Talking Dirty the AT&T Way

Aug 24 1998

Infoseek launched its "Communications Center" on Monday, featuring a new-and-improved slate of interactive telephone services from ATT , the two companies announced. First announced in late June, the services include one-touch dialing of phone numbers in AT&T's directory and operator-free conference calling.

And then there's Chat 'N Talk.

Chat 'N Talk, already in use on Web portals Excite and Lycos , is essentially a conferencing system that lets Web surfers with two telephone lines connect in anonymous telephone conversations with chat room friends.

It works like this:

First, a user registers for the service by entering a telephone and credit card number. Aside from a zip code no more information is needed - no household income, address or line of work. Frankly, AT&T doesn't even really want to know your name.

On registering, the new member is given a URL and a password. The URL and password can be copied into an e-mail sent to a chat room acquaintance. The acquaintance goes to the listed URL, types in the password and a phone number, and both phone lines are connected, anonymously. The phone call is charged to the member's credit card at a rate of 25 cents per minute.

So who's the market?

"Chatters," said an AT&T spokesperson, "You know, chatters who want to talk."

While it's possible to imagine a number of uses for Chat 'N Talk - phone calls between onetime Mafia colleagues in the witness protection program, for instance - the main use seems obvious. With phone sex services generally starting at near a dollar per minute and going sharply up from there, 25 cents per minute is a bargain.

It's too early to know how popular the service will be, but based on the track record of other services geared toward sexually oriented communication, it could be a blockbuster. AT&T is certainly not the only big company to take the low road online. America Online's own anonymous - and often sexually explicit - chat rooms are widely considered one of service's prize assets.

Whether Chat 'N Talk will be advertised widely off the Net is another question. Count on AT&T, which has no television campaign even for its WorldNet ISP, to rely largely on Net publicity and word of mouth. Somehow "Reach Out and Touch Yourself" doesn't sound like a slogan that will play in Peoria.