**As published in digiday:DAILY**

Publisher: GetFugu Inc.
Price: Free
Platform: tested on BlackBerry and iPod Touch
Advertising: ads in the form of logos for major brands appear in search results
Functionality: C
Fun Factor: B-
Overall: C

All too often in the mobile app space, users are “getting abused by ads from AdMob,” John Basile, chief software engineer said at CTIA last week. He was demonstrating some new features coming to the GetFugu search app, and compared the company’s zip-code based approach to mobile as akin to a more refined Yellow Pages model. The direct-to-consumer marketing opportunity here is quite obvious, and if GetFugu can prove its value as a mobile search provider, it could spur a renewed interest from brands to gain preferred placement with consumers at a price.

It’s still early days for the company, and after spending the better part of an hour with the app on a BlackBerry Bold 9700 and iPod Touch, it shows. The company is not only building a vast database of searchable logos and voice tags, but it’s simultaneously trying to convince large and small businesses to make a play in the visual and voice search game for a fee. With packages ranging from $9.99 to over $99 per month, depending on how many zip codes the business wants to be associated with, GetFugu will build WAP pages, register a company’s name and logo, provide real-time analytics and more. Read more