From the Yahoo Board - If true - this could be big.
Excite At Home Plans to Offer
Free Voice Mail on Web Site
By LISA BRANSTEN
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL INTERACTIVE EDITION
Excite At Home Corp. plans to offer free voice mail to users of its Web site through a deal with
messaging pioneer General Magic Inc., people familiar with the matter said.
The service, expected to be announced as soon as Monday, follows similar offerings by start-ups such
as OneBox.com Inc., San Mateo, Calif.; Telebot Corp., San Francisco; and uReach.com Inc.,
Holmdel, N.J. But the larger Web profile of Excite (www.excite.com), one of the busiest sites on the
Internet, could quickly raise awareness of the new technology, analysts said.
Start-Ups Use the Internet to Offer Free Voice Mail (June 7)
Excite, of Redwood City, Calif., and General Magic, of Sunnyvale, Calif., declined comment. But
people familiar with the plan said users would be able to go to Excite's site and register for a free phone
number. The number won't ring a real phone, but friends or customers can use it as a place to leave a
voice mail message or send a fax. Those messages would then be translated into computer files and
sent to e-mail accounts offered by Excite, where users could click on them to play audio files of
voice-mail messages or to see faxes, these people said.
The service is based on technology developed for General Magic's primary product, Portico, which is a
fee-based personal digital assistant that can deliver messages to users over the phone or the Internet.
Portico also uses speech-recognition technology to allow users to access messages and even their
address books and calendars over the phone. |
