Tellme Networks was an American company that specialized in telephone-based applications and services. In 2006, Tellme’s phone network processed over 2 billion calls. Tellme established an information number that provided announcements, weather predictions, news headlines, company searches, stock market quotes, and similar conveniences. Operated by voice prompts and speech-recognition software, it was set up in 2000 as a “loss-leader service” to demonstrate the Tellme functionality to U.S. consumers.
The History of Tellme Networks.
In April of 1999, the Tellme founding team which consisted of Mike McCue, Angus Davis, Rod Brathwaite, Jim Fanning, Kyle Sims, Brad Porter, Michael Plitkins, Hadi Partovi, John Giannandrea, Andrew Volkmann, Anthony Accardi, Patrick McCormick, Danny Howard, Vicki Penrose, and Emil Michael converged in Mountain View, California and announced a service that delivered content to telephones. A concept called voice portals. Early competitors included TelSurf, BeVocal, Hey Anita, and Quack.com. Quack.com was founded in 1999 and would later be acquired in September 2000 by America Online for its competing service, AOLbyPhone. At least ten additional competitors appeared in 2000 in various attempts to mimic the funding success of Tellme. Tellme was also featured in the 2001 documentary Wild at Start and was referenced in a 2000 Malcolm Gladwell article in The New Yorker about recruiting.
How it Works & its Services.
Tellme is based on open standards such as VoiceXML, CCXML, and VoIP. The Tellme Voice Portal which includes directory assistance used to be accessed by calling the number (800) 555-TELL or 8355. Essentially, Tellme was an informational hotline that provided applications that the public now uses daily. Services included announcements, weather forecasts, news headlines, sports summaries, business searches, stock quotations, driving directions, and similar amenities. In 2008 the company introduced a feature, especially for Christmas Eve where callers can hear recorded messages from Santa Claus. If called on Christmas Eve, Santa will say what state he is traveling over, and exactly what he is doing. In 2009 a service was added that allowed callers to receive messages from Santa a week prior which explained what he is doing to prepare for Christmas. As a way to gain more callers, Tellme offered a free long-distance call feature called Phone Booth. Callers would call Tellme and be given 2 free minutes of long-distance call time to their desired phone number. That service was later discontinued while other services persisted. After Microsoft acquired Tellme, new features were announced that allowed users to search for information via the phone with text-activated local business search by business name or category. At the time, their service answered nearly 80 percent of the automated 411 calls in the United States and handled two billion calls a year.
My Experience Using Tellme.
Keep in mind that this was a common service for end-users, and the iPhone was yet to be seen until 2007. Siri would be released 3 years after. The first time I recall using Tellme was when I was 7 at a camp for the blind in Gooding, ID. We were sitting around an office telephone taking turns using its applications. I remember the introduction listed all of the names of the founders of Tellme Networks. What I remember using was the driving directions service. I asked for directions to a town I grew up in east Idaho. After you were given a direction (e.g. Turn onto I-15.) you would say “Next” and you would be given the next direction. Considering it’s been over a decade since I’ve used Tellme, I decided to call the number to see if services were still available. Unfortunately, the number is no longer reachable. I do remember having the number in my contacts when I had my first phone. After taking some time researching if there were demonstrations online, I wasn’t able to find any, even from a decade ago. However, I was able to find this video which shows new features that I believe Microsoft introduced back in 2008. In my opinion, Tellme will forever be a piece of nostalgia that very few may remember using today.
