From the web page:

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/08/circuits/articles/03voic.html

August 3, 2000

Web Surfing, at the Sound of Your Own Voice

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New Portals Let Users Talk to the Net by Phone, But Will Voice Edge Out 
Keyboards and Keypads?
By CATHERINE GREENMAN

Voice portals fill users' spoken requests for information _ traffic 
reports, stock quotations, sports scores, airline schedules and more _ by 
fetching the dataanswers from the Web and reading the answers over the phone.
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As manufacturers of wireless phones, handheld computers and other Internet 
gadgets scramble to make Web information accessible without the need to 
boot up a computer, some companies have a different plan. They are adapting 
the Web to the one device that virtually everyone has: the telephone.

And they don’t mean one of those Web phones that connect you to e-mail and 
stock quotations after you set up a special wireless-service account and 
scroll through a series of menus and buttons. All you need is a telephone, 
even an old-fashioned rotary dial phone. These voice portals — like Tellme, 
BeVocal and Quack.com — invite you to pick up a phone and let your voice do 
the surfing. Actually, it’s more like wading, but you can reach some parts 
of the Web.

"The broad view is that we’ll eventually offer everything you can get on 
the Web over the phone," said Alex Quilici, chief executive of Quack.com, 
which began offering its services in April and currently provides, among 
other things, weather, traffic, movie and restaurant information for most 
areas of the country. "You’ll see it moving to e-commerce, e-mail and 
instant messaging." Mr. Quilici said the company had reached an agreement 
with Lycos, a popular search engine, to begin providing voice-activated 
features to many of its e-commerce partner sites.

The voice portal is part of the thickening haze blurring the distinctions 
among computers, cell phones, handheld organizers and the various hybrids 
on the market. But just as wireless Web devices can retrieve only limited 
information from the Web, the voice portals, in most cases, have limited 
their phone menus so information can be found easily, either directly from 
the Web or from a server-like program.

Most voice portals use speech recognition technology and a computer 
language that digitizes the spoken word and searches Internet servers based 
on the commands. In most cases, these services are organized much like 
basic Internet portals.

Dial Tellme, for example, and a female voice asks you to select a category 
like weather, stock quotations, sports, traffic, horoscopes and airlines. 
Callers can select nearby restaurants according to their Tellme ratings 
(Tellme automatically determines where the call is coming from) and connect 
directly to the restaurants. Catchy tunes and R2D2-like computing noises 
play in the background while the information is fetched. (At Quack.com, a 
sound like the flip-flop of duck feet — more subtle than an outright quack 
— fades in and out.) The information retrieved is read to the caller by a 
recorded or digitized voice.

Many of the voice portals let users customize their calling menus. A Tellme 
user, for example, can enter stock ticker symbols onto a list, which is 
stored on the Tellme site. When the user dials the toll-free Tellme number 
and says, "Stock quotes," the service will read the current price 
quotations for the stocks on the list.

The information that goes back to the caller is not limited by the 
constraints of the small screen found on wireless phones with Web access, 
say those involved in the voice portal market. "The possibilities are 
far-reaching," said Adam Greenhalgh, president of Speaklink, a voice portal 
that will start operating later this summer. "A voice portal is the same as 
an Internet portal, but you have the functionality of talking to it. Speech 
connectivity is the next evolution of the Internet."

Voice portal companies are aiming at computer users who need information 
but who are away from their computers, and they are also going after the 
ever-increasing market of cell-phone users. All voice portal services are 
accessible via cell phones.

The Kelsey Group, a market research firm in Princeton, N.J., predicts that 
the voice portal market will generate $12 billion by 2005 through 
advertising revenue, e-commerce transactions and related hardware and 
telephone-service-carrier costs.

But while analysts agree that advanced speech recognition capabilities and 
Web development tools are bridging the gap between the phone and the 
Internet, many wonder about how many people will use these services.

"Voice will never be the dominant interface because it’s so 
information-poor," said John Dalton, an analyst at Forrester Research in 
Cambridge, Mass. "When you compare a stand-alone voice interface, you’re 
limited to the amount of information you can distribute. People have a lot 
more choices, and they can retain a lot more when they’re looking at 
information on a PC."

The phone services will not work as effectively as the Internet for 
research or making buying decisions, Mr. Dalton said, because the average 
consumer does not remember more than a few bits of audio information at a 
time and needs to be able to see and compare items before buying.

Voice portals are competing with some audio services that already have 
brand recognition. Analysts say the voice portals may find it hard to win 
over people who would otherwise call MovieFone for movie listings or 
consult another trusted source for restaurant reviews. What is more, the 
voice portals cannot provide everything that a service like MovieFone can. 
You cannot buy movie tickets at a voice portal, for example. You can only 
hear what’s playing, where and at what times.

Mr. Quilici, at Quack.com, said he considered the service to be more of an 
extension of the Web and other information sources, but one that was easily 
accessible from anywhere. "Rather than staying late at work figuring out 
movie and dinner plans, you’ll be able to do it on the way home from your 
phone," he said. Mr. Quilici added that Quack.com planned to forge 
agreements with wireless manufacturers that would allow a consumer to call 
the service with a request and have any lengthy information sent as a text 
message to a wireless phone, instead of hearing it recited back.

One Tellme user, Louise Valente of Palo Alto, Calif., said the service was 
useful. "I find that it’s handy and frees up my time by not having to go 
and power up my computer to access information," she said. "I don’t know 
that it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s a convenience." Most of the voice 
portals expect to earn money down the road by setting up partnerships with 
shopping sites and by charging commissions on e-commerce transactions.

Currently, the phone services are supported by advertising. Each time an 
option is selected at Tellme or Quack.com, whether it is a request for 
movie listings or restaurants, callers hear a "brought to you by" message 
reminiscent of early radio shows. While the service is looking up a 
request, callers might hear another 10- or 15-second message from a sponsor.

"You can ignore banner ads on the Web, but you can’t ignore the voice," 
said Mr. Greenhalgh, at Speaklink. "We don’t want to frustrate the users." 
Some voice portals like Tellme and HeyAnita, which plans to start operating 
in the fall, are focusing on communications services. In its Phone Booth 
section, for example, Tellme offers new users a free, two-minute 
long-distance call. Before the call is put through, the user will hear a 
10- or 15-second advertisement. Yellow and White Pages listings will also 
be free.

"The whole telecommunications industry is in the process of changing, and 
it gives us a great set of opportunities to go after," said Mike McCue, 
chief executive of Tellme. He also said Tellme had received financing from 
AT&T and would work on the AT&T network to let callers connect directly to 
any service they selected while on Tellme.

Sanjeev Kuwadekar, chief executive of HeyAnita, said the company was 
partnering with several large Internet service providers to allow consumers 
with e-mail accounts at the I.S.P.’s to send and receive e-mail with voice 
commands. HeyAnita also has a page on its Web site that lets users store 
contact information for people they call regularly. When such a user calls 
the service, says a personal identification number and speaks an 
individual’s name, HeyAnita will read back the phone number or e-mail 
address. The same can be done with to-do lists and calendar information 
entered on the HeyAnita site.

Others, like BeVocal, which opened in June, are focusing on information 
geared to mobile callers, like driving directions and traffic reports. 
Through a partnership with Mapquest.com, BeVocal provides callers with 
driving directions within major metropolitan areas. That part of the 
service is available only in California, Texas and Michigan at present, but 
the company says the coverage will be nationwide by September.

Amol Joshi, founder and vice president of marketing at BeVocal, said the 
company planned partnerships with wireless phone carriers to provide them 
with voice-activated dialers and a direct voice link to BeVocal. Wireless 
phone customers would be able to select that as an optional feature of 
their monthly calling plans. In addition, BeVocal’s strategy is to share 
commissions with wireless carriers for any business transactions, like 
hotel reservations or airline ticket purchases, that take place during a 
call. Commissions would be paid by the business, not the consumer, he said.

Voice portals are also working with Web designers to broaden the content 
the portals can provide. Tellme, for example, is licensing its technology 
to Web site developers and allowing them to make their sites accessible to 
Tellme’s voice service. "We’ll get to the point where anybody can build a 
customized phone application," Mr. McCue said.

A completely different approach to Web access via telephone is simply to 
call other people who will surf and search for you. A company called 
iNetNow employs actual human beings to retrieve Web information for the 
people who call the service. The service is free for a promotion period 
that ends in the fall. After that, iNetNow will offer monthly plans of 
$4.95 for five calls and $21.95 for unlimited use.

The company provides service around the clock; it has 50 operators who work 
eight-hour shifts. Complicated questions are handled by a research 
department that culls data and links from the Web and puts them into 
information packets that can be sent to the callers via e-mail or faxes.

"The voice portal companies are all kind of jockeying to figure out what 
people want most and deliver that," said Lenny Young, president of iNetNow. 
"We’re trying to be much broader. It requires more people, but we think 
it’s the most satisfying way to get the information." Mr. Young said the 
company planned to add voice recognition features in the future to cut down 
on overhead costs. Harry Kelso, an environmental consultant in Richmond, 
Va., used iNetNow to look up articles about the military’s role in the 
westward expansion of the United States, and he was impressed by the 
results. "I thought this was a pretty big request to ask of anyone," he 
said, "but they came back with things I wouldn’t have dreamt would be 
around. If it means that you can speed up finding facts, then that goes a 
really long way toward helping."

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The voice portals below are functioning or available in trial versions.
SPEAKLINK: www.speaklink.com  (877) SPEAKLINK, or (877) 773-2554.

TELLME: www.tellme.com  (800) 555-TELL, or (800) 555-8355.

BEVOCAL: www.bevocal.com  (800) 4BVOCAL, or (800) 428-6225.

HEYANITA: www.heyanita.com  (800) 44-ANITA, or (800) 442-6482.

QUACK: www.quack.com  (800) 73-QUACK, or (800) 737-8225.

INETNOW: www.inetnow.com  (888) INETNOW, or (888) 463-8669.


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