Customers get what they want
"What it's going to do for consumers of wireless data is put them in a more positive relationship with their carriers--so the carriers know what data they'd like, want to get more of on the Web," said Andy Fessel, vice president of the Wireless Internet Intelligence division of Telephia. "The whole goal of the service is to understand what's popular and what's not...It's a content usage mechanism, not an advertising delivery mechanism. If you don't have a feedback loop, you don't know what people want."
WBI will provide clients with a secure, hosted data warehouse to house gateway log files and content server log files, the electronic records of how subscribers use their wireless devices and access wireless Internet content. Every day, DigiMine will analyze this data and deliver Web-based reports to business users. The 115-person company has already finalised contracts with several large carriers, but it would not specify which ones.
The reports will allow corporate clients to identify subscriber groups with common demographics and behavior. They will also be able to correlate subscriber segments with content or products and determine their most profitable services and offerings. When DigiMine analyses information about how wireless consumers use a Web site, it can also contrast that information with similar data from people who access the Web from desktop or laptop computers.
It is tough to say exactly how many people access the Web through non-PC means or how fast the number is growing. AT&T Wireless has 15 million wireless customers, but only about 600,000 of them subscribe to and pay an extra fee to receive a limited collection of wireless Web content.
Experts say DigiMine will not be the only player in the wireless data mining niche for long. About a dozen other data mining companies in the United States, in addition to larger players such as IBM and Oracle, may be mulling similar initiatives as more people access the Web through mobile phones, handheld computers or wireless pagers.
"From a telecommunications perspective, the wireless community has been substantially underserved in terms of data mining," said Bob Moran, managing director for Aberdeen Group. "The announcement of DigiMine's intent to serve this market could be viewed as a signal that other data mining suppliers are gearing up to rush in."
