Taptu app searches for “iPhone-friendly content”
Search applications for mobile phones don’t need to emulate their computer-desktop counterparts. Yahoo oneSearch deliberately returns results different from the company’s website, based on Yahoo’s research that found customers searching from a phone tended to be looking for a narrow set of items — phone numbers, directions, flight info — and that creating phone-centric results tested better than trying to build another Googlephone.
Now startup Taptu has launched a free search app for the iPhone. The company previously launched a browser-based version of its app as well as a Symbian 60 phone app last year. It claims its latest release returns “iPhone-friendly” results. But what that apparently means is that they’re loaded with what seem to be a mix of bizdev-deal and curated results from digital magazine publisher Zinio, religious sermon publisher SermonAudio, and even Yahoo oneSearch. The company serves ads targeted to the phone owner’s search.
So, compared to Yahoo’s results, you could call Taptu’s pretty scattershot. Searching for “speakers” brings up the E section of the alphabetical index of SermonAudio speakers. (Actually, I was looking for add-on loudspeakers to buy for my iPhone.) Typing in “Britney” returns her oneSpace page, but a search for “K-Fed” returns a comedy sketch about Britney and K-Fed from MadTV.
Taptu has the right idea but lacks the consistent feel of Yahoo oneSearch. The obvious question is, can a startup keep up with Yahoo at creating phone-specific results? The answer, for now, seems to be no.
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About the Author, Paul Boutin
Paul (paul@venturebeat.com) covers Apple & the iPhone, social networks & social media, digital music & video, and any crazy Internet story. Paul wrote and edited for Valleywag from 2006-2008, after several years with Wired magazine and Slate. He writes regularly for The New York Times' technology section and sometimes for Wired and The Wall Street Journal. He studied computer science at MIT in the early 1980s, and worked as a software developer and network administrator for 15 years before becoming a professional writer. Follow him on Twitter at @paulboutin, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
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