By Len Strazewski
Tune in channels of information designed just for you on your computer the way you do on your television set--everything from sports scores to policy and application changes. Direct personalized news and product information to your customers online, just the way you would with newsletters and direct mail--only faster and more efficiently.
That's the promise of "push" technology, the hottest new development in Internet and intranet-based services. Combining database, electronic mail, and hypertext software applications, this new technology allows high-tech businesses to create smart desktops that can send and receive packages of personalized information from a wide range of Internet services and let users know when hot news is breaking.
Unlike Internet browser technology in common use right now, push applications eliminate the need to search for information that meets users' personal interests. For consumers, the technology takes the fuss out of using the Internet. For business users, pushing gives marketers a new way of delivering their message to their customers' attention.
Still an embryonic technique among Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and World Wide Web site designers, push services are set to explode over the next three years.
According to a study conducted by the Boston-based Yankee Group, investment in push applications will grow from about $10 million in 1997 to $5.7 billion by 2000.
Insurance agents generally lag behind new technological developments like this, notes Bill Coates, vice president of new business development for iiX, Inc., in College Station, Texas.
"But this time, agents are more likely to be among the first users of push technology. The technology is perfect for many agency needs--receiving timely updates from insurers and other vendors, and communicating information to customers."
Logical extention of agents' Internet use
iiX develops computer network applications and Web sites for agents and has already linked more than 30,000 agents and insurance service firms into the Internet through an association with the Independent Insurance Agents of America, Inc. (IIAA). The company markets a comprehensive Internet service package that includes e-mail, Web browser, a Web site and links to other industry sites.
"Agents have really taken to the Internet in a big way," Coates says. "For the first time, I think we really have some early adopters of new technology in our industry. And as push technology becomes readily available, agents who are on the Internet now will naturally adopt it as the next step."
The push concept is simpler than it sounds, Coates adds. In the early days of the Internet, before the development of the graphics-based Web, academic Internet users created listserves, automated e-mail lists that allowed individual participants to broadcast messages to all other participants and receive e-mail from other participants in a single summary package.
The listserves were limited to text and were designed around specific topics or special interests. One user could belong to several listserves, receiving an ongoing flow of e-mail from each listserve or a single package each day.
Push technology mimics some of the listserve functions, Coates explains, but adds the multimedia features of the Web and more sophisticated personalization of interests. Some push applications also bring the flow of information to an individual computer desktop in real time, through local area networks (LANs).
Several software developers announced the first generation of push applications in March at computer industry trade shows. The products include Castanet 1.0 from Marimba, Inc., in San Francisco; Headliner 1.0 from Lanacom, Inc., in Toronto; Incisca 1.0 from Wayfarer Communications in Mountain View, California; Intermind Communicator 1.0 from Intermind, Inc., in Seattle and I-Server 1.0 from PointCast in Cupertino, California.
The commercial software varies in style, but generally the packages allow Web designers or computer network managers to create hypertext home pages that replace the usual "desktop" on an individual computer screen. These home pages regularly poll the Internet or a corporate intranet server, announcing interests chosen by the user.
When the home page discovers new information directed to it, it initiates a communication session and lets the information flow into the user's computer, updating the home page with headlines and links to the new information.
Efficient delivery
of pertinent information
Some of the software also allows a user to create separate channels of information, creating an on-screen program guide for fast access. Other programs create banners or windows that regularly pop onto the home page, alerting the user to new information.
Insurers have already started to experiment with push technology. iiX has created a push channel for the CNA Insurance Co.'s agriculture department that will communicate farm and agriculture news as well as underwriting updates to agents. Agents eventually may be able to forward some of the information to their customers with pushes of their own, Coates says.
Insurance News Network, an insurance industry Internet content developer in Farmington, Connecticut, also is working on simple push applications, says President Philip Moeller. The company already creates specialized packages of information for various aspects of the insurance industry for distribution on Web sites, including targeted documents and time-sensitive industry data.
For example, through a partnership with Chicago-based Morningstar, a financial industry data company, INN distributes timely information about variable annuities for use by life insurance agents. INN also is developing online newsletters for insurers and industry that can be pushed directly to a target audience.
Closer ties to customers
So far, the company has done its pushing with automated e-mail, Moeller notes, communicating with a database list of subscribers. "There's a lot of pushing that can be done with e-mail, delivering portions of an information package directly to individuals. The key is to have a good understanding of your customers and their needs," he says.
In that regard, agents may have a leg up on other businesses in getting push technology, says iiX's Coates. Most successful agents already track their customers' business and personal interests in order to make periodic direct marketing efforts. Therefore they know what information is likely to get their attention.
All the agents have to do is start pushing that information toward their customers through the Internet. Hypertext e-mail can already communicate news headlines to recipients and contain an imbedded link to an agent's Web site. The link can take a customer directly from the e-mail text to an agent's Web page where product information is also available, he says.
______
The author
Len Strazewski is a Chicago-based freelance writer specializing in marketing, management and technology topics. He has written on insurance for Rough Notes, Business Insurance, Crain's Chicago Business and Human Resource Executive, among other publications.