Well, Twitter has become the pinnacle of gossip, grapevine chatter, and frankly, just good ol’ breaking news. Yesterday, Palm made a very subjective statement through the company’s Twitter account in response to the question about Visual Voicemail: “Palm Synergy presents integrated messaging in lots of useful ways, but not that particular way”. From the statement, it does not look like Palm’s Pre will have Visual Voicemail out of the box when it hits stores and our pockets on June 6th. It’s a shame, really, but as pointed out by PreCentral, if that specific application is truly sought after, the development community will have no issues churning out the Visual Voicemail that will entice the masses. So, Palm Pre hopefuls and fanboys, is this news a deal-breaker or will you be able to get passed the notion of not actually seeing the messages before listening to them? [Pre Central via IntoMobile] → Read More
Farhad Manjoo at Slate makes a good point: voicemail, the clunky old process of “pressing 1 to play, 9 to delete,” is dead. Transcription services like Google Voice and Spinvox have made the process of getting messages from your phone in audio format obsolete. And good riddance. → Read More
Kodak must not be doing so well. As part of a cust cutting move, the company is eliminating a vital, but still annoying, business tool. Free Coffee? Not yet. Elevators? Nope? Email? Nope, but getting closer. → Read More
[photopress:10_voicemail.gif,full,center] Right now, I’m using a phone from Helio as my main phone. It’s no secret that we like what those guys are doing — they make full-featured phones for nerds; awesome! — but Helio’s voicemail system only allows for thirty messages. I get many calls a day, pitches to hear about USB baby-rocking cradles, Firewire-bus-powered lighters, or solar-driven microwave ovens, whatever, it’s more than I can hold if I’m having a busy day, so I skip. No, wait, I always skip. When your voicemail box is full, people can’t leave messages. I enjoy this, but I’m not the only one. In fact, our big man Michael Arrington points out in this story that it’s something of a guilty pleasure that people can’t leave him voicemail when his mailbox is full, and that gets me thinking: is voicemail dead? → Read More
Visual voicemail, visual shmoisemail. Alltell wireless just launched Voice2TXT using SpinVox to transcribe users’ voicemail messages to text, ensuring that a simple message (“Pick me up at the airport, mom, it’s snowing!”) will turn into “PUCK ME UP THE ASHPORT [UNINTELLIGABLE] I LIKE BLOW.” Ok, it won’t be that bad, but I’ll be trying the service this week to see how it stands up to mumbling, burps, and the occasional nose blowing that is part of my everyday parlay. The service is available in a variety of pricing options: $4.99 per month for 20 voicemail conversions (each additional is 25 cents); $9.99 per month for 50 conversions (each additional is 20 cents); and $19.99 per month for 100 conversions (each additional is 10 cents). For more information on this innovative new feature, please visit www.alltel.com/voice2txt. Product Page → Read More
I’d like to declare that the Mac vs. PC shtick is old and tired. If you’re releasing a new product, please refrain from spoofing those ads. That is all. YouMail lets you assign customized voicemail greetings based on who’s calling. Finally. Yes. I love it. It’s touted as a service that let’s you "express yourself to friends and family while remaining professional to unknown callers." I made the mistake of assuming that taking out a Home Equity line or credit from Wells Fargo wouldn’t result in them calling two or three times a day trying to sell me other stuff. Now, whenever they call they’ll hear "Hey Wells Fargo, go fly a kite with a hole in it! Ha! Seriously, stop calling and pretending there’s something really important you want to talk to me about. I’m on to your game. Drop dead. Love, Doug!" Cell Phone Voice Mail with Personalized Greetings and Online Retrieval [YouMail] via Mashable → Read More
Hot on the heels of the iPhone’s release comes SimulScribe’s SimulSays Beta, available for Blackberry owners (8800 series, Pearl, and Curve) and Windows Mobile users. SimulSays is a visual voicemail system much like Apple’s visual voicemail system. Instead of deleting or bypassing fifteen messages to get to an older message, your voicemails are laid out visually similar to your e-mail inbox. As a Windows Mobile user, I’ve been looking for a quick and easy way to access my voicemail without having to actually go and check it every time I get a message. This service would be great for a guy like me, except for the fact that I couldn’t find anywhere on SimulSays’ site to download the Windows Mobile version. After a little digging around, I found that going to mobile.simulsays.com from my phone allowed me to download the elusive Windows Mobile version. Installation was short and sweet and as I fired up the program, preparing to ditch my old-school voicemail system once and for all, I was greeted with a screen asking for my e-mail address and PIN number. Heading back to the SimulSays website on my big-boy computer, I proceeded to sign up for an account so’s I could get me a PIN number. Do I want to pay to have my voicemail transcribed? No. What time zone am I in? Central. Who’s my provider? Spri–. No Sprint?! The only choices are Cingular/ATT and T-Mobile. So when SimulSays says that their service is available for Windows Mobile users, take that to mean Windows Mobile users who aren’t on Sprint or Verizon. That’s a shame, too, because judging from all the testimonials and awards on the SimulScribe website, it looks like I’m missing out. If you’re one of the lucky few whose stars align perfectly from a carrier/equipment perspective, give SimulSays a whirl and see what all the fuss is about. SimulSays [Beta] – www.SimulSays.com → Read More
to note that SpinVox is now launching within our borders. He’s been using the service since December and seems to be mighty pleased with it. Whenever you receive a voicemail, SpinVox converts the message to text and sends it to your phone via SMS. That way you can get the message in a timelly, but unobtrusive, fashion. Although it is currently negotiating carriers, you can test the service out through the company’s blog. SpinVox → Read More
