[UK] Cambridge, UK-based Taptu, the mobile search engine that targets the touch-friendly web, has appointed “industry veteran” and former Yahoo Mobile MD Mitch Lazar to its board as a non-executive director.
Prior to Yahoo, Lazar “launched, ran and commercialized the mobile services and products” of various media brands, including Time Warner’s CNN, Cartoon Network and TCM. He also led the international roll out of AOL’s mobile initiatives.
Obviously, Lazar brings to Taptu a lot of experience in the mobile sector and, crucially, a large number of contacts that could help provide the needed inroads to grow the business.
In today’s announcement, Taptu makes mention of Lazar’s knowledge of “distribution partnerships”, which presumably relates directly to getting Yahoo’s mobile products and services ‘on-deck’ – directly distributed by the mobile carriers or pre-installed on the handsets they carry. While Taptu offers an iPhone and Android app that consumers can download from the associated app stores, search is something that feels like it should exist straight out of the box.
More explicitly, Taptu states that Lazar’s recruitment is designed to help deliver two goals: to make it easy for consumers to explore the fast-growing Mobile Touch Web, and to help Touch Web developers reach a larger audience more quickly.
On that note, Taptu offers an API to third-party developers so that they can access their index of touch-friendly sites.
