AT&T Buys Ingenio Part 2
There are similar ideas like pay per click ads, only there is no calling involved on those. The consumers making the call are not charged, but the business is. It works so that there is no charge for follow up calls, short calls, hang ups, or unanswered calls. It also does not charge the company if the ad is not currently running. Basically the business doesn’t need a website if they don’t want to have one. Since it is based on phone calls the person just calls for the information rather than being sent to a website that they have clicked on. It seems that Ingenio’s system can accommodate 13.8 million businesses that don’t have e- commerce websites.
With Ingenio they also have Ether and Live Advice. This means a consumer is talking with a live expert selling the services or products when that customer is looking for a real person in real time. AT&T will incorporate Ingenio into the AT&T YellowPages.com site and will allow Ingenio to keep its current management after the purchase is completed. It is thought that AT&T will generate five billion more consumer searches annually for local business information and gain one million in advertisers by purchasing the company. AT&T is also looking at expanding into the mobile devices as well.