Three Decades of Innovation in Voice Technology and Telecommunications (Talkingweb)

Bringing the worlds of voice and data communication together

But what exactly was Talkingweb? And why can we speak, without exaggeration, of a genuine milestone in the development of voice portals? As early as 1999, all kinds of web content could already be made available for voice navigation as ordinary HTML 4.0/CSS pages, without much extra effort. The voice browser developed specifically for Talking Web, however, could scan the text on these pages and read the information it captured aloud over the phone using speech synthesis (text-to-speech).

CreaLog CEO Wolfgang Rebert got involved in the project because his company had just specialized in communication between humans and machines - even without a screen or keyboard, for example in contact center solutions. Rebert said in a 1999 interview: "Compared with ordinary text-to-speech applications, Talking Web presented additional challenges. Unlike the limited vocabulary of a call center solution, the computer here has to search a database of around 100,000 entries in a fraction of a second to determine the correct pronunciation of a word."

Reaching the information you want by voice control

The result of this intensive development work was, quite literally, something to hear: callers to the Cyberlab headquarters in Hanover were greeted by a pleasant, synthetic voice. Callers could choose between various information services - such as the latest news on politics, finance, weather, culture or sport. They got the information they wanted not by pressing a number key on the phone, but simply by voice command. There was even an option to skip a news item or have it read out again.

mytalkingweb offers a tailored service

But that wasn't all: Talkingweb subscribers could even personalize their program lineup on the 'mytalkingweb' website. Here, they set their local preferences for the weather report and their preferred news categories, and stored the login details for the e-mail inbox they wanted read out to them. That way, they could have their e-mails read aloud over the phone - and reply to senders directly by voice message.

Decades before smart speakers from Amazon, Google and others, Talkingweb was, with CreaLog know-how, way ahead of its time back in 1999. Today, flexible, human-centered process automation through Conversational AI, instead of pressing keys, is the hallmark of successful CreaLog solutions in industries such as financial services, insurance, energy supply and telecommunications - in more than 50 languages across Europe and Africa!