Mobile data gets personal

Personalization and localization may be the ingredients for whetting consumers' appetites for the wireless Internet. Although carriers have attracted big names in portals to further the reach of their wireless Internet initiatives, they are increasingly turning to lesser-known portals that allow carriers to maintain their name and offer consumers a more personal experience when navigating Internet information wirelessly.

Verizon Wireless, which will launch its wireless portal this summer, is working with InfoSpace to accomplish this. AirTouch Cellular and GTE - the wireless assets from GTE will become part of Verizon Wireless once its merger with Bell Atlantic is completed - have had success with InfoSpace in the past.

Although InfoSpace often is regarded as a wireless portal, those who work there believe the company provides something a bit different. "It is not a portal but an integrated approach to how people communicate," said Joni Hanson, vice president of investor relations and corporate communications for InfoSpace. "The value proposition is that we build it, host it and get paid only when the carriers do."

Carriers have three options when it comes to making the wireless Internet a success, Hanson said. They can try to do everything themselves, team with branded Internet portals or work with InfoSpace, she said. Her view is biased, but it stems from the company's belief that the carrier should own the customer rather than be the middleman between its customers and the Internet portals. InfoSpace is working to help carriers achieve this.

"There are not a lot of carriers doing this on their own, and if they want to rush to market, then they need a solution," Hanson said.

Verizon Wireless is up to the challenge and realizes it may need some assistance. "There is no burning desire to do everything in-house," said Marc Lefar, vice president of wireless Internet, e-commerce and data services with Verizon Wireless.

The carrier not only wants to offer its customers a unique portal experience, but Verizon Wireless is adamant about providing customers with integrated content. In other words, the company wants customers to navigate the wireless Web seamlessly and easily.

"We view two critical elements to the wireless Internet - personalization and integrated content - that provide ease of use," Lefar said.

While carriers still might offer stand-alone content such as location-based information or shopping opportunities, a company such as InfoSpace can help integrate content across the wireless platform, Lefar said.

Offering customers personalization of integrated content no doubt will inspire the adoption of wireless Web services. However, carriers can further benefit by paying close attention to the correlation between wireless phone and Internet usage, according to a report by The Strategis Group.

When the firm looked at what services wireless users that regularly use the Internet rely on, it determined e-mail to be No. 1 (see figure). Although the wireless Internet has the potential to deliver a ton of killer apps, wireless e-mail has been pegged as the one to watch today.

The firm also discovered that the adoption rate of wireless portal products will be driven in part by work-only users. It came to this conclusion when looking at the fact that the number of Internet users in the work place has grown 56% since mid-1998, from 39 million to 61 million.

Wherever the demand is coming from, carriers have been jumping on the wireless Internet trend. Canada's Bell Mobility launched its Mobile Browser last year. Although it was one of the first to launch a mobile browser, it still must evaluate ways to drive its wireless Internet strategy forward. It currently has relationships with more than 30 portals and other niche application providers. Although Bell Mobility has formed relationships with well-known portals such as Yahoo! Canada, the carrier continues to seek ways to attract more customers to the wireless Internet.

"We looked at our customer base and realized a lot of our customers were already established at portals such as Yahoo! Canada, Canada.com and [Sympatico-Lycos]," said Shaun Randall, product manager for wireless Internet at Bell Mobility.

A relationship with Canadian ISP Sympatico-Lycos, which serves one-third of the country's population, likely would attract a large number of customers to Bell Mobility, but the carrier realized this would not be enough.

"We want to best serve our customers, and while it is an advantage to work with Sympatico, we also need to address those that are not [Sympatico-Lycos customers]," Randall said. "This was an important strategic decision because realistically, customers have established relationships in terms of e-mail [accounts] and address books. We wanted to allow them to port their information over easily so they could take it on their cell phone," he said.

During Canada's Emerge@Wireless show in Toronto last month, Marc Tellier, president and CEO of Sympatico-Lycos, noted the importance of providing ease-of-use and value-added applications. He expects to see a 200% per month growth rate of wireless portal usage based on consumer demand for a common group of services and personalization and localization services.

Continuing with its wireless Internet initiative, Bell Mobility announced in mid-April that it would test NeoPoint's myAladdin.com wireless location-based information service. The carrier currently is conducting market research but might re-brand the portal once the trial has been completed.

"We believe nobody can do [the wireless Internet] on their own because there is too much content," said Kelly Dixon, director of wireless Internet development at Bell Mobility.

When NeoPoint announced the location-based wireless portal service in November, its intent was to add intelligence to what it considered to be raw data services. The myAladdin.com trial in Canada - NeoPoint's first in North America - will give Bell Mobility an idea of how the wireless portal will use the global positioning system (GPS) and network location technology to give mobile consumers access to location-based information. Trial participants will use NeoPoint's Internet-enabled wireless smart phones and in-vehicle GPS receivers called NeoTrackers. The products work in combination with Bell Mobility's Mobile Browser.

Although carriers most likely will continue to strike relationships with more dominant Internet portals, wireless portals such as myAladdin.com have found a way to attract carriers through private branding.

"We will personalize services and focus on bringing value-added services based on location," said Paul Dolan, director of business development for myAladdin.com. Incumbent Internet portals such as Yahoo! already have thousands of users and can be adopted quickly by a carrier. But myAladdin.com has a distinguishing feature: It comes from a telephony background.

"Our core business [has been] on the smart phone side of things so we understand telephony and wireless," Dolan said. "We are able to bring carriers the things they want quickly."

The company currently is in its registration period and could not disclose other carriers with which it is in discussions.

myAladdin.com is not the only company to offer the advantage of private labeling. OracleMobile is another wireless portal on the scene. Created in February, Oracle intends to build wireless portals for consumers, mobile carriers and corporate enterprises. The company has yet to announce any carrier relationships, but it has plans to provide solutions that are as personalized and localized as other offerings, said a company spokeswoman.