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]

The bill of particulars is damning. Unlike your e-mail inbox, voice mail is impossible to skim: If your phone tells you that you’ve got five new messages, you’ve got no choice but to listen to at least a bit of each one before you can decide what to do with it. In a user-interface decision that I suspect might violate some subclause of the Geneva Conventions, your voice-mail system insists on making you listen to the same instructional prompts between each message.

I haven’t listened to a voicemail in years now, instead using various third party systems for transcription. I’ve even disabled visual voicemail on the iPhone mostly because it still requires a few seconds of listening. I’d much rather get a poorly transcribed voicemail message (“hey john this is kevin ray from you start sorry to bug you again on the phone minutes away”) and get the gist of the conversation awaiting me than wait for a message from a warranty renewal service to pop up like a whack-a-mole. So goodbye, voicemail. Go. Go now.

Voicemail. The company is eliminating voicemail. Personal, I hate voicemail but I cannot see eliminating it from a major company. How much can a voicemail service actually cost? I guess enough to justify the cut.

From the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle,

The Rochester area’s third-largest employer plans to do away with its voicemail system. In a memo sent to employees this week, Kodak indicated it will flip the switch shutting off its employee voicemail on Dec. 31, as the company’s current voicemail contract expires.

Honestly though, if there was a way for me to cut voicemail out of my Verizon bill for some monthly savings, I would do it. I hate voicemail. If you get my voicemail when calling me, hang up and send me a txt message. Sounds like Kodak employees are going to have to employ a similar tactic expect with email instead.

via PDNPulse

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?

It won’t go away entirely, of course, but when was the last time you listened to an entire message before deleting it? I can’t remember. Nor can I recall the last time I left a message and expected a prompt call back.

All of our cellphones broadcast the number we’re dialing from and they all also report the number coming in. If that number is in your phonebook, you can call back. Rad.

If things are important we text. That inbox is also ususally full, but you can at least glance at it and triage what’s important and kill the “OMG did you hear about danny and maria!?” stuff from last weekend.

My voicemail box is full, and I don’t care. I ask, do you?

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

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

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

CallWave Mobile is a free “visual voice-mail” service letting you see, sort, listen and respond to mobile phone messages through your e-mail inbox. There’s just a simple setup process (takes about five minutes) and you’re ready to go.

Then, if you want even faster access just download and install the Widget in Dashboard. There’s a Yahoo! Gadget available, too, for Windows users.

The service works with most US carriers including Cingular, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile.

CallWave Widgets & Gadgets

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