The Internet is ready to talk to anyone who can make a phone call.
Dozens of companies are launching so-called voice portals that will let telephone users connect free of charge to selected parts of the Web with no personal computer or specially equipped cell phone needed.
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Simply dial a toll-free number, state your question and the Internet speaks back, providing real-time information on such topics as Illinois weather, traffic conditions, local movie times, sports scores and stock prices. Searching for Thai food in Tinley Park? Need directions out of Waukegan? Just call and ask.
These are not public services, of course. All are designed to sell products, either through advertising or quick, easy links to vendors.
Nonetheless, Web watchers project that voice portals will be a revolutionary development.
“I think it’s going to be huge,” said Megan Gurley, research analyst with the Yankee Group in Boston.
Analyst Mark Plakias of the Kelsey Group in Princeton, N.J., forecasts big bucks made soon: $5.4 billion in advertising and transaction fees in the next five years.
The companies say they are bringing potential Internet access to millions, perhaps billions, of people who don’t like computers or don’t have them.
“We wanted something my grandmother could use,” said Alex Quilici, president of Quack.com, which started nationwide service in early April.
The coming explosion in “audio browsing” has been made possible by major advances in voice recognition. That technology converts human speech into digital signals that computers can receive and is compatible with specially coded Web content. Thus Alexander Graham Bell’s 1875 invention makes its link to 21st Century commercial technology.
“The telephone now has a new purpose,” said Ken Guy, co-founder of TelSurf Networks of Westlake Village, Calif. “This is the beginning of what I call the decade of speech.”
For advertisers, the services offer the chance to tailor their messages to the individual. TelSurf customers, without giving their names, will provide profiles that include age, ZIP code, income level, marital status and number of children.
Ads will be directed accordingly. “We’re not going to target a Pampers ad to a bachelor,” Guy said.
Advertisers also will be able to track their effectiveness in minute detail. In its marketing materials, TelSurf promises sponsors that they will know “every ad heard by each member and their responses.”
Limited Internet contact and e-mail retrieval via cell phones has become fairly common, but that requires inputting keystrokes on the device, and the content is displayed on the phone’s dim, tiny screen. The new voice portals allow instant Web access from the pay phone at the corner gas station.
Callers respond to oral prompts with short answers such as “weather” and “Rockford” or “stocks” and “Motorola.” Within moments, the computer draws the data from selected Web pages and translates it into spoken word. It’s the same technology that some airlines use for their flight information phone lines, but with a far wider browsing range.
“It’s the culture today,” Guy said. “It’s the `I want what I want and I want it right away’ culture.”