Paging carriers are showing signs that they have taken to heart analysts’ warnings that information services must be customizable and have real value in order to convince customers to pay for them.
While paging carriers believe information services have the potential to generate increased average revenue per unit, analysts have reserved their support until they see such services evolving beyond mere commodity value.
Paging Network Inc., Metrocall Inc. and SkyTel Communications Inc. all announced development relating to information services in the past two weeks that show they are taking steps to meet these requirements.
PageNet
PageNet announced a partnership with TIBCO Software Inc. that will create an Information Services Hub which it said will enable customized content delivery to subscribers. The Hub is expected to act as a “content engine” of sorts to receive and aggregate information from a variety of sources, including PageNet’s branded partners, the Internet and corporate intranets.
The system eventually will allow subscribers to choose exactly the information they want from a Web site, and the Hub then will filter, process, format and deliver the information to the subscriber via a variety of protocols-TNPP, WMTP and GCP, according to the company. PageNet said subscribers also will be able to send information requests to the Hub from their two-way pagers.
The addition of the engine is important in that the Hub programs the selected services on the subscriber’s device, eliminating the need to create custom solutions for each device.
“This engine gives us the flexibility to format and deliver information to the widest possible range of devices, with various capabilities and from various manufacturers,” said John Frazee, Jr., PageNet president, chairman and chief executive officer.
Metrocall
Metrocall is the first carrier to voice concrete support for Motorola Inc.’s i Kno! information services architecture, demonstrating the service at PCS ’98 but not yet offering the service commercially. The system currently is in beta testing with commercial release expected next year.
i Kno! delivers subscribers localized weather and traffic reports, national news, sports scores, financial information, entertainment and movie reviews and school information. Users can access a Web page and detail what information they wish to receive and then have that content sent to their alphanumeric pagers, said Metrocall.
The company said it hopes the i Kno! service will convince current numeric subscribers to trade in their basic pagers for text messaging devices.
“The Motorola i Kno! system creates a tremendous opportunity for Metrocall to trade up our existing numeric paging subscribers to word messaging and many valuable information services that drive higher revenue per pager unit,” said William Collins, III, president and chief executive officer of Metrocall.
i Kno! broadcasts data by sending updates to several devices at the same time. Subscribers will access a Web site to create personalized profiles which filters the messages to their devices. These profiles may be changed as desired.
Motorola is forming agreements with several sources to provide information to the i Kno! service. The latest to be announced is OnHealth’s Daily Health Briefing, providing health news updates. Content includes Food and Drug Administration approvals and nutrition tips.
SkyTel
SkyTel Communications Inc. announced it is offering advanced messaging customers custom newscasts through the company’s partnership with MSNBC. SkyTel SkyWord Plus and SkyWriter customers can access the company’s Web site to select which news subjects they wish to have sent to their pagers, and can change subjects at will. Users can select up to five categories from a total of eight, at no cost.
The company is not charging for the service yet, as it is providing little more that what most other information services do. What’s different is that instead of receiving all news categories together, SkyTel customers can pick which ones they do not want to receive. When the company begins offering more categories and begins charging for them, customers already will know how to create their own user profiles, said SkyTel.
“Our strategy going forward is to offer an ever broadening assortment of information choices. We intend to expand from eight to 80 categories by the end of 1998,” said John Stupka, SkyTel president and chief executive officer.
