InfoSpace is launching local mobile search


location based services

Finding a restaurant, getting directions or checking movie times is a quick phone call away on a mobile phone.

The call — to 411 — costs about $1.50. But there's another option. Called local mobile search, the service incorporates Yellow Page listings and other information with location-based services such as global positioning system, or GPS.

Using local mobile search, information can be found based on location rather than entering an address. InfoSpace of Bellevue has incorporated this technology in a new version of its Find It application, which is launching today on the Sprint and Nextel networks.

The application, which must be downloaded to the phone to work, will cost $2.99 a month for unlimited searches, or roughly the price of two phone calls to 411. It will be available on about 25 handsets, which reaches nearly 30 million of Sprint Nextel subscribers.

"We are targeting the 411 users," said InfoSpace Chief Executive Jim Voelker. "It's a poor man's navigation."

The service works on GPS-enabled phones and phones that don't have GPS by using the nearest cellphone tower as a locator.

The application is pretty basic. The main menu provides three options: search by name, search by category and map or directions. At the top of the screen is the address where you are.

By clicking on categories, you can search through a number of options, such as the nearest ATM, movie theaters, banks, malls, parking garages, cleaners, restaurants and more. Click on "restaurants," and you can choose type of cuisine. If you need help finding the place, it will provide turn-by-turn directions or a map.

InfoSpace is not the only company targeting this space.

Beyond search giants Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft, other Seattle-area companies are in the field. Those include Medio Systems, which is targeting a broader set of search capabilities, and Bellevue-based Action Engine.




InfoSpace said about $3 billion is expected to be spent on mobile directory assistance this year.

The opportunity is not only in collecting a monthly fee, but also in advertising revenues, said Neal Polachek, senior vice president at The Kelsey Group, a research firm.

"It's potentially much bigger," Polachek said. "It won't be just directory assistance, but local mobile search with an ad revenue model."

Voelker said that eventually he could see InfoSpace's application becoming free, but he isn't sure how that would work yet.

The mobile phone doesn't have the PC's advantage of having plenty of screen space for a banner ad.

"It's not like the Web, where they pay for placement," Voelker said. But first, he said, there must be a significant number of consumers using it.

"We have to watch the volume in order to justify the administrative work that would be required to do it," he added.

Tricia Duryee: 206-464-3283 or tduryee@seattletimes.com. Contributor to Tech Tracks, seattletimes.com/techtracks.

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