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Cambridge, Massachussets-based JumpTap has announced the expansion of their European mobile search and advertising network. The company is adding offices in Madrid, Spain and Stockholm, Sweden as part of the expansion. JumpTap pointed to recent projections from eMarketer, which see European spending tripling over the next three years, as part of the reason for the expansion.

“We are experiencing stellar renewal rates from our advertisers in Europe which is attributed to highly successful campaign results,” commented Dan Olschwang, president and CEO of JumpTap. “We have established our superior leadership working with the mobile advertising medium across global markets, and our clients are gaining a competitive advantage derived from our expertise and lessons learned.”

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Google leads in UK search engine spending for the first quarter of 2008, according to data released by Efficient Frontier. The search engine enjoyed 85% of the market. Click-Through Rates (CTR) actually saw a slight decline for Google over Q4 2007, but the ROI increased by 14%.

The same couldn’t be said for Yahoo. Yahoo’s search advertising market share was 11.9%, down 0.5% from Q4 2007. CTR declined 38% quarter-over-quarter and ROI declined 6%.

MSN increased their market share by 0.4% in Q1 to reach a 3.5% market share in the UK. While MSN’s ROI dropped 10%, it was still 17% higher than Google’s ROI.

Related Reading:
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Social Networking on Mobile Phones is Hot in the UK
Google Sees 79% European Market Share in March 2008

Superpages.com has launched a Yahoo! Widget to provide easy local searching. The results come up right in the widget and once a business is clicked on, users will see reviews, maps and a business profile.

This is the latest effort by Superpages.com to adapt to an ever-changing marketplace. Previously, the company has developed Superpages.com applications for mobile phones, including Blackberry. Superpages also has a Google Gadget and a Browser Toolbar.

Nielsen has released data showing the popularity of social networks being used via mobile phones in the UK. Here are three key takeaway points:

Almost half (44%) of UK mobile phone subscribers belong to an online social network. Of this group, one in four (25%) use their mobile phone for social networking-related activities

• Around 812,000 Britons each month, or 1.7% of all UK mobile subscribers, visited a social networking website using their mobile during the first quarter of 2008
• Facebook is the most popular site for mobile social networking, being visited by over half a million Britons (557,000) from their mobiles, or 9% of all UK Mobile Internet subscribers

Kent Ferguson, Client Services Manager, Nielsen Mobile had this to say about the data: “Social networking is already a global phenomenon, and mobile could be the next big thing in the space. Large numbers of people are interacting with their social networking profiles while they’re on the move. There could be increased consumer demand for mobile social networking driven by the flat fee price plans offered by the leading operators that give subscribers unlimited mobile Internet access.”

So what do you think? Are social media and mobile phones colliding? Leave a comment and let us know!

Search Engine Strategies London wrapped up last week and the 2,000 attendees have returned to work with a new understanding of how Google’s universal search is incorporating images as well as videos, news, maps, books, and websites into a single set of results. And, demonstrating that they aren’t the cobbler’s children, some of the speakers at SES London 2008 have shared their news photos, party pictures and professional event photography with the rest of us.

As I mentioned in my previous post, “Tag your Photobucket, Picasa and Flickr photos: SES London 2008,” I have selected the Best Photo of SES London 2008, the Best Photos of SES London, and Best Photography of SES London 2008.

The envelope, please.

And the winner of the Best Photo of a market trend at SES London 2008 is … Mel Carson, adCenter Community Manager, Europe, Microsoft adCenter. The winning entry can be found on Mel’s Biog in a post entitled, “SES London 2008 - A Few Pictures.” Mel captured the Orion Panel All-Star Analytics Team – Jim Sterne, Bryan Eisenberg, Ian Thomas, and Steven Jackson – all on their mobile phones! Coincidence? I think not.

Mel wins one static text link to his blog: DigiTales & Other Stories.

As of this afternoon, there were 451 photos from sessions, panels, exhibits, the night life, and everything in between in the SES London 2008 Flickr pool. Now, you might think this would make it extremely difficult to select the winner of the next award. But, you would be wrong.

The envelope, please.

And the winner of the Best Photos of SES London 2008 posted to a photo sharing site is … Liana “Li” Evans, Director of Internet Marketing at KeyRelevance. With 300 photos, Li (aka storyspinn) was the top contributor to our group photo pool on Flickr.

Li wins one static text link to one of her blogs: Search Marketing Gurus.

The final award is for Best Photography of SES London 2008 by a professional photographer.

The envelope, please.

And the winner is … Edward Klaus of ProPictures. Now, I should disclose that SES London is a client and that I hired ProPictures to help document the event at the Business Design Centre in Islington. But, I hope there’s no debate over the quality of the 113 photos that they took at SES London 2008. Make your own judgment by looking at five of Edward’s photos below.

Still, it would be wrong to link to someone that I hired. It would appear to be a conflict of interest. So, instead, let me donate one static text link to The Scientist Photographers Group’s Annual Charity Project, which supports Medecins Sans Frontieres / Doctors without Borders.

Which raises an interesting question: Why doesn’t the search engine marketing industry have a similar charity projectt? If you’re going to SES New York next month, let me know what you think of this idea.

And don’t forget to bring your camera or cameraphone.

The Business Design Centre in Islington

Audience listening to the Orion Panel: All-Star Analytics Team

Left to right: Kevin Ryan, Fredrick Marckini and Mike Grehan at SES London 2008

Catching up with the office between sessions at Search Engine Strategies London

The Landing Page Testing & Tuning session at SES London 2008

While the Google vs. Nokia global battle escalates (GPS-enabled Nokia phones vs. Google Android-driven handsets), the mobile phone is fast becoming the gateway to the Internet, Wireless Web and local search.

You can imagine the frantic calls lately between Silicon Valley and Redmond:

Steve: “Jerry, have your people call my people.”
Jerry: “Frack off, Steve.”

Yahoo announced a strategic partnership today with T-Mobile in Europe. Yahoo! oneSearch will become the exclusive mobile search service for T-Mobile’s 11 European markets by the end of next month. Yahoo! oneSearch is designed for mobile phones to deliver relevant results and instant answers without navigating through a sea of blue links.

A number of Yahoo! oneSearch partnerships have been announced in the last year. Since introducing Yahoo! oneSearch in early 2007, Yahoo! has signed partnership agreements with more than 29 mobile operators covering more than 600 million mobile subscribers worldwide.

In a statement, Marco Boerries, execute vice president, Connected Life, Yahoo, said, “When we created Yahoo! oneSearch, we had a belief that mobile search was not the same as PC search. A fundamentally different approach was required, one that included different usage models and results filtering. Most importantly, we believed there was no guarantee that success in PC search would automatically translate into similar success in mobile search, creating a real opportunity for those who innovate.”

Recent strategic Yahoo! oneSearch partnerships include AT&T (United States), a global framework agreement with America Movil (16 countries across Latin America), a partnership with Rogers Wireless (Canada), partnerships with 16 operators (Asia Pacific Region), and an agreement with Telefonica (portals in 15 countries in Europe and Latin America). Yahoo! will be the exclusive or preferred mobile search service on the carrier portal.

Yahoo! oneSearch has added Flight Tracker, movie reviews (critics and UGC), and movie trailers (select carriers/handsets), along with Yahoo! Answers and Wikipedia. If you’re lucky enough to read this at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Yahoo will discuss its strategy for the local mobile search ecosystem.

Or, if you’re in New York, join the Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Strategies, and ClickZ teams at the Yahoo Search Spotlight Awards.

Machine translation from voice to text promises to be the grail of local mobile search. Michael Fitzgerald in The New York Times today highlights voice search and voice recognition software in gadgets that “Listen and Obey.”
For example, with the new Vlingo app (Microsoft TellMe competitor), searchers can speak into their mobile phones send SMS messages [...]

Machine translation from voice to text promises to be the grail of local mobile search. Michael Fitzgerald in The New York Times today highlights voice search and voice recognition software in gadgets that “Listen and Obey.”

For example, with the new Vlingo app (Microsoft TellMe competitor), searchers can speak into their mobile phones send SMS messages to find and download Souljah Boy Tellem songs. Instead of texting a friend to decide on a sushi restaurant, Vlingo Find (integrated with Yahoo Maps) lets you talk it over and pinpoint the restaurant of choice.

Listen and obey? That’s optimistic. Voice recognition still can’t guess users intentions easily. Om Malik discussed Vlingo way back in August 2007, but we’re glad the Times is highlighting innovations in mobile search and local search.

Plus, voice search won’t achieve ubiquity until it’s faster to talk than type.

Soon 80 percent of the mobile phones in Japan will feature the Google search engine.
That doesn’t necessarily mean Google will have an 80 percent share of all Japanese local mobile searches. Google partnerships with the #1 and #2 mobile carriers in Japan forces Yahoo and MSN to compete for the bronze.
Here’s the math: Google [...]

Soon 80 percent of the mobile phones in Japan will feature the Google search engine.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Google will have an 80 percent share of all Japanese local mobile searches. Google partnerships with the #1 and #2 mobile carriers in Japan forces Yahoo and MSN to compete for the bronze.

Here’s the math: Google (NTT DocCoMo + KDDI) = 80 percent of the Japanese mobile phone market. Not a bad equation.

Google announced today a partnership with NTT DoCoMo to place the Google search box, apps and services on 48 million mobile users in Japan.

Nothing extraordinary here — bigger share of searches, ubiquity of Gmail — all in search of local mobile ad revenue, and of course, indexing all the world’s information.

The partners aren’t strangers: Google NTT Docomo are shooting for 10 billion yen (only 942 million USD) in shared ad revenue (split undisclosed) with a Linux-based mobile handset in Japan.

Expect more partnerships post-Davos and pre-Google earnings announcements.