Metrocall Inc. may have gained a bit of a lead in the information services race last week, announcing the launch of OnTheGoInfo, a customizable suite of services using the i Kno! information architecture platform developed by Motorola Inc.
OnTheGoInfo offers three levels of service, which allow customers to choose from several categories organized under eight “InfoChannels.” The eight channels include news, business & finance, health, education, weather, lifestyle, sports and entertainment. These main channels contain several sub-categories. For instance, the news category is broken down into U.S. news, high-tech news, world news and so on. The entertainment channel has subsets such as music, movies, TV, soap operas and trivia.
Metrocall’s pricing plan allows customers to choose any six, 10 or 15 of these subsets from any channel. For $3 a month, the InfoBasic plan lets customers choose up to six different information feeds. InfoPlus includes 10 feeds for $6 a month, and InfoPro customers may select 15 different subjects for $9 a month.
Metrocall is offering an introductory package only to the Washington D.C./Baltimore market, allowing customers to receive the InfoPlus package at the price of the basic service for three months, after which the price goes back to $6.
The company said it plans to go systemwide with the service by the end of the second quarter.
“We want to make sure before we roll this out systemwide that there are no glitches, since it’s a brand new technology,” said Mike Scanlon, Metrocall vice president of sales and marketing. “Also, we’re looking at our price points and listening to feedback from our customers.”
Paging carriers have hyped information services as a possible revenue-enhancing vehicle that will carry the industry away from the “cheap-beep” model of old. However, analysts have tempered that hype with caution that such services must provide real value, pointing especially to the need for people to be able to customize services at will.
Metrocall said it has met this stipulation with help from Motorola’s i Kno! system. The i Kno! platform includes a core set of content providers-including The Weather Channel, SportsTicker, Etak Inc., Billboard, InfoBeat, City Savvy, OnHealth.com and the Associated Press-as well as an over-the-air programming capability that allows customers to select their choices from a Web site and change them.
Metrocall is the first carrier to implement the i Kno! system, and was integral in its development, according to Scanlon. He said Metrocall has been working with Motorola on developing the i Kno! engine last summer, securing agreements with content providers and integrating the engine with its system, giving Metrocall about a six-month head-start using the i Kno system before other carriers get to it.
Scanlon said Metrocall decided to work with Motorola on i Kno! because it provides a solid block of information content without the need to negotiate separate deals for each.
“This way, a customer can customize what they want at any given moment … and we don’t have to cut 40 different deals. It’s already done,” he said.
However, according to Tim Moore, vice president of business and application development at Metrocall, different companies using the i Kno! system will still be able to differentiate their service offerings even though they have the same core group of content providers.
“We’re going to supplement their content with our own,” he said. “The engine is the technology we’re attracted to …We’re not 100-percent Motorola.”
Content gained independently from the i Kno! system will be able to use the i Kno! engine to transmit to customers, he said.
Also, Metrocall customers will select their service packages and information packages from Metrocall’s Web site, the data from which will be transferred to the i Kno! system, allowing Metrocall to control the input method, Moore said.
Metrocall’s first information service was the Lots O’Lotto service, which pages customers with the day’s winning lottery numbers.
“We’re going from offering just CBS and ABC to offering cable,” Moore said. “What i Kno! gives us is the remote control.”
Other paging carriers plan to offer more robust information packages in the near future. Paging Network Inc. said it plans to launch its own information service suite sometime this summer. The company is negotiating several content provider agreements and to date has signed such brands as CNN, ESPN, The Golf Channel, Forbes, LottoNet, AcuWeather and Tribune Media Services.
PageNet has partnered with TIBCO Software Inc. to create an information services hub that will act as its content engine.
