Medio Enables Site Search for WAP Publishers

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Mobile search provider Medio Systems prepped its MobileNow ad network to provide search functionality on mobile publisher sites. CBS Mobile signed on as the network's first publisher.

"We're taking our search functionality we've been delivering to carriers over the past two or three years and extending it to publishers on the mobile Web," said Barry Chu, Medio's general manager of advertising.

Medio Mobile Search for publishers is optimized for the mobile experience. The platform has a basic structure based on content, but then adapted to each publisher. Queries for news sites differ from requests for stock information or sports scores.

Launch publisher CBS Mobile has multiple sites. The CBS properties include CBS Mobile News, CBS Sports Mobile, and CW Mobile, the latter of which is based on the CBS and Warner Bros. Entertainment joint venture, The CW channel.

In addition to providing search, Media will run keyword-based sponsored links targeted to search terms. As publisher, CBS then gets a share of ad revenues.

Search results pull information directly from the publisher, and also from the entire mobile Web. The publisher's content is also added to the Medio Mobile Web index with content from Medio partner sites.

Medio works with publishers directly to update data, tag, and index content to deliver the most relevant results to users, said Chu. "There's synergy when we work with them both in terms of giving exposure and in terms of providing usefulness in mobile search and monetizing," he said.

Medo's mobile search for publishers is a way for the company to extend its presence, which has remained largely on carrier decks, and in building a PPC mobile ad network. "It's not a saturation question, more of a maturation of our technology itself," said Chu. "We've built the carrier search technology. It's relatively easy for us now to extend it to the publisher."