Theos-Talk Archives (August 1998 Message tl00062)

In these days even spirituality is for sale (?), here is the e-mail by
phone which is free. Not believable. Read further.

Those grey haired oldtimers who detest e-mail and are deeply in love with
old fashioned snailmail may have to change soon if they want to keep up
with what is going on.

mkr
=======================================

               E-Mail by Phone? Cool!

               NewsBytes
               14-AUG-98
               By Bob Woods 

GLENCOE, ILLINOIS, U.S.A., 1998 AUG 14 (Newsbytes) -- No matter how easy
e-mail services claim to be, they always need a computer that's usually
tethered to the phone system. A new service out of the suburbs of Chicago,
though, promises to take the PC out of e-mail retrieval. 

Glencoe, Ill.-based Planetary Motion said its CoolMail product lets people
who 
receive e-mail messages from Post Office Protocol (POP)-3 e-mail boxes listen
to their messages over the phone. CoolMail users receive their own e-mail mail
address, ending in "@planetarymotion.net." A member can respond to the e-mail
by using any of four predefined replies that they create at Planetary Motion's
Web site. Members can also send audio replies to any other CoolMail user,
who can then also reply via a voice message. 

What's more, CoolMail delivers its basic services for free.  

CoolMail's automated attendant "reads" messages to users via state-of- the-art
voice technology that converts text to speech. 

Target markets for the new service include the traveling sales and business
executive, although "we quickly found that almost everyone on the go would
benefit from this service," said Michael O'Roark, Planetary Motion president. 

Planetary Motion makes its money from advertising, similar to radio or TV ads,
and additional services. For the ads, Planetary Motion asks potential users
for
"simple" demographic data during the sign-up procedure, and the company
guarantees it will never divulge specific information about its members. 

Additional fee-based services include long distance access to the network at
$0.10 a minute; responding to non-CoolMail members by voice and having the
CoolMail system transcribe the message, at $0.02 per spoken word, and
sending audio replies to non-CoolMail members, for $0.10 per reply. 

CoolMail debuted in 13 major markets Friday: New York City, Los Angeles,
Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle, Miami,
Denver, Milwaukee, Boston and Toronto. Planetary Motion said it plans to take
its service nationwide by the end of 1998. 

CoolMail's and Planetary Motion's Web site is located at
www.planetarymotion.com . 

Reported By Newsbytes News Network: http://www.newsbytes.com .