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Search is the de facto interface to content online, but mobile search is a whole different ball game. Users will need simple and effective ways to find things on the mobile web, but a new model based around recommendation engines is the key.

Peggy Ann Salz explains.

Selling content is no longer about user-pull. Pull is built on the premise that users know what they want and are prepared to go look for it.

That’s quite an assumption when it comes to fast-paced content such as entertainment and multimedia, which changes faster than users can keep up. The pull model also ignores the rise of empowered customers who increasingly expect – even demand - content and services consistently tailored to their individual tastes – even before they ask for it. Make way for a new content-push model based on a deep understanding of the individual user’s purchases, passions and past click-behavior.
Such an approach deep-dives in the customer data to deliver the right content to the right user under the right circumstances to clinch the sale.

This personalized pitch is hotwired into a new approach offered by Xiam, an Irish provider of content discovery solutions. Its server-based MPOS (My Personal Offers System) solution brings together all the content on an operator portal, enabling operators to create a holistic view of the subscriber and respond with a well-rounded offer of entertainment content.

Put another way, Xiam intuit user content preferences from data including billing information, mobile browsing logs and purchase history, to deliver users a variety of related content including news, images, wallpapers, video clips, games – and whatever else the operator might have on offer. The company has also developed an ad component that uses the same techniques the company uses to match the right user to the right content to serve up relevant ads related to the content.
The approach has two advantages; it allows mobile operators to expose users to more content and it meets users’ requirements for increased variety and relevancy. “It’s about giving customer access to more varied content that interests them, and access to content they would not otherwise have found,” explains Jim Small, Jim Small, Portal Relevance Manager at Orange UK. In September Orange sealed a deal with Xiam to provide users real-time recommendations across the Orange World Portal. The aim is to expose users to personalized content that is relevant to their own specific interests.

“It is the first time our customers will be able to access a diverse range of content services through a tailored recommendations page on Orange World that is based on the intelligence we have gathered from each user’s previous visits,” Small says. “For us it is about enhancing and personalizing the customer experience, whilst increasing customer loyalty and content revenues.”

How much of an up-tick does Orange expect? To date Orange is “seeing click-through rates of 60 per cent on some categories, compared with 3 to 5 per cent on the Internet, and we can only expect this to continue with the introduction of recommended content,” Small says.

Moving forward, Xiam is focused on enabling fixed-mobile recommendations across a variety of platforms and services such as PC and IPTV. The strategy would allow users to have a common experience as they interface with different content portals and services across different devices. Users could receive recommendations on what to watch on TV in the evening based on the content they browsed on your mobile during the day, for example.