Search Giants Encroaching on 411

Want the 4-1-1? Just point your mobile toward Yahoo, Google and MSN. The three search giants, in addition to IAC’s Citysearch are set to bring search marketing to mobile phones in a big way.

by Kristina Knight

For Citysearch, the move into the mobile market makes perfect sense. Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Marketing Intelligence, said (via MediaPost) that local mobile search is an obvious growth area for the company. "Citysearch has growing usage online and they want to extend that to the mobile environment." With their offering, users can send queries and get targeted results through mobile phones.

For the Internet giants, local mobile search is just another offering for their web marketing clients. According to research from the Kelsey Group, directional advertising including Yellow Pages, local search and classifieds will reach nearly $120 billion in 2010. About $13 billion of those dollars will come from local search, both mobile and Internet.

Research shows that many mobile users are open to mobile ads and are more likely to buy when given a mobile search result. This is because primarily, searches from mobile phones are done at the moment the consumer wants that service, not while preparing for a service.

The Kelsey Group is predicting that the search giants will jump into wireless voice searching by mid-year 2007. This could bring a huge challenge to traditional and free 411 services. Directory requests through landline, wireless and VoIP are expected to be above 6 billion this year. As the industry continues to grow those free services without local sales forces will not be able to compete with the giants.