Newsletter ArchiveSUBJECT: Wireless Internet; Part 1 Welcome to The Internet 800 Directory Newsletter. For the next couple of weeks, Steve Jackson, the President of our company is going to review his thoughts on Wireless Internet. ------------------------------------------------------- Part 1 The New Wireless Internet: Hope or Hype? After all the dot-com failures and the drop in all of the national markets valuation, what are we to do? Wring our hands and call it a bust? Pull back to brick-and-mortar? Chuckle at the guys that put their money into dot.gone.com ? In this toll free issue (in which Chuck graciously allowed me to contribute – because he had a different deadline with his wife), I’ll try to give you my thoughts on some new issues that are important to the Internet community and how they may also relate to the toll free business. Part 1 involves Voice Portals – a.k.a. Vorpals, for the acronym-deficient masses. If you haven’t heard about voice portals, then you are already about 20 points down on the Silicon Valley New Hope Venture Capital Scale. The premise is simple; Press a button on your cell phone and your friendly assistant (which we shall call HAL, for the lack of a better 2001 inspiration) suddenly announces, “This HAL. What can I do for you?” After the initial shock and a few calls later, you finally respond with, “Well, HAL, I was kinda wondering about the weather today.” After a slight pause, HAL retorts, “In which city, Sir?”, which also gives you pause as to consider whether or not he should have already known that. But, you say “Chicago”. He then says “Wait just one moment while I retrieve that information for you, sir.” As you are on temporary hold, a voice (not HAL’s) suddenly says “Budweiser – The King of Beers!”, which may be somewhat unsettling at first, but not even noticeable after a few more calls, because, after all, you’ve been hooked on television since Howdy Doody Time. When HAL suddenly reappears, it’s “In Chicago, currently, it is 45 degrees, wind out of the North at 30 miles per hour, and cloudy. Tomorrow it should be clearing, with light breezes and 50 degrees. What else can I do for you, sir?” You then say nothing and hang up, because you got what you wanted, with just a touch of a button on a toll free call, and using only one hand at that. In fact, after a few restaurant reservations, weather calls and stock quotes, you’re even looking forward to what’s next. This little scenario is an actual example of what you can experience today with dozens of companies. (See partial list below) It is also what the venture capital companies are now hanging their hats and into which literally dozens of independent upstarts and majors such as AT&T and Qwest are pouring billions of dollars. It is also why the Internet 800 Directory is being besieged by these companies, because what better content to have on a mobile phone than instant toll free numbers, connected with just a touch? However, some fundamental issues are being raised here. #1. Is this just another dot-com hype, which will leave investors bleeding in the trenches, or does this concept have real value? #2. Given the growth of wireless, what is the potential value? #3. Will the general public embrace these portals? #4. How do they make their money? Verbal banners? Sponsors? The user pays? These are unanswered questions that we are pondering, as are the Vortals. If you have any thoughts about these issues, we would like to hear them. I’ll take the heat at saj@gotollfree.com. Oh, yeah. Here are some of the links to try out: http://www.cnn.com/ (Good article) All Contents Copyright ©1995-2001 The Internet 800 Directory Subscribe To The Newsletter: |