Karen Church - A Large-Scale Study of European Mobile Information Access

Slide 1: A Large-Scale Study of European Mobile Information Access Karen Church Adaptive Information Cluster University College Dublin WebCamp on the Emerging Mobile Internet 17th May 2007 DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 2: Our Goal • To understand the information access behaviours of mobile users • Our first study was carried out last year – Are their parallels between emerging mobile search and early Web search? – We found some similarities, however we also found some significant differences  • Nearing the end of a second study – Has the Mobile Internet evolved? DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 3: Outline • Motivations behind our work • Briefly discuss first mobile study • Describe current mobile study • Present key findings • Has the Mobile Internet evolved? • Conclusions DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 4: Motivations • Mobile world is growing rapidly – > 2.5 billion subscribers in 2006 – 28% of subscribers have browsed the Internet via mobile phone (Ipsos Insight) • Browsing dominates the Mobile Internet • However, search activity is increasing – 31% of users searched for 1st time in 2006 (Mobile Marketing Association) – Search will play a more crucial role as users begin to explore off-portal content • However, very little is understood about mobile subscribers and how they access information DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 5: Mobile Study 1 • Data from 2005 • Major European mobile operator • > 30 million requests • > 600,000 users • Single day in 2005 • 1.1 million sessions – 94% browsing, 6% search • 400,000 search queries DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 6: Results - Mobile Study (2005) • Browsing is dominant but search is richer – Duration, bytes downloaded, requests • Access devices are sophisticated – Large screens, XHTML support, color interfaces • Google is most popular search engine – 76% of queries • Search patterns – Avg query length = 2.06, Google = 2.25 – Lots of modifications to queries – Adult content is most popular query category DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 7: Mobile Search vs. Early Web Search • Similarities: – Query length (2.06 vs. 2.35) – Use of advanced search features (3% vs. 5-10%) – Niche interest areas (Adult content) • Differences: – Searches per session (8.7 vs. 4.9) – Unique queries (22% vs. 52-57%) – Repeat Queries (76% vs. 39-43%) – Higher rate of query modification in mobile space DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 8: Mobile Study 2 • Early 2006 • Major European mobile operator • Single week (full 7 days) • > 290 million requests • Almost 10 million sessions • 2.6 million unique users • > 5 million queries • Approx. 5 months between the two datasets DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 9: Session Analysis • Number of sessions and users has increased significantly • Breakdown of search sessions vs. browsing sessions has remained the same • Session duration has also remained similar to previous study • Bytes downloaded during searches has increased DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 10: Number of Sessions • The number of sessions has risen from approx 1.1 million to 1.4 million per day (on average) 1,600,000 Number of Sessions 1,200,000 800,000 400,000 0 Mobile 2005 Mobile 2006 DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 11: Number of Users • The number of users has risen from approx. 600K to 745K per day (on average) 800000 Number of Users 600000 400000 200000 0 Mobile 2005 Mobile 2006 DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 12: How popular is search? • The percentage of search vs. browsing sessions has remained similar • Browsing remains dominant on Mobile Internet 7% Browsing Search 93% DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 13: How many users search? • The percentage of users who search vs. users who only browse for information has remained static 8% Browsing Users Search Users 92% DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 14: How long do people spend online? • On average users spends 3 times as long searching than they do when browsing 15 Average Session Duration 13 m 59 s 12 (Minutes) 9 6 3 4 m 18 s 0 Browsing Sessions Search Sessions DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 15: How rich are sessions (bytes downloaded)? • On average users download 5 times as much content than they do when browsing 350 270 Kb Average KB Downloaded 300 First 322 Kb Study 250 200 150 100 50 63.5 Kb 0 Browsing Sessions Search Sessions DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 16: Search Engine Analysis • Breakdown of queries by search engine • > 30 different mobile search engines • Google still dominates Mobile Search • Use of operator-specific search has decreased • Use of mobile-specific search has decreased DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 17: Search Engine Popularity 2006 2005 Search Engine No % Queries % Queries 1 Google 84.91 76.2 2 Operator-Specific Search 8.66 14.4 3 Yahoo 3.61 5.7 4 eCommerce Search 1.77 1.6 5 Wap Search Engines/Directories 0.82 1.6 (Includes: TagTag, Click4Wap, Mooobl, Ithaki, etc.) 6 Other Major Search Engines (Includes: AskJeeves, AllTheWeb, MSN, AOL, etc) 0.19 0.4 7 Misc (Includes: image and ringtone search) 0.03 0.1 DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 18: Query Analysis • Search on mobiles is growing! – The number of queries per day has doubled (on average) in the 5 month period • Query length has increased • Use of advanced search features decreased  Showing signs of evolution DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 19: Number of Queries • The number of queries per day has doubled! 1000000 Number of Queries 800000 600000 400000 200000 0 Mobile 2005 Mobile 2006 DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 20: Number of Unique Queries • When we examine unique queries, the number has increased significantly 120000 Number of UniqueQueries 90000 60000 30000 0 Mobile 2005 Mobile 2006 DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 21: Query Length • 2.15 terms per query on average • Up from 2.06 terms per query in Mobile 2005 • Google queries are longer in length – 2.22 terms (2005) – 2.26 terms (2006) DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 22: Advanced Search Features Use of Advanced Features Freq Totals % AND/And/and 6613 862953.3 0.766322 OR/Or/or 427.2857 862953.3 0.049514 NOT/AND NOT 3.142857 862953.3 0.000364 + 2079.714 862953.3 0.241 - 11755.29 862953.3 1.362216 \"\" 1905.571 862953.3 0.22082 () 351.8571 862953.3 0.040774 & 2458.571 862953.3 0.284902 Total 24571 2.847315 • This figure is down from 3.04% in the Mobile 2005 study. DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 23: Queries per Session • The number of queries per session has increased from 5.8 to 8.6 10 Queries per Session 8 8.6 6 5.8 4 2 0 Mobile 2005 Mobile 2006 DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 24: Queries per User • The average number of queries per user has increased significantly from 8.7 to 13.6 14 13.6 12 Queries per User 10 8 8.7 6 4 2 0 Mobile 2005 Mobile 2006 DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 25: What do mobile users search for? 70 60 % Top 500 Queries 50 40 30 20 10 0 ult C to C n rt ile es h in edia ce Un on So Mu ent er r ow g eC Spo es In UG c EM Au e Ad ob tin m ar er i ca ath at vic inm kn Ga Se ltim Da M m rm Lo We om ta g/ fo lS er / ws t liz En Ne cia DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 26: Future Work • Query modifications & query similarity • Device analysis • Result-page analysis – Avg. position of results clicked – Avg num of results clicked – Avg num result pages viewed • Temporal analyses – Time of day, day of week, etc. DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 27: Conclusions • The Mobile Internet is evolving fast • In 5 month period, mobile search is showing signs of significant change • More users, more sessions • Search is evolving – Queries are longer – More queries per user – More queries per session – Changes in topics  User Generated Content DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361

Slide 28: Thank You Questions/Comments? Karen Church Karen.church@ucd.ie Phone: +353 7165355 DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN This material is based upon work supported by Science Foundation Ireland under Grant No. 03/IN3/1361