MWC: T-Mobile and Yahoo! “oneSearch is the killer” or should that have been “federated rules”

Well shiver me timbers. Three years ago T-Mobile signed up with Google and thought it was the bees knees. After never really getting huge use form Web ‘n’ walk, Google has been ousted by search rival Yahoo!

The average life span for a mobile search provider is one to three years at the moment - so this does sound about right. Contracts probably needed renewing and T-Mobile has made a fast exit.What does this mean? Well from March 2008 the face of the search experience on T-Mobile devices in 11 countries will be the face of Yahoo! In particular it will be oneSearch.

What is oneSearch?

oneSearch is the mobile search experience that integrates Yahoo! products such as Flickr and Answers and mail into one space. Its focus is on capturing a mobile experience in a made for mobile environment. The difference is that Google had a plan to make the real Internet mobile. But from day one, Yahoo! Has treated mobile as mobile.

I am in no doubt that the recent switch back to mobile web results made a few weeks ago was because the slap in the face from this deal. Yahoo! has a superior mobile search because it is made for mobile.

On top of that, seeing what Novarra are doing in the space today and the oneSearch zoom style content adaptation for web content – for the first time in a very long time – I was left reflecting on my ideas. In fact, it would be easy now to condemn Google. In fact, I feel that Google had it so easy so early that it hasn’t invested in mobile to the extend that it should have and it shows.

Anyone that reads our analysis knows that I think Yahoo! Is the mobile search branded leader but I also think that AOL rocks because of its collaboration with InfoGin. There is a pattern here. We are in the nascent stages of a new market and the mobile web is being defined any search or advertising company needs to bear that in mind. There is a mobile web and it needs to be found or created via mobile sites or content adaptation but whatever happens the results must work and they must be seamless.

What about Medio?

I think that the Medio deal for t-zones search in five countries is still active. In fact I have this now confirmed.

Rating: Yahoo! to you “one search is the killer” quote from T-Mobile’s Hamid Akhavan at MWC today

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