Dan Olschwang, ceo of while label mobile search company JumpTap, has said he doesn’t “buy” Google’s do no evil approach when it comes to mobile search.
Speaking on a panel debate on mobile search at the 3GSM World Congress, Barcelona, Olschwang said that the reason Google and Yahoo were all over the mobile industry is that they want to make money.
“Theoretically with mobile search we’re witnessing the creation of another multi-billion dollar industry. That’s the reason Google and Yahoo have booths here, that’s why they’re here,” he said.
But Jim Holden, Google’s director of global wireless strategic partnerships, said, “Our philosophy is not looking for the money but to produce and enable great services and a great customer experience, and hopefully the money will follow.”
He also pointed out that Google didn’t actually have a booth at the show.
Holden had got under Olschwang’s skin with a reply to a question about whether operators should follow own-label branded search or offer internet branded search. According to Holden Google merely tries to position itself as a partner service to fit whatever the operator wants to do in the way the operator wants to evolve it.
But the JumpTap man hit back. “I don’t buy this indifferent appearance of no opinion. You (Holden) and your team are out their chasing partners day and night. Why are they chasing the wireless industry so persistently, redirecting themselves at this new industry. I don’t buy this “Do no evil.”
The question Olschwang could have asked Holden is. “If Google is so open to merely meeting operator needs and a great user experience, is there any example of Google providing its technology and user experience in a white label way?”
During the rest of the debate, there was general agreement on the need for decent mobile centric user experiences, and that mobile search needs to be faster and more relevant than web search, available on mass market phones and without requiring the very highest of bandwidths. But how to get there is clearly more problematical.
• m-spatial has launched Converged Local Search — to stimulate mass market consumer adoption of local search on mobile devices. Converged Local Search is intended to enable operators, directory providers and personal navigation providers to realise the huge potential of local search by linking access to local information across web-sites, 118/411 directory services, mobile data services and personal navigation devices.