iPhone : Yellow Pages & Local Search on the Telephone
Teledex has introduced a Local Search readied telephone for the hotel industry which lets hotel guests search YellowPage local search services by Commoca. The iPhone includes a touchscreen where hotel guests can press the Yellow Pages walking fingers icon to access local restaurants, services, shopping and businesses.
More from Teledex on the iPhone : “iPhone guest room terminals are networked with an iPhone content management server (CMS) that enables you to customize the content your guests see, from information about your hotel, to local attractions, loyalty programs and more. The iPhone CMS also brings in content from the Internet (news, weather, sports, and more) and delivers it to your iPhone screens in a user-friendly layout that keeps guests entertained and informed.”
I really do not see any reason for this style of Internet ready telephone not to make it into broadband households, especially ones where there is still a divide between the computer’s technology uses and the day to day happenings of the home. For instance, I’d rather use my telephone for Yellow Pages search instead of going into the den, turning on the computer, looking for a local search engine, writing down the number, then making the call. And if I find it useful and timesaving, I’m sure the older generation would just love it. With iPhone, this can all be done on the telephone and it even would give room for the pay-per-call market and paid local search ads to expand past the PC.
Greg Sterling of Kelsey Group adds : “Everyone in the local search biz has said something like, “once there’s a laptop in the kitchen then . . .” (fill in the blank with your own traditional media doomsday scenario). Most people don’t know how to set up wireless networks and don’t have laptops in the kitchen. But [now] they’ve got phones.“
