TECH WATCH

Mobile technology
Do More, Carry Less

iPhonebook and iDatebook offer a minimalist solution to mobile contact management.

BY MICHAEL ANTONIAK

You’ve heard about all the advantages of equipping yourself with the latest portable gadgets—but for most real estate professionals, the mobile toolbox is still defined in terms of a cell phone.
On the plus side, that limits the amount of equipment you need to carry to one unobtrusive device, slipped easily into a purse or pocket. But there’s a tradeoff: You’re denied the instant access to the vital contact and calendar records you could carry with you in a PDA or laptop. And contact management is a cornerstone of effective implementation of technology in real estate.

If you use a computer at all in your real estate career, it’s a reasonable assumption you’re running some form of contact management solution. Unless you carry the data with you via a PDA or notebook, those detailed records are simply beyond reach when you're away from your desk. That is, until now.

iPhonebook and iDatebook, new wireless services developed by San Jose, Calif.-based Xpherix Corp. earlier this year, empower select cell phone models to search and retrieve contact and calendar information from the field. For those who balk at the expense or burden of adding another piece of mobile gear, the new wireless services offer a cost-effective solution.

Real estate practitioners “usually need more contact information than can be stored in a cell phone’s limited memory,” notes Nick Walker, Xpherix president and CEO. “iPhonebook gives them access to all their contact records” over a cell phone.

Currently available through wireless providers Verizon Wireless, ALLTEL, U.S. Cellular, and Midwest Wireless, the services are easily implemented and mastered. Users build their records on their primary computer system in Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, or Palm Desktop information manager. (Walker notes some customers are using iPhonebook with other contact management solutions, but at this point, the company supports only users of these three products.)

At the site of their cellular provider, users download the iPhonebook or iDatebook software into their compatible cell phone (click here for a list of compatible models). Using this software, they then upload their contact information to a secure, password-protected server. Once the information is uploaded, the user can launch the service by clicking on an icon on the phone’s LCD display. Since the records are stored on a remote server, there’s no danger of the information getting lost should the phone be damaged or stolen.

The monthly fee is $3.99 per month for iPhonebook and $2.99 for iDatebook.

“[Users] can search for records by first or last name or company,” notes Walker. “As long as you’ve got cell service, you can retrieve all the information in your records, even notes.” With iDatebook activated, users also can retrieve and update schedule information with the same ease.

Walker says Xpherix is now testing a next generation service called REMO, which combines the contact management and calendar features with the capability to send and receive e-mails from the field. Already, Verizon Wireless is encouraging its subscribers to use iPhonebook with its LGG VX6000 camera phone to instantly transmit photos to anyone in a contact database. When you want to get photos of new listings to buyers ASAP, that can be a winning combination.

More important, though, services like iPhonebook and iDatebook offer an economical way to level the field between the techno-savvy and techno-phobic. You can have instant access to your data even if a cell phone is about as deep as you want to go into mobile technology.


Previously by Antoniak:
E-mail Campaigns Offer Marketing Option " />
Internet Presence Considered Critical to Effective Marketing
Speak Up for the Latest Listings
Kicking Your Handheld Into High Gear

Suggest a Topic
Do you have technology you’d like to learn more about or a new user twist that you’d like to share with your peers? Let me know about it by e-mailing antoniak@dtccom.net, and I’ll do my best to give it the coverage it deserves.


Back to top" />