Search behavior in South East Asia and some underdeveloped
regions of the world has a strong potential to expand. More and more people are
getting mobile phones and hopping onto the carrier networks. However, search in these regions, may not follow
the same trajectory as in the situation where access to internet and smartphones is widespread.
Internet penetration generally grows at a much slower pace
than the voice circuits, given infrastructure and resource constraints.
Mobile phones have the deepest penetration, and in countries
like India, are the most pervasive of all devices. While smartphones are spreading like
wildfire, their presence is more confined to urban centers or rural elites. Some statistics place over 920 million total
mobile connections, 44 million (5%) of which are smartphones with some sort of
data connectivity. This leaves a large number of mobile phones with no access
to search engines.
The
language bottleneck is also a barrier to search when a large mass of population is not
very proficient in the major internet languages.
Search Engines have not been able to crack the language
issue very well. Google has done some work where the search terms being keyed-in are translated into the selected language, and the results are displayed partially
in the language selected. The problem
the search engines face is also due to lack of web assets in the
language of the query in their index. This limits the
quality of the results.
A moment reflection would show that this is really a
chicken-and-egg situation. With almost no one to query, there is little
incentive for anyone to put up a web property in the language of its users.
SMS based search
Traditional web search requires a browser running on
desktops (or laptops or smart mobile phones).
The search index is queried via keywords entered into the search
engine's browser interface. The results
are returned by the search engines, and are displayed in the standard fashion in
the browser.
Search on mobile devices and smartphones follow a similar
paradigm. One variation of this is voice-activated search on mobile devices
(the famed SIRI) where both the query and the results are “spoken.” However, voice agents are more geared towards
“finding” rather than covering a broad canvas of “searching.”
The SMS functionality that all basic phones have can help
solve this problem. A user sends in his
query via a text message to the search engine. The search engine responds by sending, say
top 2-3 results customized for display on the small mobile screen. The call-to-action (CTA) could be the ones
appropriate for the device like - send a text message or place a call.
Wait! This is not a new concept!
Google did launch a text based search interface. The service sms.google.com went live in 2004, and was
shut down in May 2013! This service involved live agents who received the
query, fished the results out, and sent those back to the phone.
Few years ago another search engine ChaCha.com attempted
something similar. They had “guides” who
received and responded to the user’s query via text messages. Last I know is
that they are still active in US but have closed their shop in UK.
Then again three years ago a brave soul in India started
Askbysms.com – a similar service. This also shut down soon after.
Why attempt something that Google, ChaCha and others could not succed? I believe the answer lies in targeting. The search providers thought that SMS based
searching would be a cool alternative
to their audience who have internet connectivity via desktop or
smartphones. They did not have in mind
the large swath of population for whom this could very well be the only way of searching.
Airtel, the largest mobile service prvoder in India has SMS Gyan, a text based search service that is still running. However, a user has to pay Rs 1 for every query.
The most promising start in this field appears to be from a young enterpernure who lauched Innoz. It will be interesting to see how this evolves.
Note that the search use case here does not
involve complex queries. The person is probably interested in finding quick
information about some local service to consume in his area – repair/price/availability
of food/some commodity and like. Unlike browser based local search which is
accompanied by maps and reviews, the SMS based results can have limited
address and say distance from a known landmark in the vicinity as a navigational aid.
Cost & Revenue?
There are two very apparent snags in this approach. A user has to pay every time a text is sent.
In contrast a desktop and mobile user pays nothing for searching (discounting
the payment to ISP or mobile carrier for the data plan that is spread over a host of activities other than search....streaming videos, email...). So paying for search via texting would appear
to be an extra fee on the user.
However this is not an insurmountable issue. The search engines could
set the system up with carriers, that the they, the SEs, rather than the searcher, pay
for the query by the user. Alternatively
using their (considerable) clout they can negotiate a very very small price to
the user.
Is that absurd? Studies have shown that it costs carriers
next to nothing to transmit a text
message. These 160 character messages do not taken any space in the valuable
wireless spectrum. Search Engines, given
the weight they can throw, would be able to work out a far more favorable price
for themselves, much lower than say $0.10/ Rs. 10 per text.
Still absurd? Hardly so!
Ad Revenue?
Now let us examine the questions of monetizing search via
sponsored ads. Search is free because the search engines make money in
advertising. In SMS based query the search
results can be formatted inventively, so that first 120 chars are reserved for
displaying the top 2 search results, leaving some room (40 chars) for showing
the one ad that wins in the real time auction. If the user chooses to scroll
for more results (say the next 2), the second ad could show up.
Will 40 chars be enough? Google AdWords desktop search ads
take 25+35+35 = 95 characters plus display URL.
In our case display URL is not needed because there is no web browser (or
internet) to navigate to. A user should be able to connect to the sponsoring
party via text or a call.
How about language?
Mobile phone manufacturers in India have introduced local language
keyboards that are quite intuitive. Users do easily send or receive texts in their
own language.
When user start searching in their language, the local
businesses/organizations will start hosting web assets in their language. The
higher search volume will bring in advertisers as well. When people who are the lower rungs of income
pyramid start searching, the business segment that serves them will follow suit.
Today there is little evidence that the small businesses are
motivated enough to get into search engines index. There is a strong perception
that advertising on Google is expensive and unaffordable for street corner shop. Makes sense as small businesses go where
their customers congregate. A SMS based search will draw in users in large numbers, so even with relatively lower
per capita advertising revenue, the total yield will not be insignificant.
Why go to this length?
The alternative is to wait till Internet infrastructure expands and
people shift over to smartphones to avail of the existing search process. The latest
report shows that between April to June 2013, smartphones took 51.8% share
of the total phones sold. The flip side of this report is that 209 Million basic phones were still sold
throughout the world. There is (and will be) a large mass of population that
will continue to use feature phones for a long time to come.
People obtain information either by searching or by asking.
The basic phone users usually resort to the latter, since they do not have
access to the former.
Several studies have shown that search creates economic benefits for users. Taking
search down to the most common denominator will be equitable and will
create a win-win situation for everyone, besides narrowing the digital divide.
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