| By Jayson Matthews
June 9, 2000
Quack.com made an agreement with Lycos to launch the first
voice-accessed Internet portal.
The computer isn't just getting smaller, it's disappearing
altogether. Forget the Palms and Web-enabled cell phones,
now you can access the Internet from the pay phone down the
block...sort of.
A host of relatively new companies in the Bay Area are developing
voice-browsing services accessible from any phone. Known as
"voice portals", the technology is a move towards establishing
a new access protocol for retrieving and interacting with
online information.
BeVocal, Tellme, VocalPoint, and Quack.com are all trying
to dial-in to the new market. Having launched last March,
Quack.com is (so far) leading the flock, though the other
companies are near strategic completion and should be officially
running within the month.
Yet a minimal difference in time-to-market may be all the
edge Quack needs. All of these companies have similarities
in both technology and services offered, especially between
Quack and BeVocal, who both offer driving direction, traffic
info, weather, stock, and business finder services.
"Location is everything," says Amol Joshi, Founder and VP
of Marketing at Santa Clara-based BeVocal. "And location services
are in the highest demand. So what BeVocal is trying to do
is be the leading voice portal for location and travel services."
Powered by a recent partnership with MapQuest, a user can
call BeVocal's toll-free number and say "BeVocal driving directions."
The automated system asks them where they are starting from
and where they want to go, and then provides step-by-step
directions. Users can also call the service to access information
on any major airline, and will eventually be able to book
flights through the service as well.
Voice technology has made great in-roads over the past few
years, and the accuracy of these systems are fairly reliable.
BeVocal employed thousands of callers from throughout the
country to develop samples of different accents and dialects,
and the company also maintains a database of alternative pronunciations
for problematic street names.
Sunnyvale-based Quack.com's service doesn't include the directional
or travel competencies of BeVocal, but brings movie and restaurant
information to the plate. The company also offers built-in
shortcuts to help minimize time spent acquiring information,
including caller-ID and mobile tracking devices to automatically
determine where a user is calling from.
"So as an example, if I'm in Sunnyvale and I call in for
weather information, I get the weather in Sunnyvale automatically,"
says Randy Corke, VP of Marketing at Quack.com. "If I find
out it is going to rain I can then go directly to movies or
find a restaurant near by without having to start over."
Calling the B2B Market
Tellme and VocalPoint's strategy differ in that the companies
are more focused on the B2B market, i.e. licensing their technology,
rather than building a consumer base directly. Quack.com made
an initial move into this area as well, forming an agreement
with Lycos last month to launch the first voice-accessed Internet
portal.
"We're not focused on building a consumer business at all,"
says Christine Koncal, VP of Marketing at VocalPoint. "We're
focused on just enabling different partners."
Kurt Losert, CEO of VocalPoint, says the company is working
to bring its voice technology to market in two ways. The first
is through licensing, exemplified in the company's recent
partnership with Telecom Italia Group, the largest wireless
carrier in Europe. Telecom will be using VocalPoint's technology
to provide wireless voice-enabled access to several top Italian
Web sites.
"The second can be seen through our work with @bovehealth,"
says Kurt Losert, CEO of VocalPoint, pointing to the company's
recent contract with the healthcare-based Application Service
Provider. "We're providing a complete turnkey voice ASP solution
for them. The benefit of our technology in an implementation
like @bovehealth's is that we leverage the HTML content that
they already have. There's no development or systems integration
that @bovehealth, or any HTML-based partner, needs to do.
It's a seamless extension of their Web experience into a voice
experience."
Prior to a voice portal solution, companies seeking voice-based
services have been forced to implement expensive solutions,
oftentimes resulting in whole telesales or teleservices organizations,
with people handling every request. Touting ex- Netscape VP
Peter Currie, and former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale on its
board, San Francisco-based Tellme wants to replace a company's
existing call center with its voice-automated technology.
Like VocalPoint, the company is also targeting Web sites
that want to attract more consumers by offering services over
the phone.
"Partnering with big customers is going to be key," says
Mark Plakius, an analyst at The Kelsey Group who specializes
in voice and wireless commerce. "We don't expect to see a
lot of profitability in this sector for awhile, at least the
next 18 months. Companies need to find key data to offer,
prove the concept works, and get early customers for generating
callers.
"None of these voice portals can develop all of the potential
applications by themselves," he adds. "I think the potential
is that big."
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