Mobile Search Turf War

Mobile search is hotter than it has ever been. Nearly 83% of American Adults are carrying cell phones, with 20% of those being smart devices, one can see marketers urgency to grab their piece of the pie. Towards the end of the first quarter a turf war has started to develop between everyone's favorite tech giants Apple and Google.  There have been reports Apple has their own search engine in the works, and more recently, they've announced their new ad platform iAd. Steve Jobs announced last Thursday that the new operating system for Apple will include advertising capabilities (iAd) allowing the developers of the programs available in the App store to have ads in their software. Scary huh? SoundS like the opening of pandora's box. First development ads, then before I can read my e-mail, BAM! banner ad. I don't think that's too far fetched either.

Nonetheless, why wouldn't Apple capitalize on the one thing Google doesn't completely dominate? (Mobile Search) iPhones make up nearly 65% of the market in mobile web browsing, nearly 8 times the more than the closest competitor; Google's Android. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Apple probably isn't overjoyed with the fact that Google is even competing with them in the mobile sector, let alone that Google search is the preferred search of iPhone users. Gene Munster, top Apple analyst of Piper Jaffray recently stated, "We believe Apple could utilize data unavailable to Google, generated by the company's App Store, to create a mobile centric search engine, which could be a unique offering to Google's search engine." Genius! What's better than search on an Apple?

Apple search on an Apple! Jaffray proceeded, "An iPhone specific search engine could be a difficult undertaking, but we feel Apple could make a minor acquisition of a search company that built a web index, like a Cuil, and utilize the index as the base for building its own engine." Yes, tell me more. . . "We believe the odds of Apple developing a search engine in the next five years are 70%. One hurdle for Apple in developing its own search engine would be generating enough advertiser interest to form a competitive marketplace; however we believe the rationale for an Apple search product is to protect data rather than generate profit." That is a lot to swallow at first, but from here it sounds like Apple's frustrations are with the amount of data the Google has access to from  iPhone users. This data can certainly be used to help Google make decisions about its mobile search practices and strategies.

I'm not taking sides here, but I plan to be ringside when these heavyweights duke it out. This creates exciting opportunities for all of us marketers. Adapting to a more localized, mobile search market will be one of the keys to success moving forward. Given the word 'Google' is more of a verb than anything else at this point in the game, how much effort should mobile marketers put towards anything other than Google? Ultimately the idea for Apple to start a search engine makes sense from their standpoint, but how many people are willing to 'just Apple it?"