Mobile Content Networks (MCN), which provides real-time, federated mobile search solutions, has revealed that three mobile operators in Thailand – AIS, DTAC, and TrueMove – have selected MCN to launch SMS-triggered search, using a common shortcode.
Now almost 50 million mobile phone users in Thailand can text their search query to 4530111 to initiate real-time search connections to hundreds of thousands of downloadable content items in popular mobile content categories like Music, Images, and Games, and get the content they want in two or three clicks, directly from local content sources. The MCN-powered SMS Triggered Search services build on the WAP-based search applications that MCN has powered for all three operators since early 2007.
For over a year, weve shown our unique ability to provide direct, real-time, high value WAP search results for each partner in Thailand under their own brand and business rules, says MCN CEO Marc Bookman. With SMS Triggered Search, we now dramatically expand the addressable market for transaction-focused digital content discovery, not only in Thailand, but also across dozens of other emerging and mature mobile markets.
ABI Research recently forecast that overall SMS search queries will grow from 12.9 billion in 2008 to 76 billion in 2013.
MCN-powered WAP search has provided a consistent, high quality, real-time mobile search experience for DTAC subscribers since March, 2007, says Pakorn Pannachet, Senior Vice President, Value Added Services, at DTAC. Now, with our new DTAC Content Search Services, we are excited to bring this same experience to all of our SMS users, and believe the use of the common 4530111 shortcode will dramatically accelerate mobile content discovery and sales.