ad network announcement marks Medio’s first foray into promoting off portal. But it’s not just about combining on and off-deck inventory; it’s about providing independent content publishers with a self-service system and, ultimately, attracting more advertisers and brands to the party. In fact, expect Medio to partner with companies that cater to publishers and advertisers – or at least give them a top-notch spot in the ad ecosystem Medio is building to challenge Google and fend off JumpTap. In a recent interview, Omar Tawakol, Medio’s chief advertising officer, told me the end-game is to offer advertisers a single channel to mobile users. By adding relevancy to the mix, Medio has developed a more “category approach” that will allow it to serve up a greater variety of targeted ads for keywords and give advertisers a greater reach. For example, a company that bids for Tetris also would have the ability to target users who search for similar but different puzzle games. In line with its plan to extend its reach and give rivals a run for their money, Medio is set to integrate with other networks (beyond the public partnership with Ingenio). “We want to invite in other networks and that’s where we differ from competitors. With our approach, the best ad – the best fit – wins. Whoever has the best ad will serve it – even if Medio didn’t sell it.”

Quick stats: Medio has delivered over 1.5 billion answers to search queries since launching search for Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile US and Telus Mobility. (The company is expected to announce a pan-European operator deal in the next few weeks.) Altogether, Medio claims to attract over 1.4 million new subscribers every month. Release.

Visual search: Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Tellme shows the company is bullish on multi-modal mobile search. But it hasn’t lost sight (excuse the pun) of image recognition and visual search, as this article in Technology Review post points out. The article details Microsoft’s prototype search app, named Lincoln, and outlines the company’s intent to encourage user-gen content contributions to grow the database of images and links. Larry Zitnick, a Microsoft researcher on the project, is betting on user participation to bring a social search element to mobile.

Patents: JumpTap has filed some 30 new patents, according to this blog (which aptly calls the action a “patent blitz”). The list merits a look and contains some surprises, including patents for clustering, multi-modal search, and grouping relevant mobile search results according to geography, transaction and intent.

Related:
—Microsoft Does Buy TellMe; Mobile Search A Big Reason