What's A Voice Portal?If you're using the Web to get access to all the information you need every day, why not try a new approach?
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First we had Web sites. Then suddenly, everyone was callingtheir site a portal to conjure up the notion that you could startoff each day on the Web on their site and ostensibly get or get toany information you need.
Now there are voice-driven portals, which use a novel technologythat is faster and more reliable than the Internet-thetelephone.
At TellMe (800-555-TELL), you can call and ask for informationon local restaurants, movies, driving instructions, travel, stockquotes, news, traffic, and weather, as well as entertainment topicssuch as horoscopes.
At BeVocal.com (800-4-BVOCAL), you can get flight information,use the business finder, or access traffic, weather, stock quotes,news, and the like.
Yahoo! by Phone (800-MY-YAHOO) takes Voice Portals a stepfurther. Not only do you receive text-to-speech voice delivery ofyour basic online content like the rest, you can also gettext-to-speech delivery of your Yahoo! e-mail. Now that's sureconvenient when you can't get to the Internet but need toaccess your e-mail.
As the growing need to access data immediately reaches newheights, voice portals are useful, particularly when you travel.Give them a call.
Aliza Sherman is an entrepreneur and author ofCybergrrl:A Woman's Guide to the World Wide Web(Ballantine Books).She is currently working on her next book and new company.
