Free Mobile Search For The Masses?Amid all the excitement about mobile search offers, promoted by the usual suspects, it’s important not to lose sight of the nimble start-ups that will no doubt give the heavyweights a run for their money. As this article points out, one that has quietly carved out its turf is Webaroo (headquartered in Bellevue, with offices in Santa Clara, Mumbai and New Delhi. The company, which allows users to search from their laptop or mobile device for free, has already signed up Acer to bundle the application on its laptops as a global distribution deal (in which Acer also gets a small share of advertising revenues). Webaroo is also gearing up to announce similar deals with mobile manufacturers.
In a nutshell, Webaroo has essentially put the Internet on a hard drive. Its technology allows users to download the most relevant pages from the Internet to their desktops or mobiles, enabling what Chirag Jain, vice president of Webaroo’s Indian operations, described in the article as a “connected experience but in an offline form.� (Webaroo caches can be synched to mobile phones – it supports only Windows Smartphones; no sign of anything for Symbian.) The company’s business model is based on mobile advertising and allowing advertisers to reach mobile users even when they are not connected to the Internet. What’s more, Webaroo has created Web Packs—large collections of Web pages containing related data for a slew of topics including sports teams, wines, and movie actors (offering brands another channel to users). The packs are filled with fresh content because the software synchronises with the real Web every time the user gets a data connection. The jury is out on this one, but the concept of free mobile search offline is one that has obvious appeal to users – and the opportunities for brands to sponsor content, or reach users through Web Packs, may be too good to pass up.
