InfoSpace Inc., a provider of infrastructure services for Web sites and devices, said wireless Internet opportunities continue to represent the company’s biggest opportunity and fastest-growing area.
Within that space, InfoSpace is betting mobile commerce services will play an important role in providing value to its carrier customers, and last week acquired IQorder.com to further that ambition.
Steve Shivers, general manager of wireless and information appliances at InfoSpace, discussed the company’s m-commerce strategy with RCR in a recent meeting.
“WAP alone does not constitute a wireless Internet strategy,” he said, referring to Wireless Application Protocol technology, which renders Internet data comprehensible on wireless devices. He said InfoSpace’s mission is to help carriers find a useful way to offer these new wireless Internet services so that all involved will profit.
The InfoSpace platform includes directory services, general news and information content with personalization capabilities and personal information management functions with e-mail support. Shivers said these are basic services designed to get subscribers using the wireless Internet. However, these services are valuable only to the customer, and therefore require the customer to pay for their use.
The true wireless Internet, in InfoSpace’s mind, is the ability to offer premium services like shopping, localization, promotion and transaction services on wireless Internet devices. These services provide value to both consumers and to merchants looking for added traffic. Shivers said the idea is to get merchants to fund these services, and in turn allow the carrier to offer subscribers valuable services free of charge.
InfoSpace paid $58 million in stock to get IQorder.com’s technology, which enables comparison shopping and product location services. Specifically, InfoSpace said the service will give users the ability to enter what is known about an item-such as model number, UPC code, part number or bar code-into Internet-enabled devices to both locate where that item is sold and compare its price among different merchants.
For instance, a shopper considering buying a DVD player may find the desired brand and model in a store. The shopper, while still in the store, can enter in the model number of that item and compare that store’s price with prices offered by other brick-and-mortar locations as well as with online catalogs before making the purchase decision.
The service also will include wish lists, pricing alerts and price history capabilities, InfoSpace said.
Combined with InfoSpace’s previous m-commerce-related acquisitions, such as Prio’s promotional service abilities and one-click payment services from the addition of Privacy Bank, Shivers said the result is an end-to-end e-commerce solution carriers can implement simply by choosing Info-Space’s platform.
InfoSpace has partnerships with credit-card companies like American Express, which in turn have promotional deals with merchants. Carriers can offer those deals when partnering with InfoSpace.
Carriers also can pursue their own exclusive deals with other merchants, using InfoSpace’s platform on the back end to make the sales possible.
GTE Wireless Inc., Verizon Wireless, U S West Inc. and AT&T Wireless Services Inc. all use InfoSpace’s portal platform as the basis of their wireless Internet service offerings.
Because InfoSpace has acquired so many different companies’s technologies, it hired Russ Arun as its new chief technology officer. Like InfoSpace Chairman Naveen Jain, Arun also hails originally from Microsoft Corp. Shivers said Arun’s role will be to integrate the various new technologies into one concrete architecture.
