Spoken Web: A Parallel Web for the Masses: Industry Keynote

Abstract

In India and several other countries, the number of mobile phone subscribers far exceeds the number of personal computer users, and continues to grow at a much faster pace (it has already crossed the 450 million mark in India). We will present Spoken Web, an attempt to create a new world wide web, accessible over the telephone network, for the masses in these countries. The Spoken Web is based on the concepts of Hyperspeech and Hyperspeech Transfer Protocol that allow creation of ”VoiceSites” and traversal of ”VoiceLinks”. We describe a simple voice-driven application, which allows people, without any information technology background, to create, host, and access such VoiceSites, and traverse VoiceLinks, using a voice interface over the telephone. We present our experience from pilots conducted in villages in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. These pilots demonstrate the ease with which a semi-literate and non-IT savvy population can create VoiceSites with locally relevant content, including schedule of education/training classes, agicultural information, and professional services, and their strong interest in accessing this information over the telephone network. We describe several outstanding challenges and opportunities in creating and using a Spoken Web for facilitating exchange of information and conducting business transactions.