Yahoo! Japan deploys white label mobile search from MCN Mobile Content Networks

Rating: Uta Search on mobile for music

by Bena Roberts

AOL claimed to have one of the unique mobile content ringtone searches with its partnership with Thumbplay. UpSnap has launched a mobile content podcast search. Google is creating its own mobile content search – but its seems as though it’s Yahoo! Japan with the Trump Card.

Yahoo! is to deploy a music search service called Uta Search. It will be available from the home page of Yahoo! Japan and available to 80,000,000 users from the NTT DoCoMo and KDDI/au mobile networks.

From the press release
“MCN believes that mobile search is not an ‘all or nothing’ proposition, and that mobile operators and portals must create an ecosystem that leverages best practices and partners in order to drive high value transactions,” said MCN CEO Marc Bookman. “Our collaboration with Yahoo! Japan for Mobile is an excellent example of this shared understanding, one that begins by putting user needs first.”

What we think?
Getting on to Yahoo! Japan is good for MCN. But the only problem is that it joins an army of other services and Yahoo! propositions that all fight for eyeballs. This means that with 80 million potential new eyeballs – hits can be achieved - but revenue share agreements can always eat profit.

On the other hand, Japan is a red hot market and a great place for MCN to be and be seen. But the deployment is just for mobile music search. MCN provides a whole platform of mobile content search – so offering smaller services is good – but only a tiny slice of the cake the company needs.

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