The initial target for PCC's Product are users of online chat rooms and dating match services. These consumers share the desire to communicate with new acquaintances, and appreciate being able to remain anonymous and "selectively reachable" unless or until they feel the need to raise the level of intimacy.
Market need
By working longer hours, marrying later in life, and frequently moving to new locations, people have found it more difficult to build local social networks in their communities. At the same time, the Internet has made a virtual community of the entire world itself, so that people from different countries and cultures can now find and enjoy relationships with others who share their interests. Chat room discussions, computerized bulletin board postings, and online personal ads and matching services are all utilized as a method to meet people and build relationships. And yet, to move the relationship to a more personal and intimate level, most people still feel the need to step away from the new technology and move their relationship to an old technology—the telephone. Taking that step, however, currently requires one party to abandon one of the most striking and comfortable features of the Internet—anonymity.
As the consumers' embrace of the Internet and newly developed telecommunications media has grown, so too have their concerns over privacy and confidentiality. The Internet has made accessible powerful databases that contain some of the most private information about individuals. With just a phone number, even a lay person can learn volumes of personal data about somebody, while malicious hackers or stalkers can arm themselves with enough information to become extremely threatening or dangerous.
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