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“AskKinjo” can help you, but needs work (#KINJO)
Most people have not heard of Toronto-based “AskKinjo” yet – it’s a new start-up with big goals of becoming a major player in the location-based services (LBS) market.
AskKinjo could be for those who don’t have a Smartphone, iPhone, access to Google Maps, GPS or the web on their phone. This free service works by dialing #KINJO (#54656) from your mobile and brings you relevant information based on your location and request. Current categories are traffic updates, gas prices, parking info, ATM locations and nearby coffee shops.
We tried this out and found the voice recognition system needs to be upgraded a bit as there was no noise around us and had to repeat our selection a few times. Frustrating as it’s like speaking with Emily the Bell operator.
This is a free service for us customers, but how AskKinjo makes money is by verbal mobile advertising while we wait for them to retrieve our selections. You do have an option to register yourself for faster service, but this would entail giving all your personal info (which they would probably use for advertising to you). They also make it easy for Rogers & Fido customers by asking them to dial and remember 647-476-6468 instead of #KINJO.
Check them out for yourself here, or, check back here in a couple months and we’ll have updates.
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Thanks John for your feedback.
Indeed automated speech recognition (ASR) is still an evolving technology. The nightmare scenario for ASR on a mobile phone is in speaker mode. The moment #KINJO delivers its welcome message, it gets in listening mode to receive the verbal command from the user. In speaker mode, the system hears itself, doesn’t understand the command and takes time to process it while in the meantime the user first gently and then forcefully from frustration, keeps instructing the system. It then all collapses. If ever you got frustrated that way, it is understandable but simply don’t do it. It seems a reasonable limitation.
Background noise is also an impediment to ASR but the new bluetooth headsets are quite good at filtering some noise out.
You should try again and let us know. Nevertheless, AskKinjo will keep upgrading its ASR with ever better software.
As for the profile, it is true that part of the requested information is to deliver targeted advertising to the user. Since advertising is needed to support the #KINJO free service, it is better to deliver an ad most relevant to the users based on their profile. The users thus get a free service and an ad to which they can relate.
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