Beijing Olympics committee taps mInfo for mobile site, search

By Gabrielle Kalika

July 9, 2008

The mandarins choose

The Beijing Organization Committee of the Olympic Games confirmed that it has appointed mInfo as the official mobile search provider for this year’s Olympic Games.

The Chinese mobile search and advertising company has been selected to provide the official mobile site and search engine for the 2008 Olympics.

The mobile site at http://wap.beijing2008.cn will provide real-time information for a variety of queries regarding the Olympic Games to international users.

The Chinese government-sanctioned mobile Internet site is available in simplified or traditional Mandarin, as well as in English.

Shanghai Stadium has been recently equipped with mobile access via Chinas 3G platform.

However, aside from the official mobile site, the Chinese government has placed a ban on unauthorized broadcast of Olympic events and related activities by Internet media and mobile platforms.

The mobile site and search service, created by the mInfo's Chengdu development team, was launched last month. Visitors to wap.beijing2008.cn can view event schedules, real-time scores, venue information, news and athlete profiles by entering a question in the search box.

MInfo's three-year-old search platform claims to be the only Chinese search engine that allows consumers to find results by entering complete questions in the search box, as opposed to keywords, resulting in more targeted responses.

MInfo currently provides mobile search services to an estimated 600 million mobile subscribers in China.

Founded in 2005, mInfo operates both the mInfo and Guanxi brands of search services. Its services are available across China on all four major carriers via SMS, WAP, instant messenger and embedded clients.

Headquartered in Shanghai, mInfo's mobile search services operate with natural language and personalization technologies. The company also has offices in Beijing, Guangzhou and Chengdu in China and Seattle as well.

Comments on "Beijing Olympics committee taps mInfo for mobile site, search"

1. Adrian Hall says:

   July 10, 2008 at 12:22pm

   mInfo's selection as the official mobile site and search engine for the 2008 Olympics is undoubtedly a harbinger of the demand for mobile web offerings that the Beijing games will trigger. As this announcement suggests, the approaching Olympics will provide wireless carriers with an unprecedented opportunity to drive user adoption of the mobile Internet by fans who want constant updates and replays on the go. In order to fully capitalize on this opportunity, carriers will need to provide a superior user experience by leveraging the roll-out of 3G networks, a new paradigm for mobile device price/performance, increasing browser sophistication, and multimedia content adaptation and optimization.
   
   Adrian Hall, CMO, Bytemobile