Free, advertiser-supported Directory Assistance services hold promise as media for local, mobile search and e-commerce. To succeed they must morph beyond the DA model to become a more wide-ranging portal for multimodal access to a portal of local businesses and mobile services.
Featured Research
Spotlight on Speech Enabled Search: Mobile Applications Gaining Legitimacy
Mobile subscribers are poised to help consummate the marriage between speech recognition (aka “dictationâ€) and local, Web-based search. Nuance, VoiceSignal, InfoNXX have used venues in Europe and the U.S. to show the power of automated speech and multiple modalities to enhance mobile search and messaging services. When the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Google a patent for speech-based search, it added legitimacy (and a working business model) to the business plans for mobile search.
CAT’s Vertical Leap
Horizontal applications — such as self-service, call steering and dictation — propelled Conversational Access Technologies’ past growth. But it’s increasingly evident that a deeper understanding of the requirements, grammars and business processes underlying specific verticals are key to future success.
Conversational Access Technologies: Forecasting Application-Driven Growth
After reaching $800 million in 2005, enterprise spending on hardware, software and services to support automated handling of telephone based transactions, queries and interactions (primarily voice-based) will exceed $2.5 billion by 2009.
Enhanced Content Lands Amp’d for INFONXX
Super-hip, mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Amp’d selected INFONXX as its directory assistance provider, rather than a similar service from Verizon’s captive LiveSource service. The selection vaults the INFONXX into a new level of the service delivery ecosystem.
Intervoice Acquires Edify: Better Positioned for “The Road Ahead”
However, the purchase price of Edify shows that little or no premium can be attached to players that are essentially serving a niche in an already niche market.
Biometric Use Cases: Choosing the Right Biometric for the Job
Featured Research Speaker Verification has received short shrift from security mavens, largely because it has been ill-positioned by the speech processing community and has been subject to misplaced concern over its relative “strength” compared with more expensive, hardware-intensive alternatives. In… Read More ›
Speech Recognition 2005: Return on Investment Study
Automated speech technologies continue to deliver cost savings and crucial business metrics. This Web-based study finds an 80% positive ROI for companies utilizing automated speech technologies, with payback periods averaging less than one year.
Speech plus Search equals New Business Possibilities (S+S=NBP)
Search service providers like Yahoo!, want to use emerging audio search technologies to mine the ever-growing repository of spoken media, ranging from Internet radio to podcasts. Unless the current vendors can build a compelling business case, the search engines are poised to displace directory assistance vendors for on-demand, 411-type services.
Excell Agent Services
Excell Agent Services, a historic innovator in wholesale directory assistance, is being purchased by Texas-based OSC, a provider of directory assistance and CRM services.