America Online (AOL) announced a new mobile search service for mobile phones on Wednesday. The news release said the AOL division of Time Warner is testing a new suite of services that give users access to Search, Pinpoint Shopping and AOL Yellow Pages.
Essentially, any browser-enabled mobile unit will have access to the new service, including PDAs, smarth phones, and the regular cell phones.
AOL has been moving steadily and quickly into the portal/search world with great leaps and bounds, having recently opening up the AOL network for all consumers. This will move AOL into the same Previously, AOL was mostly members only and they had extraordinarily popular chatrooms and bulletin boards and a wide variety of other features.
The new mobile search works the same way a standard desktop search does and the results are automatically format to the mobile user’s screen size and link are clickable. The Pinpoint Shopping gives a comparison shopping feature to AOL searchers to weed through. Folks can compare prices, products and the merchants themselves before dropping a dime.
The mobile search will also have the AOL Yellow Pages and tagged to the feature is MapQuest so as people look up a new restaurant, they can get the directions too.
“At AOL, we are committed to providing people with easy access to the full range of information and services available on the Internet wherever they may go,” said Himesh Bhise, vice president and general manager, AOL Mobile, America Online, Inc. “That’s why we have Right-Sized the Internet’ for small mobile screens, giving users the power to search or shop for anything they need.”
AOL worked the deal with a company called InfoGin Ltd. The Israel based company specialized in mobile technology that will translate traditional sized web pages into a format and size the cell phone can accommodate. The trick is still going to be text and images big enough for the eyes to see.
For folks who want to beta bust this new service, feel free to check out both the main beta site for AOL for instructions and to check out the site from your cell, check out mobile.aolsearch.com.
John Stith is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business.
