Tellme.com : Tell Me What You Think by electronica

TellMe about it.

Tellme.com is a companion site to Microsoft’s Tell, a Voice XML platform for mobile phones in the United States and Canada. It is basically an advertisement and promotional tool used by Microsoft for its Tellme service, which allows voice query for stocks, sports, news, weather, and horoscopes. The main purpose of the site is to inform different users of Tellme and its benefits. The website also allows visitors to download the application for free.

Tellme.com can be considered an e-commerce website. Although the website does not engage in direct e-commerce activity, it indirectly relates to e-commerce by fostering an environment of advertising and marketing.

Nice to know.

Tell me is a voice recognition application that provides mobile users traffic information, maps,

business establishments, movie schedules and weather information.

By using keywords such as movies or bank,

TellMe can get you the information

you are looking for.

TellMe who the visitors are.

As an informative and advertising site, TellMe.com is open to different individuals around the world whether or not their mobile phones support the TellMe platform. However, TellMe.com particularly targets potential customers from the United States and Canada who wish to learn more about their TellMe service.

Tellme.com users come from these countries

United States 47.1%

India 25.2%

United Kingdom 4.7%

Canada 3.4%

Other countries 20.0%

Tellme.com traffic rank in other countries:

India 81,828

United States 134,528

Canada 171,694

United Kingdom 241,695

courtesty of www.alexa.com

It must be noted that while the United States comprise almost half of Tell.com’s visitors, majority of Tellme.com’s visitors come from markets that they do not cater to. It then raises the question, “Is TellMe.com really an effective tool in marketing their TellMe service?”

Furthermore, traffic ranking shows that the said website only ranks as the 134,528^th and the 171,694^th most visited website in the United States and Canada respectively as compared to India’s 81,828^th. With other countries such as India comprising a substantial percentage of Tellme.com’s visitors, perhaps a better question to ask would be, “Is Microsoft’s TellMe service ready to be launched in markets other than their traditional markets?

TellMe more.

According to the data featured below, there has been a substantial decrease in the number of unique page visitors from September 2008 to January 2009. Perhaps this can be attributed to the global economic downturn which has tremendously hit the United States hard.

While it can be pointed out that the number of unique visitors on January 2008 and on January 2009 is quite similar, and hence could mean a traditional period of inactivity, it should be noted that any site that has existed for at least a year should generate higher visits from unique visitors.

In a more micro-level analysis, there are usually more unique visitors from February to May. Perhaps this can be attributed to the fact that this period corresponds to the spring break of the United States. Knowing this information, Tellme.com could perhaps make seasonal modifications to its website to make it more appealing during vacation periods such as the one mentioned above.

TellMe how it works.

In general, Tellme.com is easy to use. Unlike function heavy applications such as facebook, tellme.com is like a prehistoric website with a modern twist. It is prehistoric in the se nse that it does not contain a lot of difficult-to-understand functions. As an informative site, it basically contains texts and illustrations. However, the website deviates from its prehistoric characteristic by employing modern twists such as mouse-over functions and employing a clean and sophisticated look. This distinguishes itself as a website apt for the 21^st century.

In lay man’s terms, tellme.com works by just clicking (on the different links, of course).

TellMe how much it’s worth.

While there seems to be no single estimate of tellme.com’s market value, different websites have poorly ranked tellme.com giving it very low market values. This can be attributed to the fact that this website is not a social networking site and hence caters to a distinct set of customers. As mentioned above, the site particularly caters to mobile phone users in the United States and Canada. Furthermore, not everyone can relate to tellme.com’s offerings since Microsoft’s TellMe service only functions in selected phones such as Blueberry phones.

Yourwebsitevalue.com estimate $3,393

Websiteoutlook.com estimate $11,716.5

Cubestat.com estimate $7,601

For a service that caters to the entire United States and Canada, it’s hard to make sense of the estimated market values mentioned above. Perhaps, Tellme must rethink its marketing strategy.

TellMe what’s nice.

Tellme.com’s homepage is very pleasing to the eye. It is clutter-free and rather engaging. By clicking on the translucent circular buttons, one can catch a glimpse of some of the services that Tellme can do for you. Afterwards, visitors can click on one of the orange buttons labeled “Tellme for You” and “Tellme for Businesses” to get an introduction on the uses of Tellme.

Furthermore, by clicking on the circular buttons on the homepage, one can glimpse a preview of Tellme's service. Accompanied by a recorded human voice, the interactive experience makes one want to dig more into Tellme.com.

TellMe what’s not nice.

On the homepage, there are also a few other links to click on. However, the navigation bar, which is found on the lower portion of the homepage, isn’t as noticeable. The font colour is dull and the size is too small. The links are very easy to miss out, leaving visitors confused with what to do and where to go next.

The other pages are still not so cluttered, but the feeling of excitement a visitor feels on the homepage fades away just as quickly as it was aroused. The other pages are too text-heavy that it gets boring navigating and reading through the contents of the website.

What’s more, the different pages are also sectioned into different parts, with links connecting subsections to main sections. Just as it is in the site’s navigation bar, the links are inconspicuous. Tellme.com has too many links on different pages. It needs a navigation menu with dropdown boxes so that the website would be easier to explore.

TellMe the real deal.

Although tellme.com is aesthetically pleasing to the eyes: organized, simple and clean, it still has some issues it must resolve: absence of a unified navigation menu, text-heaviness and external issues.

The experience from this site is not at par with the service it advertises. One is most likely to forget about tellme.com