Monthly Archives: February 2008

Opera Mini Chooses Google as its Default Search Engine (Again…)

Opera Mini announced today that Google will now be its default mobile search engine. A Google search box will be present on top of Opera Mini Start Page. This deal will definitely help Google increase its mobile search market share. Opera said that most of its traffic is generated from the search function on its browser:

Every month, Opera Mini users browse more than 1.7 billion pages, with much of that traffic generated through the search function in the browser.

It’s funny to note that Google used to be Opera Mini’s default search engine, but was replaced by Yahoo! in January 2007.

Nokia to add Google Mobile on its handsets

Nokia has its own mobile search application, embedded in some of its cell phone models. The application currently provides shortcuts to Yahoo! OneSearch, Microsoft Live Search Mobile, Baidu and Yandex.

Today, Nokia announced that it will add Google to the list of search engines that consumers can access from its phones.

Nokia explained that it prefers to gives choices to their customers, rather than just providing one search engine.

“Providing choices for our consumers is an important driver in Nokia’s Internet service strategy,” Ilkka Raiskinen, Nokia’s vice-president of software and services, said in a statement issued at the Mobile World Congress wireless fair in Barcelona.

TeliaSonera Ditches Microsoft, Chooses JumpTap as their New Mobile Search Provider

Up until now, TeliaSonera, the largest mobile network operator in Finland and Sweden, was using MotionBridge (acquired my Microsoft in 2006) for their on-portal search service. I’ve heard from an inside source that in the 2 weeks, TeliaSonera will relaunch a brand new search service on their WAP portal in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. TeliaSonera will stop working with Microsoft. Instead they have chosen JumpTap, a white label mobile search engine that has been growing during the last 2 years.

TeliaSonera’s mobile content providers will still be able to index their content with JumpTap, so that users can find them via search keywords, just like MotionBridge/Microsoft. What’s new is the paid search solution offer. Advertisers can now buy sponsored listings from JumpTap to appear in the search results, there will be two ads per page.

TeliaSonera’s WAP portal is also going to be revamped, and the focus will on mobile Internet thanks to a tool called SurfOpen, you can find more information about that on this press release.

This is yet another case where a mobile network company chooses to work with a white label search engine, rather than one of the big 3s. Let’s wait a few months or years to see if this choice proves to be the right one for users, advertisers, and mobile phone companies.

Confirmed: Microsoft Offers to Buy Yahoo! for $44.6 Billion

This day has come my friends. Microsoft just offered to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 Billion, or $31 a share. According to the press release:

Microsoft’s proposal would allow the Yahoo! shareholders to elect to receive cash or a fixed number of shares of Microsoft common stock, with the total consideration payable to Yahoo! shareholders consisting of one-half cash and one-half Microsoft common stock. The offer represents a 62 percent premium above the closing price of Yahoo! common stock on Jan. 31, 2008.

This could be huge and really shakes up the search industry. Go for it Yahoo! !!!