Since we last took a look at Microsoft’s Live Search for Mobile back in February, the team in Redmond has significantly enhanced it’s mobile search offering.

Through the new Products feature (in beta), Live Mobile users can now access detailed product information for a number of categories. For example, a search of the term “laptops” returned a summary view of four of the more popular laptops, including a product image, make and model, price range, and the number of stars based on user ratings.

The Live Mobile service also includes the other existing sections of results, which are included in the list below:

• Products (beta)
• Web
• Images
• News
• Spaces
• Local
• Map

In order for the Local and Map to be enabled, the user must set their location either by entering their zip code or portion of their address themselves, or by utilizing the new “Find My Location” feature. This recently-added feature gets the location of the user through triangulation of nearby cell phone towers.

Try it out the next time you are making a large purchase and see if your price is competitive.

Mobile Search Website:

http://m.live.com

Microsoft’s Live search engine, often a distant third in terms of search engine traffic, has been getting some respect recently for improving their algorithm. (Of course, that might be scrapped if the Yahoo! purchase goes through).

In any case, it’s time to give their mobile search a plug. Does anyone out there already use Windows Live Search as their default mobile search engine? Any Windows Mobile phone users, perhaps?

Give it a go for yourself and let us know what you think!

Mobile Website:

http://m.live.com

Since we’re based in the U.S., we have a tendency to focus on mobile websites that serve folks here in the States. With that in mind, we figured it’s high time we gave some mobile-love to our friends on the other side of the pond. After all, they did give us David Beckham.

Today we present MSN UK, mobile edition. The home page of this MSN portal (we realize nobody uses the dreaded portal word anymore, but until you give us something better, we’re sticking with it) provides a headline and summary of the top news story, links to entertainment and sports content, and a London weather forecast for the next four days.

While the page tabs are consistently displayed at the top of the screen, what’s missing are the navigation links normally found at the bottom of mobile websites. Images and graphics are kept to a minimum, which helps those users with limited data plans.

Give it a run for yourself and let us know what you think. Cheerio!

Mobile Website:

http://pocketpc.msn.co.uk/Default.asp

For anyone just starting to use the web browser on their mobile phone, or who don’t yet have a core set of mobile sites they use on a regular basis, then this post is for you.

Essential sites for the mobile web include local search, weather, traffic, maps, and email. While there are plenty of more fun and exciting mobile websites out there, these are the most practical, and often-used sites that everyone should have bookmarked in their phone.

Mobile and Local Search

Google Mobile
Yahoo! oneSearch (this now includes links to directions, Yahoo Email, and more.)
Ask Mobile
MSN Live Search

Local Weather

Weather Channel

Local Traffic

Traffic.com Alerts

Mobile Maps and Directions

Google Directions
Google Maps
Mapquest Directions
Mapquest Maps (WAP Version)

Mobile eMail

GMail Mobile
Yahoo! oneSearch

It’s important to note that many of the major search engine firms now provide a single entry point to their mobile services, including search, email, and maps. You’ll notice that at varying degrees with Google, Yahoo!, and Ask, and we will probably see more of that as the mobile offerings evolve.

What about you?

Do you have a few go-to mobile sites that you visit on a regular basis? Let us know in the comments below.

Charles Knight over at ReadWriteWeb augmented his list of mobile search-related sites. The original list posted in January had 55 mobile-search sites, and now an additional 30 have been added.
The list includes the standard mobile search sites from Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, and then gets interesting, with everything from the Century21 Mobile site for searching nearby homes, to Sitofun, which lets you receive calls from your website to your cell phone.
While the list certainly goes beyond mobile-search sites, what I like about it is that Charles organized it very well for us. Not only does the list include the Snap pop-up image of the site as you mouse-over the link, but he also provided an Excel version of the list for download. Thanks Charles!

Ingenio announced yesterday that MSN will begin displaying pay-per-call ads on its Windows Live Search service for mobile phones and PDAs.

When displayed, the ads will allow the user to click on an ad relevant to their search. When the user selects an ad, a call is automatically placed to the advertiser.

Think about this for a minute. When you consider all the ads that we put up with on various forms of media, this is without question one of the most convenient types of ads for the end user. If you are interested in what the ad is offering, you are immediately put in touch with someone over the phone. You actually talk to someone. There are very few ads that provide this type of opportunity for immediate interaction, and that’s good for both the customer and the advertiser.

Pay-per-call ads are certainly not new, even for mobile search. Other search engines such as Yahoo and Google have either already begun pay-per-call ads for mobile search, or are experimenting with it as we speak. Nonetheless, the increasing amount of investment dollars going towards improving the mobile web experience is getting interesting, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.