AOL subsidiary MovieFone interested in buying General Magic
From Yahoo Board:
Sunday June 27, 1:32 pm Eastern Time
By Larry Tate
Virginia, June 27 (Reuters) - Internet giant America Online Inc's subsidiary MovieFone
interested in purchasing General Magic Inc.
AOL MovieFone (formerly MovieFone), which provides interactive telephone advertising,
information, and teleticketing services to the motion picture industry and moviegoers through
its interactive telephone and Internet movie guides. In a press release today MovieFone has
said that it is interested in expanding its services by allowing users to test a new voice
recognition system developed by General Magic.
Susan Lucci spokeswoman for MovieFone said "Currently users of our MovieFone system
have to punch in the responses to the MovieFone Guide. This can be quite difficult if they
have a handset with the touchtone keypad built into it. Now with General Magic's fantastic
voice recognition system (MagicTalk), users could just talk directly back to our guide
without having the telephone leave their ear. This improvement of our system will make it
more convient to millions of users and hopefully expand our business."
The company, known by its trademark telephone numbers (777-FILM), provides
moviegoers with movie listings for about 18,500 movie screens, and for many of them, the
ability to purchase tickets in advance. It operates in about 50 markets, serving some of the
nation's largest cities, including New York and Los Angeles. AOL MovieFone garners
revenues through advertising sold to movie studios and through teleticketing service charges.
AOL officials were not immediately available for comment.
PaineWebber analyst George Jefferson said a deal ''could make sense for AOL.''
He said other parts of America Online (Nasdaq:AOL - news) could benefit from a
combination with General Magic (Nasdaq:GMGC - news). |
