Three Mobile Advances: Search, Recommendation, Web IntegrationThree Mobile Advances: Search, Recommendation, Web Integration

Cell phone manufacturers aren't the only ones pumping new features and functions into mobile devices. Three startups--Kannuu, Aggregate Knowledge, and Ribbit--are getting into the act, too.Kannuu's "partial word completion" software simplifies and hastens the process of performing a word search from cell phones. Kannuu's technology was recognized with an innovation award at a mobile competition hosted recently by Nokia.

Here's how it works: Say you want to do a search using the phrase "NCAA sweet 16 schedule." You type in "NC" and Kannuu's algorithm offers up a few options, including "AA," which you choose. Next, you type in "s" and Kannuu responds with "weet" along with other choices. And on you go until you arrive at the desired search term. With Kannuu's help, you get there in fewer steps.

To really appreciate it, you need to see the Kannuu interface. Kannuu first demonstrated it technology at the Demo conference last fall.

Separately, Aggregate Knowledge is partnering with CBS Mobile, a division of CBS Interactive, to combine Aggregate Knowledge's discovery and recommendation engine with CBS Mobile's Web site.

When a user accesses the CBS site from a mobile phone, he gets a list of headlines. After he chooses one of those stories, the recommendation engine serves up a list of other stories that were viewed by like-minded readers. I wrote about Aggregate Knowledge in this blog last August.

Finally, there's Ribbit, which is due to announce availability of Ribbit for Salesforce on April 8. Ribbit launched its SmartSwitch-based Web telephony platform in December, and this is one of the first examples of how it works. The integration with Salesforce means that a user can receive and manage cell phone calls and messages while working within the Salesforce environment.

Ribbit's Greg Goldfarb gave us a preview of the capability back in October.