UK newspaper, The Sun, is to employ Mobile Commerce's Monetised Mobile Search, an optimised mobile search engine technology. Plans to also launch this on Sunday sister paper The News of the World are currently in development.
The solution, developed by leading mobile content facilitator Mobile Commerce, forms a key part of the papers' new mobile portal launches. Monetised Mobile Search works by allowing a mobile user to enter a keyword(s) into the search box on the WAP site they are using, the WAP site owner then decides if they want to respond by serving up content from their own site or by serving up an ordered list of paying advertisers.
The keywords(s) are passed to Mobile Commerce via its Search Aggregation Engine who then return a list of relevant advertiser's results optimised for display on a mobile handset. The partnership will see Mobile Commerce supply the Sun mobile customers with up to the date optimised mobile search whilst providing the media brand with complete control of which key words they wish to monetise off portal.
Steve Page, Mobile Commerce CEO commented, "I am incredibly excited to be working alongside one of the UK's most iconic and important media brands, this moves not only ensures The Sun and the News of the World will remain at the forefront of mobile internet search but acts as an endorsement of our leadership in this area."
Andrew Bagguley, Head of Mobile Strategy at News Group Newspapers (NGN) said, "Mobile Commerce are providing us with a valuable search function that delivers a mobile relevant service to our mobile audience. In addition it brings us a new important revenue stream. We're pleased with the flexibility and potential of their product and the opportunity it brings to add a local context to the mobile sites."
As a revenue generator Monetised Mobile Search is said to have four points: it provides partners with share of all advertiser revenues, has no set up or ongoing costs, provides developers with complete control allowing them to determine which keywords they wish to monetise off portal and finally, is incredibly easy to implement. Industry standard OpenSearch API enables keywords to be sent direct to the unique Search Aggregation Engine providing developers with responses optimised for mobile and with content relevant to their specific request.