Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Nokia (NOK) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (17085)	12/4/2001 5:16:58 PM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 34857

Accenture's daily report on new technologies and startups Audium—Voice-enabling your instant messenger by Michael J. Fenner The popularity of PC-based instant messaging systems is soaring. According to CRMproject.com, 130 million people actively use instant messaging to send 1.5 billion messages each day. Services like AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Yahoo Messenger allow business users to discuss important project information with colleagues and clients alike—in real time and at a moment's notice. Pair the explosion of IM users with the nearly one billion cell phones that are currently in use and you may have a great business opportunity. Voice applications developer Audium believes it has come up with a technology that will give instant messaging systems a new voice: Yours. Audium’s Phone2IM allows users to access their online instant messaging services using any phone. Audium teamed with IM system vendor Odigo to build the voice technology, which is now available to Odigo's enterprise and service provider customers worldwide. To send a message, a user simply calls the Phone2IM system, which records (and can store for a user-specified time) their audio message. The recipients of the message—if they're online and at their PC—receive a link to a RealAudio file of the message. Buddies respond as they normally would by typing a reply, which is sent back to the original sender either as synthesized speech or as a text message destined for a cell phone or pager display. The system is VoiceXML compliant, supports text-to-speech software from Lernout & Hauspie and AT&T, and all messages are SSL encrypted. Phone users can personalize their menus and preferences (Phone2IM supports both touch-tone and speech recognition, for example), as well as employ short "alias" names to ease identification of their online buddies. For several years technology companies have been clamoring to find a way to link mobile phone users with their desktop PC tools—usually hoping to convince them to buy things from their Web-enabled phones. Audium chose instead to link mobile phone users to their simple but important desktop IM application. Audio instant messaging tools like Audium's could be helpful to IM service providers seeking ways to increase their user base by differentiating themselves in a crowded marketplace. The technology also gives IM providers a new revenue opportunity through advertising (assuming that users would be willing to put up with advertisements in exchange for phone access to their buddy lists).