Locating New Apps

Developers are moving WAP into the location-based advertising and entertainment spaces.

Although the wireless Internet is as intriguing to consumers as it is to business customers, most of today's WAP applications are targeted toward corporate clients. However, a new generation of WAP applications may help move WAP into the mass market. Location-based technology and multimedia applications will transition WAP's primarily button-down business apps to functional fun.

Location-Based WAP
Scott Goldman, WAP Forum CEO, expects that WAP developers soon will unveil many location-based services. Providers will be able to use these location-based services both for commerce and for highly targeted advertising campaigns, he said.

WAP developers already are making headway toward location-based advertising. Last month, PhoneOnline.com and Advertising.com joined forces to provide WAP-based advertising solutions for mobile work forces via portable Internet-enabled devices. PhoneOnline.com will market the wireless advertising service to customers and publish the advertising and promotional material on the WAP sites they host. Advertising.com will aggregate advertisers, supply the WML encoding advertisements to sites and deliver targeted messages. PhoneOnline .com plans to expand this service to offer location-based advertising as the technology becomes available.

Also last month, @Road announced a solution for delivering location-based content to wireless Web-enabled devices via its Internet Location Manager. Through the LocationSmart mobile-content-delivery solution -- which integrates positioning technologies such as GPS, wireless communications and the Internet to transport XML-enhanced, location-specific content -- providers can offer mobile Yellow Pages; real-time traffic reports and interactive navigation; news and e-mail; and localized information on nearby hotels, restaurants, gas stations and other hospitality services.

Expect to see location-based technology used in entertainment applications as well. A customer could subscribe to a value-added service that notifies him, based on his location, when he is in the same proximity as his friends, said Gaugarin Oliver, UltiVerse vice president of marketing. As he walks by Starbucks, for example, his phone would tell him that his friends are inside the coffee shop.

Entertainment Apps
A wealth of other entertainment-related WAP applications are emerging, as well. John Yuzdepski, Sprint PCS vice president of Sprintpcs.com, said the company will be accelerating its focus on gaming, entertainment and "fun applications." In a move that gets the company one step closer to the mass market, Sprint PCS and DealTime partnered last month to allow Sprint PCS customers with Internet-ready phones to compare prices across a variety of Web shopping categories, including electronics, flowers, gifts, books, computers and appliances.

Movies immediately come Tomin when people think about entertainment. WAP Forum member GiantBear.com signed an agreement with Hollywood.com to serve as the centralized Web-to-wireless ASP for Hollywood.com's expansion into wireless.

Steven Price, GiantBear.com CEO, explained that GiantBear.com is writing and hosting the applications that allow Sprint PCS and AT&T Wireless customers to look up movie show times, read synopses of the movies, and view box-office results and other related information through their wireless phones.

"In a short period of time, we will roll out the ability for them to buy a ticket via their wireless phone, too," Price said.

Brett Warthen, WAP Forum WAP Developer Expert Group co-chair & Infinite Technologies chairman & CEO, noted that multimedia quickly is gaining ground. Increased multimedia capabilities will help WAP tap into other entertainment applications.

"In a number of countries, carriers already have spent billions of dollars for 3G licenses, and they want to see multimedia applications taking advantage of that bandwidth to help differentiate services in that environment from today's services," he said.

Currently, WAP is about timely access to relevant information, Warthen said. Although business customers pay for services that help them become more productive or that provide them with valuable information, people also place value and spend a large part of their disposable income on entertainment services.

"For the average businessperson, work has become so much of the day that they need a diversion, and there is enormous potential in tapping into the mass market by offering entertainment applications," Warthen said. "However, if people are paying for these services, they expect some value out of them."

Warthen envisions that instead of today's WAP users checking e-mail or stock information through wireless devices while they are killing time at the airport, they will use WAP devices for entertainment.

Warthen said NTT DoCoMo's i-Mode wireless Internet service has been enormously successful in reaching the consumer market because of its ability to entertain. Although WAP and i-Mode are two completely different technologies, i-Mode is a case study in reaching consumers because it was targeted toward the mass market from its onset.

"Through talking to i-Mode users, I learned that a large part of what they use these phones for is entertainment-related," Warthen said. "For instance, one financial analyst's favorite thing about i-Mode has nothing to do with anything work-related. She subscribes to a mailing list, and once a week she gets a message on her phone from a company that reviews i-Mode sites. In her spare time when she needs a diversion, she visits sites to see what new things are available."

Online Gambling
Thomas Parham, SensCom CTO, said entertainment applications soon will evolve to include online gaming, the ability to listen to music or online gambling.

"Betting online is going to be a huge business," he said. For example, people will be able to participate in fantasy sports, where they can bet on games, check scores in real time and pay out or collect money.

However, Parham said the mass market will have to ease into using WAP applications by first using them for things they do daily, he said.

"Sure, you can buy a book via the wireless phone, but that isn't all that cool unless you have an urgent need to do it right then," Parham said. "You could just go to the book store or use your computer."

Instead, consumers will gravitate toward more useful WAP applications. For instance, managing bank accounts via wireless devices has tremendous potential, he said. People can see if checks have cleared, find out if they have been paid or transfer money.

"Knowing what your personal finances look like, anytime and anywhere, is enticing," Parham said. "The ability to inquire and take hold of your own finances at your convenience is going to have a lot of stick with clients."

Harter (betsyharter@aol.com) is a freelance writer based in Athens, GA.

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Mobile Internet Application Preference

• E-Mail Messages — 49%
• Driving Directions — 39%
• Traffic & Driving Updates — 37%
• Weather Information — 34%
• Telephone Directory Search — 31%
• Personal or Business Reminders — 26%
• Local Services Information — 22%
• Personal Banking Services — 14%
• Stock Quotes, Market Information — 12%
• General News Updates — 12%
• Entertainment Directories — 9%
• Theater/Movie Ticket Ordering — 7%
• Latest Sports Scores — 7%
• None of the Above — 15%

Source: Jupiter Communications