Media Centre

Call Genie Delivers Mobile Local Search & Advertising Product Suite

April 22, 2008

CG Interact, CG Open, and CG Advantage combine to provide a great mobile local search experience for consumers and generate unique mobile local search inventory for advertisers.

 

Call Genie Inc. (TSX:GNE) today announced the general availability of its Mobile Local Search Product Suite, a comprehensive advertising solution designed to manage the unique characteristics of mobile local search inventory and enable customers to connect ‘ready to transact’ consumers directly with local businesses.

Mobile local search services are quickly becoming a destination of choice for consumers on the go. Calls to directory assistance providers from mobile phones are on the rise and consumers have become accustomed to rich media content such as maps, directions, reviews, recommendations and other relevant information in response to search requests from home computers. The CG Mobile Local Search Product Suite is specifically designed to deliver a positive user experience to mobile consumers and, in turn, generates valuable targeted local advertising space.

Greg Sterling, Program Director, Local Mobile Search said, "The promise of location-based services has existed for years. However, the recent growth in mobile Internet usage is starting to show the way toward the realization of that goal and provide a real opportunity for marketers. Indeed, there's pent-up consumer demand for relevant local content on mobile devices and the market is starting to recognize it."

The Call Genie Mobile Local Search Product Suite is designed to satisfy this consumer demand and enable our customers to deliver a positive user experience in order to establish a strong position in this emerging competitive market. As a result, Call Genie helps our customers manage and capitalize on this unique, previously unavailable, mobile local search ad inventory.

Matt Booth, Senior Vice President and Program Director, Interactive Local Media noted, “The mobile and search markets are linked, and we believe market share in one could affect the other. Therefore, search portals will push hard into the mobile space in an attempt to retain their pre-eminent search positions.” Booth also comments that, “Advertisers in the US are the most aggressive in terms of messaging to potential US consumers. Given the relatively high spend levels, we believe advertisers will continue to look into innovative solutions, including mobile, that demonstrate a clear return on investment on ad spend.”

Call Genie has grown from a single product (voice activated category search) several years ago to a full suite of products that is currently being used in the United States, Canada and Europe.  We now deliver a full range of local and mobile search and advertising business models, from traditional directory assistance to pay-per-call and free, ad sponsored services," said Michael Durance, CEO of Call Genie.  “This solution is the result of the investments we have made in our internal research and development effort as well as the acquisitions of BTSLogic and Phonespots.”

Available as a white-label service offering, service providers can customize the CG Mobile Local Search Product Suite to fit their specific brands and customer needs.

Call Genie Mobile Local Search Product Details

The CG Product Suite includes three product lines: CG Interact, CG Open and CG ADvantage.  These product lines provide directory assistance providers, Yellow Pages publishers, wireless carriers and search engine companies, the applications and technology platforms required to deliver innovative mobile local search services that lead trends rather than respond late in today’s shorter consumer adoption cycles. 

CG Interact

CG Interact Voice - The Interact Voice product delivers a robust voice-enabled search solution. Supporting both business category and business name search, this product leverages Call Genies unique “location aware” search, allowing callers to search in a local neighborhood, close to an intersection or near a landmark. Call flow can be customized and the product supports fully automated and “integrated operator assistance'” modes. CG Interact Voice can be integrated with existing IVR systems and can be enhanced with other Call Genie products and services.

CG Interact SMS Text Search - Influenced by the popularity and convenience of mobile text messaging, the Call Genie Interact Mobile SMS Search product delivers customers a turnkey solution to promote a new, local search solution for mobile consumers. The product supports customer’s unique SMS short code and offers mobile consumers a convenient, simple to use, SMS text-based “what, where” search ap­plication.

CG Interact - Send-to-Mobile (S2M) - The Call Genie Interact Mobile S2M product enables any web site to easily extend its content to mobile consumers. Web sites simply add a S2M button or link to their web page. When a customer clicks the link, selected information is delivered to S2M through an XML API. Leveraging the Call Genie S2M technology and phone capabilities database, the information is rendered specifically for the phone type to which the information is being sent.

CG Interact Agent - The Call Genie OpenAgent product delivers a state-of-the-art agent workstation with a flexible interface to a broad range of information leveraging the Call Genie Open Integration Framework (OIF). This includes traditional White Pages and Yellow Pages directory information, place database and a range of extended information services such as movies, traffic and sports results, which can be easily extended to other sources of information through our open APIs.

CG Open

CG OpenMobile - The Call Genie OpenMobile product enables customers to “go mobile”. OpenMobile offers a turnkey solution that manages the challenges associated with delivering multimedia content to mobile handsets. The OpenMobile product leverages the Call Genie context engine to deliver relevant content based on search results and handset capabilities

CG OpenLocation - The Call Genie OpenLocation database, used in conjunction with the CG Interact products, delivers a positive user experience for local search. For example, consumers can search for a pharmacy near 1st and Main Street, or a Tapas restaurant near “Haight-Ashbury”, just as you would naturally ask a person familiar with the area. The CG OpenLocation database is bundled with CG Interact Voice products, but is also offered separately for integration with existing customer solutions.

CG OpenAgent Search - The Call Genie OpenAgent Search engine is a high performance directory search engine, optimized for use with the CG Interact Agent product and in conjunction with the CG OpenLocation data­base. CG OpenAgent Search is also offered separately for integration with existing Agent worksta­tion solutions.

CG ADvantage

The Call Genie ADvantage server is a robust, Internet-class ad server, specifically enhanced to manage the unique characteristics of mobile local search ad inventories and local ad campaigns. Unlike standard Internet ad servers, the Call Genie ADvantage server supports a range of ad types including audio, SMS text, mobile banners, sponsored mobile local search results, priority placement and en­hanced listings as well as the sophisticated taxonomy management needed to consolidate ad inventory and provide location targeting. The Call Genie ADvantage server uses unique “time and place of need” targeting abilities provided by phone-based services, combined with user action tracking to offer advertisers visibility into performance of their advertising campaigns.

About Call Genie Inc.

Call Genie is a leading provider of local mobile search and advertising solutions to Yellow Pages publishers, directory assistance providers, and wireless carriers. Call Genie won the Yellow Page Association Industry Excellence Award for Marketing Innovation in North America, the Whitaker Innovation Award in Europe, and the 118 Tracker Award for Technology Innovation in the UK. Call Genie has over 30 customers in 11 countries.  For more information, visit www.callgenie.com.

 

For More Information

Call Genie Inc.

Jolie Mizerski, Media Relations

Tel: +1 416 619 3910

Email: jolie.mizerski@callgenie.com

or

Alex Blodgett, Investor Relations
Tel: +1 403 410-6875
Email: alex.blodgett@callgenie.com

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