Mobile search is an interesting market. Mobile users, by definition always on the move, want to easily seek information through their mobile devices. To date, WAP services and SMS based searching (ie. sending a string query to a server and getting a response/menu back) have been the general offerings. The SMS/MMS solution is nice, because you get a persistent record of your query back. For example, say you are driving on the road and send out a query to find a restaurant location. Getting back the directions and contact information in a text message is considerably useful.

What other technologies would be cool? For one thing, voice-recognition queries could really make the service user-friendly. Essentially, this would be a front end to the search. Instead of typing out the query, a user would just speak the query after dialing into a search service. On the answering side, the server would listen, perform the query and deliver a message back. It could answer verbally, and/or also send back a text message to provide the persistent record for the end user. A smart interface would give the ability to let the user decide what to do. Perhaps through caller id, a user’s preferences could be stored so that once the user decided on his preferences (ie. voice response only, voice and sms, sms only), the search service would reply according to his user account settings.