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Pager: 'You've Got Email'
by Gene Koprowski, Wired Magazine
2:50pm 12.Mar.97.PST - The market for technologies that link email with pagers just took another twist. A new technology from Scottsdale, Arizona-based VoiceWorld that automatically notifies internet users by pager that they have email waiting is in testing among internet service providers, says the company.
The technology, called NetNotify, consists of a Windows NT application, a Dialogic voice card and a SoundSet recorder (professional audio equipment interfaced with the voice card). The system works with all email systems, including POP and NT network email, and it can be set up anywhere on the ISP email network. It allows an ISP to screen incoming email messages, based on parameters set by users, and then instantly connect to the telephone network and send a message.
End users can specify the number of times per day they wish to be paged, so they are not overwhelmed by a deluge of messages. "You can set up a code in the text of the message or in the subject line that you share with a select few people, so they can let you know it is a message from them," says Brian L. Berman, president of VoiceWorld.
Berman said that NetNotify would cut down on unnecessary modem use generated by users calling in to discover that they have no email waiting. Users calling in to collect verified email will be less likely to encounter modem lines clogged by users who are just checking for new mail, he says.
ISPs can charge customers either a flat fee for the service, or sell email paging services to sponsors that would pick up the cost. Southland Corp., parent of 7-11, is interested in doing just that, Berman says. The product is designed to help smaller ISPs compete with CompuServe and AOL, which are beginning to offer value-added services related to email, he says.
"We're trying to give ISPs, who need a break and who can't survive on US$19.95 per month, a new value-added service offering," says Berman, developer of NetNotify.
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