Mobile phones represent next frontier for search

By Daisuke Wakabayashi

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - "Mobile, mobile, mobile" were the words of Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt this week when asked what technologies are most intriguing to the computer Web search leader.

Google, which generates billions of dollars from online advertising, is racing to bring consumer services like search to the phone. Its rivals in this field include Yahoo Inc., which has made strides in the fast-emerging mobile Web market, and Microsoft Corp., which bought voice-recognition technology company Tellme Networks Inc. last month.

"The biggest growth areas are clearly within the mobile space," Schmidt said during a question-and-answer session at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

Pay-per-click advertising tied to Web search results erupted into a multibillion-dollar industry within a few years, and Internet companies hope mobile phone services will follow a similar growth trajectory.

ABI Research forecast global mobile marketing and advertising to increase sixfold to $19 billion by 2011 from an estimated $3 billion by the end of 2007.

Google, which controls nearly 50 percent of the U.S. Web search market, is not necessarily a lock to carry over its success on the computer screen to the mobile phone.

"One of the big game changers is mobile," said Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media, a publisher of several popular lines of technology manuals for software programmers.

"Google's dominance in search is dependent on this idea that we sit, typing away at a keyboard to look up information," he said, "but we are in for some huge disruptive upsets."