By SERGIO MOSQUEDA
Pageonce bypasses login screens, culls and links personal travel, finance, social networks, utilities, e-mail, and shopping information to the iPhone and Blackberry devices.
James Engel, a Keller Williams Realtor in Beverly Hills, Calif., chose Pageonce for his iPhone "because I can log in and see different Web sites all at one time." The tiny screens on many mobile devices makes checking individual sites time-consuming.
Although Engel, a commercial real estate agent, usually chooses to turn off his iPhone during his free time, Pageonce allows him to track his bank and credit accounts, read his e-mail, and view social networks such as Twitter, MySpace and Facebook.
"If I’m on the plane I can upload a week’s worth of Web sites that I’ve missed or that I don’t check daily, and it comes in handy that way," said Engel.
The application can be used to keep tabs on phone minutes used and travel expenses, though it is not yet integrated with multiple listing services or other real estate Web sites. Engel sometimes uses Pageonce as a calendar tool.
"I don’t use it every day," he said. "It’s more of a reminder service."
Pageonce is free on a trial basis, but since mid-October the company launched a paid subscription service for full features. The business application is $9.99 per year for both iPhone and Blackberry devices.
The data Pageonce sends to the mobile device is read-only — it cannot be modified on the device. Users must go to the individual Web sites linked from Pageonce to modify their accounts. That means users can read an e-mail, but to reply to it they must click on a link that sends them to their e-mail service (and bypasses the login).
"We took (security) very seriously," said Pageonce CEO Guy Goldstein. "User’s data belongs to the users, and only the users can see it — it’s their information. None of the employees are looking at the data." Blackberry and iPhone users can link the device’s serial number to the security options and only that specific phone can access the information.
If the mobile device is lost or stolen, the user can go on the Pageonce Web page and stop all information sent and seen on the device. …CONTINUED
Goldstein first imagined the application after a company he worked for shuttered its doors and e-mail service. He said he forgot the passwords to other Internet sites he had signed up with. Sites have a function to recover a forgotten password, but he had signed up for those through the company’s e-mail system. He could not retrieve his e-mail, which left him with no way to recovery his personal information that had been stored there.
Goldstein said the Pageonce team has the business traveler and the professional in mind when they are brainstorming new features and enhancements. "For those … on the road, this is a perfect solution to check information during the day rather than late at night."
The team also reviews user comments — Goldstein said he has invited people from a variety of industry sectors to assist in improving the application, and he notes that Pageonce is still a work in progress.
If users sign up for too many sites, the application is slow at times, he said.
Goldstein admits there are network speed problems to be worked out, adding, "Very soon we’ll make it faster."
In the meantime, Engel said, "I don’t use it for daily tracking; it’s just too slow for that."
Sergio Mosqueda is a freelance writer in Mississippi.
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