By guest author: Peggy Anne Salz

In-Brief: An in-depth look at GET, a mobile search service (in beta in the U.S.) that allows users to find and purchase ringtones, games, videos and wallpapers from their mobile phone. Are Traasdahl, CEO and founder of leading mobile content destination Thumbplay, connects the dots in Thumbplay’s big-picture strategy to build added value around mobile search and – ultimately – advertising.

Special thanks (and kudos) to David Berkowitz, marketing strategist/blogger and Director of Emerging Media & Client Strategy at 360i, a full-service digital agency. He caught the news that Thumbplay had entered the mobile search space and then expertly integrated it into his regular column (via MediaPost).

His segmentation of mobile search is on the mark and points the way to an interesting trend: the emergence of hybrid mobile search models. Fortunately, he also passed my details to Chaim Haas, who manages PR for Thumbplay, along with the information that mobile search is both my expertise and passion.

The result is an exclusive briefing with Are Trassdahl and a preview of cool things yet to come.

But first some basics that may have got lost in the CTIA shuffle and flood of other press/product releases. GET is Thumbplay’s SMS mobile search service – based entirely on the company’s own IP – that literally lets users “get” mobile content by texting the word “Get” plus any artist or song name to 48000. The user receives a WAP link that they can click to land at a large menu of relevant content in Thumbplay’s catalog, which currently includes more than 80,000 pieces of licensed audio, video and gaming content from many major music labels, artists and game publishers, as well as media and entertainment companies. There the user can browse the results and then purchase and download. As Are put it: “GET streamlines the way consumers can search for, browse and download mobile entertainment content from their cell phones.”

The concept is hardly revolutionary; there are other SMS mobile search services on the market. (In fact, I picked up on a huge interest in SMS search schemes among Asian operators who attended MSEGIII (Mobile Search Expert Group) last month. But this time it’s a brand that has harnessed keyword mobile search to boost sales and stake out a booming vertical: downloadable mobile content. Hmmmm. I remember that was Google’s goal last year (before it got side-tracked/focussed on Android, spectrum etc…). Will Thumbplay eat Google’s lunch?

After all, Google’s still indexing mobile content for its mobile content superstore/search scheme (from what I hear). With this announcement Thumbplay now has huge stockpile of Long Tail mobile content AND mobile search….

What does Are think? “I expect to see Google and Yahoo in this space soon.” But so far no other content companies focused on this vertical – and if they are they don’t have Are’s ambitious business model in mind.

Are sees mobile search as a value-add that can lay the groundwork for a much larger business ecosystem of mobile content providers – all revolving around Thumbplay and its ability to make their content searchable, findable and buyable. A happy coincidence: I have been a strong proponent of precisely this model ever since Schibsted turned me on to it a few years back. It created the Sesam portal, brought content companies on board and then outperformed Google by a mile (a stellar rise documented in articles posted in the Portfolio section of MSG). It turns out Are also came from Schibsted so we’re in complete agreement on the power of providing mobile search as a service to partners. Knowing that I now expect great things from Thumbplay…

Other highlights from our impromtu Q&A:

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 3:00 am and is filed under Guest Authors, Reviews, Verticals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.