While content may remain king, many feel content is only as good as the user interface to it.
One company hoping to ease the user interface frustration for both wireline and wireless Internet users is Yodlee Inc., an account aggregation service provider that allows users to access various online accounts via a single user name and password.
The company’s Personal Information Platform goes further by aggregating all the content across those accounts, so from one screen users may see the balances of all accounts.
“On average, a typical Internet user has six accounts, and at least two are financial,” said Melanie Flanigan, Yodlee director of marketing communications. These include bank accounts, credit cards and brokerages, as well as shopping, clubs, travel services and so on.
Yodlee offers the technology on an outsourced basis as an application service provider to portals like America Online and AltaVista, as well as to various financial institutions. In all, it supports some 2,100 sites, but not all are Yodlee partners.
The company first launched the technology for the desktop PC wired Internet. It expanded to the mobile Internet via the Palm III and V and then went wireless with the Palm VII and OmniSky services.
The PDA solutions require users to download Yodlee software to the device. However, it recently added Internet-enabled wireless phones to its list of supported devices, which do not have to download anything. Phones access the service by bookmarking the site. Yodlee eventually expects carriers will add their aggregation service site to their wireless portals.
Beyond mere aggregation of data, Yodlee also updates information to applications native on each device. For instance, if a user books a flight from a travel account, the cost of that flight is taken automatically out of the appropriate bank account, and the date of travel also will be updated on the device’s calender application. Yodlee software provides the information to the device, using the resident synchronization technology of each to do so.
Palm Inc. is the largest mobile partner for Yodlee to date. The company incorporated Yodlee’s platform into its MyPalm portal, where it performs all the aggregation services.
Last week, Yodlee took the next step in this aggregation/synchronization path by announcing several strategic partnerships and a new version of the platform designed to bring various value-added application services to the Yodlee Personal Information Platform.
The new applications will allow users to receive personalized advice, perform analysis, and conduct transactions such as bill payment and funds transfers from a single user interface.
Partnerships include FinanCenter.com, XpenseWise.com, CheckFree, edocs Inc., Paytrust, National Interbank, Ignite Sales, IMWorth, FinPortfolio, Jexp Inc., MoneyTools, Sage Financial, StatiaFX and WealthMetrics.com.
“Now we’re adding value to the information and allowing you to act on it.”
It will export financial data to financial calculator applications or analysis applications for the user, such as that offered by FinanCenter.
Before, the onus was on the user to input the data for the application to calculate or analyze.
Currently, the upgrade only is available for wireline Internet users, but Flanigan said the plan is to extend it to wireless devices as security increases.
