As befits a journalist who has spent most of his career in printed publications, Danny Kelly cares passionately about the English he uses. He worries about how the language of Shakespeare and Keats will fare when it is bequeathed to a generation of txt-msg mad, vowel-dropping teenagers. So it is odd that the corporation of which he is publishing director should launch a product with the non-Oxford Dictionary-approved name of Eckoh.
Fortunately, poor use of language is a charge rarely levelled against the 365 Corporation. Since its inception in 1998 the company's websites (Football365, Music365 and many others) have become a by-word for editorial excellence.
Part of their appeal is down to Kelly, a man who revels in the medium. "The electronic transfer of communication is the most important breakthrough since the printing press," he enthuses, citing the immediacy of the internet. "I remember working on Football365 the day Ruud Gullit resigned as manager of Chelsea. He left the club at 11am and within two hours we had about 20 angles on his departure posted on the site. The newspapers can't compete with that speed."
Once the model had been perfected, Kelly's team quickly created a host of sites from dating to trivia."We set out to be as big as we could, by offering sites that appealed to a large number of people." The theory was that the more hits the sites gained, the greater the advertising revenues.
And 365 certainly now has the hits, with more than 2m users in one month alone (December 2000). It is on the way to becoming one of the UK's key content providers. However the trouble with flagships is that when they are attacked they tend to attract the heavy artillery.
Earlier this year, 365 Corporation's share price nose-dived. In March 2000 it had commanded £3.02 per share: the same share now sells for 17p (at time of going to press).
The City had begun to feel nervous about how much advertising it could continue to attract. But Kelly appears confident that "people's desire for quality content" will see the company through.
It is a view shared by Johan Unnerus, a financial analyst for Hoodless, Brennan and Partners who compiled a report on 365 Corporation earlier in the year. While acknowledging that its share price "has taken a serious hit", he points out that this is true for almost all content providers. However, Unnerus believes the mobile world, in particular GPRS mobile phones and 3G devices, could be the key to 365's revival.
Unnerus adds: "The main dilemma is working out how to move their existing customer base into new territories."
He is especially interested in the corporation's new voice portal, Eckoh, scheduled to go live soon. Eckoh is being billed as Europe's first comprehensive voice portal. Voice portals aren't new - Orange has had a system running for years. But 365 hopes Eckoh will signal a big leap forward for the technology.
Customers will use a voice recognition system developed by Philips to navigate their way round and gain access to its range of services. They will pay standard phone rates (between 2p and 8p per minute for a BT landline) for the call.
The service, which can be activated via any phone, will enable users to send and receive emails via their existing accounts. Eckoh can also be synced with Microsoft Outlook via a website.
365's audio text director Nik Philippot has no doubts as to which elements of the service excites him most: "Listening to emails no matter where you are, and then being able to instantly respond to them via your voice, will be hugely popular."
Philpot also predicts that the way in which Eckoh's various strands merge together will tempt 365's customers to use the service. "For example, a person can bet on a horse race using William Hill, and then listen to the race relayed to them via the phone."
Other possible commercial applications include voice banking and cinema and travel information.
For voice portals like Eckoh to be successful, they will have to overcome two obstacles. First, good old British reserve. Are we really going to bark out instructions to a voice portal via a handset? There are also question marks about the effectiveness of voice-activated technology.
If Eckoh earns a reputation as a system prone to the vagaries that have dogged similar products, it could be another Wap debacle.
But if 365 can create something that works, benefits to the user coupled with 365's customer base should mean there are plenty of punters willing to share a word or two with Eckoh.
