Mobile search turf war: Abphone vs Taptu

Rating: come an ave a go!

The best thing about being a competitive analyst and an edgy blogger is that companies warm up to you quickly and are eager to try and influence – because competition analysts are always looking at the bigger picture.

This morning I received an email from a company called Abphone, commending me on my Taptu blogging and alerting me to their mobile search engine for video and images that has been live for two years.

I just checked it out; then I emailed COO Pierre Scokaert for more information.

Abphone (wap.abphone.com) who?
Abphone launched in March 2005 and currently gets “millions of page views every day”. There has been very little marketing spend but uptake has grown in past 30 months virally and by word of mouth.
Abphone is an off-deck site and the strategy is to develop a new global brand for the new abphone search – they are a brand (like Taptu) and now white label.

I just wapped and it is cool - but I have to do a proper test.

I will be meeting Abphone next week and more then.

Related News:

1. Mobile Search chat with Pierre Scokaert ABphone
2. Abphone mobile search reaches half a billion searches
3. Abphone launches mobile game search with Gameloft
4. Abphone launches first vertical white labelled mobile content search engine – The Abphonebox
5. Taptu mobile search beta trial