BusinessWeek has a very interesting article about the future of mobile search, and which companies are likely to become the dominant players in what is expected to be an advertising market worth over $11 billion by 2011 (BusinessWeek forecast).

Although giants Google and Yahoo are reported as having the largest number of mobile subscribers, startup companies such as Medio have been closing deals with operators to incorporate search with other functions in a mobile portal. As such, their subscribers are not counted independently, and they may in fact have more active users than the web search engines.

Further, the customer desires and resource constraints are quite different in the mobile world, making it not at all a sure bet that a dominant position in internet search will lead to a top position in mobile search. Consumers rarely if ever want to do research on a phone, they simply want relevant information as quickly as possible. On the other hand, the lack of handset processing power, limited screen size, potentially slower data connections and lack of a real keyboard make providing a compelling customer experience much more challenging.

Finally, the point that may ultimately determines the outcome is business model. The startups from day one have supported revenue share with the operator, whereas that is not at all a part of the internet search equation.

Read the full article HERE