We had a very busy week, but it is my pleasure to let you know that we had a new release which comes with some major improvements, specially the use of pre-recorded voice to improve the quality of the user's experience on the phone. We are limiting Text To Speech (TTS) technology to areas that are absolutely necessary. The human touch in the recorded voice will provide a more comfortable environment for the users.
There's more changes that you can see on the "What's New" page once you log onto your Frucall account, but I'm sure one of the ones that cannot go unnoticed is the Free iPod drawing for Frucall users who let 5 friends know about the service!
Enjoy.
One of the good things about launching a new service is getting to know a number of good businesses and people whom we wouldn't otherwise know about.
Today I had an email exchange with Jerry Whiting, President and CEO of Azalia Software. Azalea Software maintains The Barcode FAQ and publishes a blog about barcodes and auto ID. They also manage to sell barcode software for Windows, the Macintosh, and Linux when they find the time. Azalea Software is happily entrenched in Seattle WA.
What I found out was that Jerry is really passionate about barcodes... If you're wondering what it means, check out his Barcode Arts page!
CNet News has posted an interesting article on adoption of m-commerce based on a report by Ipsos Insight.
One interesting observation in the report is adoption beyond younger generation:
"This older age group is really starting to explore more on their cell phone and getting comfortable. Whether it's text messaging, e-mailing or Internet browsing, our research has found that they are using their cell phones for more than just voice calling," Adam Wright, a senior research manager at Ipsos Insight, told CNET News.com's Candace Lombardi.
Check out the article at Mobile browsing becoming mainstream.
Amazing how the word gets out so fast, and I should say getting the good reviews and words of encouragement makes us proud. Thanks a lot everyone:
Q&A with Nasser Manesh, Frucall CTO - Search Engine Watch Blog
Frucall Q&A: Mobile Shopping Search - Comparison Engines
My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors - Chris Pirillo's Blog
Frucall Beta: In-Store Comparison Shopping By Phone - Next Generation Shopping
Frucall: Comparison Shopping For Mobile Users - Amazon Web Services Blog
Phone-Based Shopping Comparisons - Search Vertically
Frucall - Chris Holland's Blog
Online Comparison Shopping Made Even Easier With Mobile Phones
Online or Offline, Price Comparison Tools Help Consumers Shop Smart
"Helio announced Thursday that it is partnering with Yahoo in a move to offer services ranging from search to instant messaging when it debuts its mobile service in the spring."
Yahoo has been pushing the concept and has made similar agreements with other companies such as Sprint and Cingular to serve the US market.
The word was out as of about a month ago, but it's official now. Paypal mobile was announced at CTIA Trade Show in Las Vegas, and the details of how the service works can be found
here.
It has only been a week since the public launch of the service, and we are already getting great coverage. I see people posting blog entries and comments about Frucall. I will collect some of these soon and will publish links to them here, but this one was very delightful:
Jeff Barr of Amazon Web Services Blog Has written a succinct and yet very accurate description of Frucall Mobile Comparison Shopping Service on the AWS blog. When I saw his post I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had actually taken the Frucall logo and used it in the post. You're awesome Jeff!
On a more formal note, pursuant to the buzz generated by launching Frucall, Wall Street Reporter contacted us and requested an interview with our CEO, Saied Kazemi. The interview is now posted to their web site. You can listen to the interview, which was conducted by Wall Street Reporter Senior Analyst Todd Santorelli, and covered a wide range of topics around Millenigence, Frucall, and the vision and direction of the company.
We try to keep an up-to-date log of the coverage on our In the Press, On the 'Net page. Please visit the page for latest news!
I racn arcoss a very interesting article, Numbers in the Sky, dated October 2000.
It's interesting how m-commerce could not take off during the 1998-2001 period. There were a number of startups that came up with interesting ideas around m-commerce. Big players such as Verizon tried to push the concept. But at the end of the day, the adoption rate was very low and it did not take off. Very similar to what happened to VoIP.
Some things have changed since then, and some have not. People are more comfortable with technology. E-commerce has become a daily part of the life of a lot of people. So m-commerce sounds natural.
At the same time, people are still uncomfortable using a browser on a cell phone, at least here in the US. Far East and Europe are by far ahead of the US, which shows itself in the usage of SMS and MMS services too.
That is why we think voice is the most reliable path to beging m-commerce. SMS comes next and people will be ok with it pretty soon. WAP? I don't know. It happens that from a technology standpoint, we already support WAP through our DashPhone product line, but when it comes to the average consumer using a cell phone, it's still a foreign concept, and will be so for quite some time.
However, it's very interesting that in the article I mentioned, mobile comparison shopping is named is one of the initial movers of m-commerce. Right on!
For those of you who are interested, or would like to share the press release with others, here's a link to the press release announcing Frucall:
http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/060403/96627.html
Ok... Frucall is finally launched! Before everything I have to thank different groups of people involved in the process. Launching a commercial grade service is never easy, I always compare that to making a movie. So many people are involved, and a lot of them are never seen or noticed. The best outcome is that everything works flawlessly, in which case almost nobody is noticed!
So anyhow, my special thanks to the engineering gang, both the California team and the Toronto team. The timing was perfect, and compared to a number of things I have been involved with in the past, the number of QA issues we ran across was nominal.
Next comes the creative team, with the artwork, web site design, pictures, etc. It's really not easy to build a web site that is both simple and good looking. We believe that we've achieved that.
People involved in public relations and marketing did a great job of providing content for the site, press release, Millenigence web site, etc.
And last but not least, special thanks to all the users who jumped on each version of the site while we were changing things and provided us with invaluable feedback and suggestions. I think everybody is proud of the final result.
We already have a list of exciting enhancements and features to add to the service, and we look forward to a few months of very dynamic, productive, and exciting work to make Frucall something that everybody will save to their cell phone contact list!