Excite@Home zeroed in on the wireless
market Monday with the launch of Excite Mobile.
The move is an extension of Excite’s (ATHM)
broadband online service strategy, in which the company hopes to fit
wireless Web users with their customized portfolio of news, directions,
weather, personal information and other specified interests for their
convenience.
Excite Mobile features the first customizable mobile home page in the United
States, so users can access their favorite items faster by moving them to
the top of the menu or removing menu items they don’t use. To use Excite
Mobile, individuals access mobile.excite.com using their phone’s browser. Users
then log on to their personalized mobile portal and can bookmark it on their
phone.
The play by the ISP is in conjunction with its goal to acclerate its
prospects in the broadband market, a new initiative it has embarked on that
will allow the company to put distance between itself and other broadband
competitors.
Rob Wilen, senior director and group manager for wireless at Excite@Home,
confirmed the mobile portal was an extension of its efforts to bring
personalized Internet access to consumers.
“Personalization is one of our core competencies and our focus for the
mobile portal, which is critical to the mobile experience given the limited
screen space, limited bandwidth and online rates on mobile Web devices,”
Wilen said.
“The mobile user doesn’t want everything, but they want what’s
important to them. We’re building a mobile experience that is about the
user’s information and interests, so individuals have a personalized
information service at their fingertips.”
Excite Mobile’s location-based services — including yellow pages and white
pages, driving directions, and ATM sites — are provided by AirFlash Inc.,
the first ASP of location content and commerce infrastructure designed
exclusively for the mobile medium.
Excite also hopes the move will help the advertising side of the business.
For some reason, the firm shed a few hundred advertisers from the fourth
quarter to the first quarter. Conversely, its user base was up by 13 million
by the end of March.
