January 14, 2008

Ad-Based Phone Service?

By Justin J. Junkus

Now that traditional ad supported video is losing ground via DVR fast-forward, wouldn't it be great if the ad-supported model could be migrated to one of cable's new services?

San Jose, CA-based Pudding Media believes its platform does exactly that trick for telephony services, by modifying session initiation protocol (SIP) call setup sequences and using voice recognition technology. Its initial target is free VoIP services over a broadband connection, but the concept has applications for network quality cable IP telephony as well.

Similar to new modes of embedded advertising in video, the key to Pudding Media's product is to make the consumer experience the ad as a value-added service rather than a sales pitch. Ariel Maislos, the CEO of Pudding Media, sees these services as a way for a service provider to gain ad-based revenue from free VoIP services, which will be available to consumers whether or not they are obtained directly from the service provider. He described multiple implementation scenarios.

"Consider a simple voice mail message from a traveler to an acquaintance in a destination city that suggests getting together for dinner. Based upon voice recognition applied to the recorded message, when the callback occurs a "commercial" for an area restaurant could be played back to the caller rather than audible ringing, until the calling party answers. When the called party answers, the caller has just received a fresh suggestion for a place to have dinner."

The system could also be applied to a multimedia call on a PC or video telephone. In this case, voice recognition software would be active during the entire call. When key words are spoken and recognized, they would trigger visual messages on the screen related to the call content. Advertising would be specific to the topic. For example, a conversation about lunch would trigger a restaurant ad, but a discussion of a vacation might bring up hotel or airline ads.

Is this an invasion of privacy? According to Maislos, that depends on how the service is sold. "For free VoIP services over a broadband connection, part of the user agreement would be an acknowledgement that all conversations were being monitored by voice recognition software as part of an ad-sponsored service," he said. "For calls where privacy is required," he continued, "the caller could opt for a fee-based telephony service without monitoring by entering a keystroke sequence before dialing." The system is designed to discard information used to match words in a conversation or message with ad content after the call is completed.

As for the underlying technology, the system relies on modifying the SIP call setup sequence to pass copies of VoIP packets to the voice recognition system. An ad server interfaces with the voice recognition system to insert the appropriate ad content back to the telephony subscriber. Since this requires development of new software specific to the service provider's vendor, Pudding Media is including these services as part of its product package.

The payoff is a new ongoing source of revenue. Ultimately, however, it's up to the service provider to assess whether the rewards from services such as these are worth the risks of changing call processing and security - and of possibly irritating or unnerving customers.

- Justin J. Junkus