN currently has more than 30 operator and portal partners reaching 300 million mobile users worldwide. Unlike Google or Yahoo, it provides a vertical search merchandising program for content providers selling premium content, including music, images, games or video. The federated search platform returns targeted feedback on user behavior and brand support in exchange for purchasing all keywords in a given content category. MCN will initially launch with carriers in Thailand and Sweden with plans to expand to other international regions.

MCN has also signed up 85 content providers worldwide, and the company plans to double this number quarter-over-quarter, said senior vice president of marketing Stephen Burke. The company also has an automated SMS-trigged search platform that Burke said only nominally competes with ChaCha or paid provider kgb. MCN’s business model is based on display ad revenue sharing with the wireless operator.

“What we are really good at is helping mobile users get to content items and premium channels – places where there is a transaction, not just a page view,” Burke said. “Operators see it as a very profitable addition to whatever search environment they are creating.”

MCN is not well-known in North America because it hasn’t gone live yet here. Last year, however, the company had the best year for mobile search than any other vendor in the industry, Burke said. While not a direct competitor to horizontal search provider Google, MCN too considers itself a peer of the search giant.

“We see ourselves as being up there with Google and Yahoo in terms of global footprint and penetration with major operators and portals,” Burke said. “2009 will be an even bigger year for us….Other than Verizon, which still aspires to be a media company and program services to predict what users like, Sprint and AT&T are going into a more open environment that looks more like the Internet. Allwords is a key component of that.”